Noodle shops and beer shacks have been replaced with chic cafes and posh nightclubs. Newly-affluent youth are taking less moonlit walks in the park and spending more time dancing the night away at the city’s swank new clubs.

With the latest western music blaring into once-quiet Ho Chi Minh City neighborhoods, the hottest spots have lines stretching into the streets. The stylish crowds of young

Vietnamese and foreigners eagerly anticipate the drinks, dancing and, most importantly, the music.

At the center of the nightclub phenomenon are the DJs, the de facto hosts and MCs of Saigon’s most swinging parties. In many ways, the emergence of DJ culture does not represent or reflect change in HCMC nightlife – DJ culture is the change.

Agents of change

“Saigon is a young city with 70 percent of its population under 30 years old,” said French DJ Fabien Bourgeoi, who spins at Q Bar below the HCMC Opera House. “They’re very young, crazy and there are a lot of possibilities to develop music.”

He said the DJ music here and in Europe “are two different things. One has existed in Europe for a long time and another is just beginning here.”

And as such, it is providing many new beginnings for young artists.

Local DJ Vu Hoang Anh, who won the “Young Talented Vietnamese DJ” contest in 2004, said he had originally been an introvert. But becoming a DJ helped him break out of the shell: “My job transformed my weakness of being timid into the virtues of being quick and bold.”

Anh said HCMC is the perfect place for aspiring DJs.

“Finding work as a DJ is getting easier here, there are more dance floors and more jobs.”

Anh now works at popular HCMC club New York but has also graced the turntables at Forest Rain and Ozone as well as the now-defunct, but forever notorious, New Century in Hanoi. His wife, DJ My Quyen, won “Young Talented Vietnamese DJ” in 2003.

‘Inspiring’

Olivier Fu, a 26-year-old Parisian DJ born to a Vietnamese father, said the electronic and digital music that DJs play are symbols of change.

“For me, house and techno music represent openness and evolution.”

And as the DJ-dance club culture grows from its infancy in Vietnam, openness and evolution are playing a large role in the changing face of HCMC nightlife.

“Electronic music presents something new and always changing… It is very inspiring to live in a country where I can hear new sounds everyday and see the changes so quick in the city,” said Olivier, whose his electronic band Jetlag are well-known for their stints at popular venues like the Cage in HCMC and the InterContinental Hotel in Hanoi.

Push me, push you

Bourgeoi, whose Vietnamese-French wife “imported” him here 5 years ago, said it was the sense of renewal and newness that DJs found so appealing about HCMC, and about their jobs.

“Creating a new relationship [on the dance floor] is very important, especially with music,” he said. “Music is something personal, and working as a DJ, I need to be interactive.”

He says successful DJing is the constant give and take between the DJ and his audience.

“I need to feel the crowd and then the crowd will have a feeling about me and give me the energy. It is just like a relationship, you push me and then I push you. I should find what you like and my job is to initiate.”

And the trick to the trade?

“When I play music, I push the girls first because when the girls dance, the boys will follow.”

Mixing it up

“Many audiences here like to listen to the music they know already but the young people are more open to new music,” said Hoang Anh. “We DJs are flexible enough to follow the audience’s demands while also introducing something different.”

“The DJs job is not to fill the club with music people know already,” said an English DJ working in HCMC who asked not be named. He said it was important to “try new things,” and said he was seeing many more young Vietnamese DJs doing just that.

“There are more and more kids learning by themselves and trying out their skills at home on their computers. I want to be a part of that process. Every time I go out I am surprised by local DJs’ skills. They’re better than me. They mix perfectly.”

Bourgeoi, who said he one day wanted to hear Vietnamese flutes and monochords in local DJ music, is planning to open a talent agency to provide training and promote DJs in HCMC.

He said he wanted to convey that it is important to “create one’s own feeling with music.”

“At the moment I am a little bit disappointed that in HCMC most DJs play music from other countries and don’t develop their own music based on Vietnamese traditions…

“Vietnamese music and DJ music are divided, but it would be interesting for Vietnamese DJs to create their own identity. I hope one day someone will build that bridge.”

Reported by Thy Nga