Editor’s Note: LeiChandra Truong is a Vietnamese-American contributor who spent two years living in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. She filed this story to Tuoitrenews from Vancouver, Canada, where she now lives.

For many Americans, Vietnam may represent a war history that they try to dismiss from their memory. For Tiana Alexandra (Thi Thanh Nga), a Vietnamese-American actress, filming about Vietnam has been her life’s work as she pushes past the painful threshold of memories, and hopes for healing and reconciliation.

Tiana was born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1961 and left for the US during childhood. After high school, she went to Hollywood and became the first Vietnamese-American actress to join Screen Actors Guild, an American entertainment labor union representing film and television principals and background performers worldwide, according to her official website.

She starred in films including Catch the Heat, The Killer Elite, and such TV series as Pearl, Fly Away Home, and The Three Kings. Additionally, she was the only female to train under Bruce Lee, besides his wife. Transworld Entertainment produced her 60-minute fitness video “Karatix” & “Karatecize with Tiana” cut to her own original music. Tiana wrote and performed songs, and was managed by Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones.

After Vietnam’s Doi Moi reforms in 1986, Tiana’s late husband, Oscar-winning screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, encouraged her to go back and explore her roots. Vietnam – the land, its people, and history – touched Tiana, who was inspired to tell her story of how the American War affected the Vietnamese people in the documentary From Hollywood to Hanoi (1992).

The General and Me, a follow-up to her first documentary, is currently in post-production and set for release in mid-2014. This sequel to From Hollywood to Hanoi reflects on her relationship with her mentor and father figure, General Vo Nguyen Giap – the national hero who defeated the French and the Americans. He passed away on October 4 at the age of 102, causing the population to grieve en masse.

The dialogue and narration in this film is in Vietnamese, English, and French (as General Giap spoke to Tiana in French due to her lack of Vietnamese language fluency then). There will be Vietnamese subtitles for the documentary.

In The General & Me, Tiana shares a unique personal portrait of a friend she’s been visiting and filming for over 20 years: General Vo Nguyen Giap. The warmth and wisdom of the General, one of the greatest military geniuses of our times, enriches her understanding of Vietnam and its 90 million people. It also beckons her to reconcile with a turbulent childhood growing up in 1960s America under the shadow of a stern, anti-communist father.

She traveled to Dien Bien Phu, the site of General Giap’s great victory against the French, which the General declared was “the destiny laying in store for those who wage wars of aggression.” Revisiting the few people she filmed in her first movie still alive, and making new friends along the way, she is reminded of Vietnam’s spirit of renewal and forgiveness.

Tiana will celebrate her 25th anniversary of filming about Vietnam this coming December. She reflects on cherished memories of General Giap and looks back at her legacy of filming. 

How did you feel, hearing of the General’s passing?

I was in a meeting to finish post-production for The General and Me in Poland. A friend of mine in Ho Chi Minh City was the first with the news. He skyped “URGENT: THANH NGA, COME HOME, OUR GENERAL IS DEAD." I hoped it was another bad rumour. I was shocked and booked a ticket to Hanoi immediately. I went straight to the General's house. His son Vo Dien Bien was in the village to make burial plans so his wife Huong, the General’s daughter-in-law, came to the packed gate to allow the guards to let me in. It was not easy, I was not at all surprised to see many devoted fans waiting in line after dark to honor General Giap.

How did your friendship with General Giap start? 

I was in Hanoi in 1987 and went through the Hanoi Press Department. I asked journalists from Australia, Belgium, the UK, and Finland who told me General Giap had long died – in 1987! Those who knew he was still alive said I would never be granted an interview with him.

I am told “he sees no one, he is busy with his new job as the head of science and technology. What are your press credentials again?”

I replied: “I have none. I am South Vietnamese. May meet him? He taught my dad.”

“What is your proposal and what are your questions?” they asked.

“How about I write a poem?”

I took my translator at the Press Department to dinner and said, “Please have my poem translated and give this to your director to give to General Giap.”

Two days later, a man with a distinct voice rang me on the black antique phone at the abandoned freezing cold Metropole Hotel... and the rest is history.

Ms. Ho The Lan, head of the Vietnam Press Department, assured me that it was all quite unprecedented, and that very few other Americans got through to General Giap (American photographer Catherine Karnow was one of the others). I was invited the most. Can you share any special memories you had with General Giap?

When I met the General, he did not mind that I looked so different and wore different clothes and had naturally frizzy hair. He thought it was cool that I was an actress. The legendary French journalist Jean Claude Labbe stopped by and asked us our age. General Giap laughed and said, "Never ask a general or an actress our age!" Wow, I adored him! He was charming, witty, and a real diplomat. I asked to see him again. He said: “Volontiers! Quand?” (Sure! When?). He took me to his flower garden to talk about wild orchids that grew on the battlefields. I have it all on 16 mm film.

What led you to film The General and Me? How has your 25-year friendship with General Vo Nguyen Giap changed you? What is the message that you want people to know about Vietnam through the medium of your documentaries?

I had to do it. I had collected so much footage. I interviewed so many people who shared with me their stories. It was invaluable. I just had to pick who the most dynamic man in all my stories was and the answer was always the same - Vo Nguyen Giap.

The General himself said that it was the Vietnamese people who won the Indochina and American wars. My film is about and dedicated to the people General Giap called the “greatest heroes of the war,” the Vietnamese people.  

I never planned to make a film about the General. In the beginning, I merely wanted to meet my father's history teacher. Despite his opposing political views, my father respected his legendary history teacher.

At first, General Giap wore an Army uniform to meet me and invited my husband and me “as the first Americans to set foot inside this house!” I always saw him as a proud kind man, great patient teacher, and as quite a historical figure. I am moved that General Giap was very affected as a young boy by his mother, who took him to beg the rich landowners not to take their land when flood, famine, and other disasters killed the crops. No wonder he was devoted to the ultimate revolutionary Ho Chi Minh. The message via my films is hope and understanding. There are things more important than only economic concerns. We need to expose the horrors of war and work for a sustainable, environmentally sound future. Powerful governments in the Congo, Middle East, in addition to my own – continue to wage wars and kill innocent civilians, turn children into orphans who are crippled by aftermath-of-war tools left behind. We cannot remain silent. We must show this in photos, films, blogs, TV, plays, books, paintings and smile that we are all on the same boat.

You have made tremendous accomplishments in films prior to making your first documentary. With a thriving acting career in 1988, what are some of the reasons you left acting to make your first documentary From Hollywood to Hanoi?  

Yes, I gave up a competitive and lucrative career in Hollywood. Ever since childhood, I had a strong desire to go to Hollywood to be an actress. I wanted to be famous so people would listen to me and I would ask them to please end the war.

After our first trip to Vietnam in 1987, my husband and I were appalled that my homeland was the fifth poorest nation at that time and that the US still had a trade embargo against Vietnam, so there were no telexes, phones, banks, and few hotels that you could call a hotel. The hospitals were unbelievable; children died without the proper medicine. We brought in antibiotics for children who were dying for lack of it. My countrymen were so hungry and destitute. We learned first-hand how horrible war is, which helped me see with a wider lens.

Vietnamese politicians Nguyen Van Linh, Le Duc Tho, Pham Van Dong, Nguyen Co Thach and General Vo Nguyen Giap all received me in their homes due to a poem I had written that they liked. Even though I was not a journalist, they all met me with their wives, children & grandchildren and they were courteous and sincere. Hanoi’s leaders received me in their homes and the artists, composers, and cyclo drivers invited me to antiquated Hanoi's pho kiosks with tiny stools. One famous pho place had my Polaroid photo on their wall until they retired. General Giap’s simplicity and the generosity of the Vietnamese people who gave up their time and told me stories helped me understand my own heritage and what I had to leave behind due to the war.

From Hollywood to Hanoi was about your own journey of coming to terms with your Vietnamese and American identities. How has your own concept of identity as a Vietnamese-American changed in the process of 25 years?

I have filmed and photographed in over 30 countries. The people of the world gave me a great understanding of identity. 25 years ago I was so hungry to learn about my homeland. Now I learn and teach all over the world.

We are all the same. Most people on the planet work so hard and suffer a lot. I try to help and be an example to one person at a time and let all people from all walks of life teach me. I am not only Vietnamese. I am a global citizen and wish to share how alike we all are, how we need love and understanding, and someone to hear our stories.

You have said that you wanted to build a bridge of friendship between the US and Vietnam. Now that relations are much better with the trade embargo being lifted, what other bridges do you think need building?

In the late ‘80s and ‘90s, the now US Secretary of State John Kerry organized and invited many senators and congressmen to my talk about post-war Vietnam. I showed my films to all I could in Washington DC and universities and high schools across America. Many people learned about the effects of Agent Orange. It is shocking to find now how it is a bigger issue that most people still don’t know about.

Agent Orange was manufactured and buried in Plymouth, New Zealand; Okinawa, and Australia – causing cancer for people there now, all in addition to massive leakage in Da Nang City (Vietnam). The US government was very irresponsible about the aftermath of war and Vietnamese suffer from losing their families, massive malnutrition, Agent Orange, and land mines left behind. I confronted the late US Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara with this. Look for it in The General and Me. Gen. Giap was there!

(Stirling Silliphant, Jr., contributed to this story.)