{"podcast":{"title":"The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen","slug":"the-vietnamese-with-kenneth-nguyen-3688574","podcast_index_feed_id":3688574,"rss_url":"https://feeds.redcircle.com/ea765854-819f-48a6-b479-0772f4fbe53b","website_url":"https://redcircle.com/shows/the-vietnamese-with-kenneth-nguyen","image_url":"https://media.redcircle.com/images/2022/5/7/5/304c1d3b-f2cf-45be-9418-65bfbfda266a_e0d6ad_the_vietnamese_-_spotify_cover_art7trx2.jpg","author":"thevietnamesepodcast","episode_count":528,"summary":"Being part of a culture of almost 100 million Vietnamese people living in the world today has its pain and challenges, but it comes with plenty of history, privileges and honors. Join Kenneth Nguyen as he spotlights Vietnamese excellence from around the world. Each episode explores the creative process of individuals shaping the diversity of what it means to be Vietnamese--as a local, born and raised, or as a third culture kid, and even the divisions that separate us politically and culturally. This show can take multiple directions, but what it will do is show Vietnamese from a transpacific lens, in all its facets and complexities.","last_synced_at":"2026-08-02T12:17:32.621954+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-vietnamese-with-kenneth-nguyen-3688574"},"episode":{"title":"507 - Why Vietnamese Folklore Is Secretly A Gory Horror Story? - Kim Tran","slug":"507-why-vietnamese-folklore-is-secretly-a-gory-horror-story-kim-tran","published_at":"2026-06-22T12:30:18+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-vietnamese-with-kenneth-nguyen-3688574/507-why-vietnamese-folklore-is-secretly-a-gory-horror-story-kim-tran","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-vietnamese-with-kenneth-nguyen-3688574","url":"https://thevietnamesepodcast.com","audio_url":"https://audio4.redcircle.com/episodes/11648c4a-630e-4e61-a516-6106a6a5985e/stream.mp3","summary":"In this episode, Ken sits down with Kim Tran, the brilliant bilingual founder of Coral Books (Vietnam) and Major Books (UK). Operating from London, Kim is executing a highly strategic literary mission: while Coral Books translates deep world literature into Vietnamese, Major Books does the opposite—introducing the fierce, complex, and unpolished soul of Vietnamese literature to the English-speaking world. Kim traces her profound internal evolution, moving from a self-described phase of corporate \"Western-worship\" as a teenager in 2000s Hanoi to a sharp awakening at University College London (UCL), where she realized that her own internalized bias contributed to the complete invisibility of Southeast Asian voices in global academia. She and Kenneth address the brutal economic realities of independent publishing in 2026, the toxic illusion of \"perfect\" translation, and why she explicitly refused to water down the gory, visceral horror elements of the June 2026 US release of Treasury of Vietnamese Folktales. Inside this deep dive into literary theory and cultural preservation: The Colonial Trickle-Down: Kenneth opens up about how his father's elite French education forced an inherited contempt for native Vietnamese literature—and how this podcast works to heal that scar. The 1-Percent Margin: A raw, transparent breakdown of the punishing financial mechanics behind independent publishing and why it remains a game of absolute scale. The Magic of Nguyễn Đổng Chi: Unpacking the legendary 1920s folklorist who spent his entire life manually tracking over 200 stories across regions, drawing comparative structural lines to Western tropes like Cinderella long before search engines existed. Censorship vs. Literary Merit: How prominent contemporary writers inside Vietnam navigate in…","meta_description":"In this episode, Ken sits down with Kim Tran, the brilliant bilingual founder of Coral Books (Vietnam) and Major Books (UK). Operating from London, Kim is…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3634,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-vietnamese-with-kenneth-nguyen-3688574/episodes/507-why-vietnamese-folklore-is-secretly-a-gory-horror-story-kim-tran/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-vietnamese-with-kenneth-nguyen-3688574/507-why-vietnamese-folklore-is-secretly-a-gory-horror-story-kim-tran.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}