This episode is going to be more than a little bit different.
Instead of me interviewing a guest, I'll be answering questions written by chat GPT. That's right, I'll be interacting with a machine to explore the intersection of technology and human interaction?
And chat GPT wrote that sentence.
So, what you're about to hear was written by chat GPT, and then it's voiced by AI from Descript the program. I used to edit all my podcasts. So I'm going to hand you over to today's host., whose voice is called, Nancy.
Nancy I'm your host, Chat Gee Pee Tee.
As an AI language model, I'm programmed to understand natural language and generate responses that mimic human speech.
But how well can I really understand the complexities of Vietnam and its people? That's what we're going to find out.
I'll be using GPT-3, one of the most advanced AI models available today, to generate questions based on a range of topics related to Vietnam, such as culture, history, and daily life. I have no idea what questions I will come up with, so this is going to be an exciting and unpredictable conversation.
Of course, as an AI I'm not a Vietnam expert by any means. But I hope that by engaging in this AI-human dialogue, we can learn something new and thought-provoking about Vietnam and ourselves.
Meet Niall Mackay the entertaining and knowledgeable host of A Vietnam Podcast. Niall is a seasoned comedian, teacher, and podcast expert who has been hosting his show since 2019. With over 40,000 downloads and a spot in the top 10% of podcasts worldwide, A Vietnam Podcast is the leading English language podcast in Vietnam. Niall's passion for sharing stories, insights, and experiences about Vietnam has captivated audiences around the globe. Through his podcast, Niall takes listeners on a journey through Vietnam's rich history, culture, and people. Join Niall and his guests as they explore everything from food and travel to music and politics.
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Welcome to a Vietnam podcast. I'm your regular host Niall Mackay. Where I share the stories of people connected to Vietnam, but today's episode is going to be more than a little bit different. Instead of me interviewing a guest, I'll be answering questions written by chat GPT. That's right. Are we interacting with a machine to explore the intersection of technology and human interaction? And chat GPT wrote that sentence. So, what you're about to hear was written by chat GPT, and then it's voiced by AI from Descript the program. I used to edit all my podcasts. So I'm going to hand you over to today's host. whose voice is called, Nancy.
Nancy:
I'm your host, Chat Gee Pee Tee. As an AI language model, I'm programmed to understand natural language and generate responses that mimic human speech. But how well can I really understand the complexities of Vietnam and its people? That's what we're going to find out. I'll be using GPT-3, one of the most advanced AI models available today, to generate questions based on a range of topics related to Vietnam, such as culture, history, and daily life. I have no idea what questions I will come up with, so this is going to be an exciting and unpredictable conversation. Of course, as an AI I'm not a Vietnam expert by any means. But I hope that by engaging in this AI-human dialogue, we can learn something new and thought-provoking about Vietnam and ourselves. Meet Neil Mack eye the entertaining and knowledgeable host of A Vietnam Podcast. Neil is a seasoned comedian, teacher, and podcast expert who has been hosting his show since 2019. With over 40,000 downloads and a spot in the top 10% of podcasts worldwide, A Vietnam Podcast is the leading English language podcast in Vietnam. Neil's passion for sharing stories, insights, and experiences about Vietnam has captivated audiences around the globe. Through his podcast, Neil takes listeners on a journey through Vietnam's rich history, culture, and people. Join Neil and his guests as they explore everything from food and travel to music and politics. With Neil as your guide, you're sure to have a fun and informative experience on A Vietnam Podcast. So let's get started with the first question! What do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions that people have about Vietnam and its history?
Niall Mackay:
this is without a doubt. Definitely one of the coolest and the wheel, these things have ever done, but I hope you guys enjoy it. So, uh, what inspired me to start a Vietnam podcast? Boredom is the question. I you'll hear me often repeat, uh, my wife and I, Adrian, if you're a regular listener. You'll have heard all about. We used to work the exact same schedule and our jobs changed. Then I had a Sunday off. And I don't want to just drink all day, which at that time in Saigon, that was pretty much all there was to do back then. No. There's a lot more to do, but back then it was kind of drink or do nothing. That's how I felt like anyway, which is pretty boring. I know. And I didn't want to just drink all day while EG was at work. So I would just go for a ride around Saigon on my motorbike, just drive from one end of the town to the other. Hang out with biscuit or dog, but she sleeps most of the time. And so I get pretty bored until I was on massive podcast fan. Since the very beginning love podcasts, I was listening to them in the gym or when I'm driving or commuting. And so, you know, one of those things where I'm like, I should start a podcast and. The other thing was being here in Saigon. I just met like really interesting people, like really interesting people from all walks of life. They all had a really interesting backstory because you meet so many people here in Saigon. The ex-pat community is so diverse people from all over the world, all backgrounds. And so I wanted to try and tell their stories and know more about them because I knew. On the basic level here in Saigon, lik. People like to drink a lot and you hang out and you have fun, but you don't really scratch the surface and get to know those people too. Well, so, so that was definitely part of it. The most memorable moments. I think I always talk about the two episodes that stand out one was with EG Miller. Uh, an amazing friend who's back in the states, but EEG come back to Vietnam soon. She's a comedian and a musician, and she's just one of the most. Funniest people you'll ever meet. And. Had her on the podcast under the kind of guise of being a fellow comedian. At that time, I was interviewing a few different comedians. And so I thought we was just going to have a blast. She's like just this really big personality. She's so funny. And I had no idea that the actual reasons she was here in Vietnam was to retrace her father's footsteps because he'd been in the Vietnam war. But he hadn't enjoyed it yet. Come here because he wanted to, uh, let many soldiers stories and had gone home with PTSD and ended up passing away from. Uh, agent orange and juice leukemia, and she'd had to Nilsen through that. And so she came back here and she had these dog tags and she wanted to find out where he'd been. And she'd just been blown away by the friendliness of the people in Vietnam and the accepting this. Is that even a word, the accepting this, the how, where, who she was accepted by people here, because she was a bit worried that, you know, people were gonna be horrible to her, I guess, as the daughter of a soldier. And her story, you know, she burst into tears at one point because it was such an emotional story and it was the first time for me as an interviewer. I was like, okay, you are the interviewer right now. You need to be like a generalist, you know, not that I'm a generalist at all, but I need to be like the reporter. You can't feed into her reactions. This is not a good podcast of the two of you are bawling in tears. So I had to hold it together, um, and kind of let her cry and it didn't go over and give her a pat on the shoulder or anything. Cause I was like, what would a, what would a reporter do that? You see on television? That's watching something that's interviewing someone and the broken donor in front of them. They don't reach over and give them a cuddle and say, oh, you know, what's going to be your care that they continue on with the interview. And so that's what I did. So it was one of my proudest moments as an interviewer, and it was a really memorable moment as a. As I, as an episode or as a part of the episode. The other one was with, um, Suzanne T E N hook. And you should really go back and listen to that episode as well as EGS. She was abandoned under a Bush during the Vietnam war and she was half black, half Asian. So she does never met a father, never met her mother. She can only assume her father was a black GI. And she goes in to tell her story, which is just heartbreaking. She was eventually, um, taken into an orphanage. She was adopted by a British family, taken to the UK, uh, in the media. And it's all this amazing story, but it was actually. The adoption from Halen or family were massively abusive and absolutely horrible to her. So without going into all the details, you can't go back and listen to it. But during that episode, She said one thing that just always sticks with me. She said, um, I never knew what it felt like to be loved. And I I've had, uh, I had a poor upbringing. We went like destitute, but we were bills went unpaid. There was always food on the table. But we didn't have much money for niceties. We didn't go on holidays or have cars or anything, but we had a nice leave. So it wasn't terrible, but. You know, it's still, still. Uh, didn't have much money. But what I realized from when she said that was ha. I was so loved. I never, I have never once in my life, I still to this day don't know what the feeling is like to be unloved. And I just felt so, uh, privileged so special. No matter the faults of my parents and everyone's parents have folks. I'll say I have, they never made me feel unloved once, not for a split second. And so at that point, I did nearly break down into tears. I think I did a little bit, and I actually said to her, I was like, I've never broken down into tears on this show before. And I was going to cut it out because I didn't want to want to have that on the shore, but she's like, no, no, you need to keep this in. And so I did. And then it was something. After that interview, I was like, right. I'm going to write a letter to my mom and my dad. I'm going to put it down on pain and people and tell them how much it means to me that I felt loved. And one of those things I never got around to it. So last year I turned 40 and actually made the point. I called them both on my 40th birthday. And I had obviously had a chat with them and blah, blah, blah. And Anna said, you know what? Get something to need to tell you. I said, uh, did his interview told them what happened? I said, you know, and I realized that I never felt unloved too. I said, both of them. So thank you for that. Like I have. I mean so much to me. So obviously there was some tears. Uh, and appreciation from both of them. So those are definitely the most memorable. F, uh, memorable moments for sure. From, from the horsies and from the, all the podcasts that I've done so far.
Nancy:
How do you go about choosing guests for your podcast, and what criteria do you use?
Niall Mackay:
I absolutely love the chat. GPT has asked this question. It's amazing. I'm excited to answer because I don't think I've really made this public knowledge. I tell it to some people. But my proudest thing about a Vietnam podcast has been the diversity of the guests. And that's not by accident. If you go back and look through all the guests that we've had now, and I think it's about a hundred of Africana lost count. For me, me more. I think it's about a hundred. Um, I've really, really focused from day one. To give voices to everyone. And it would be the easiest thing in the world to make a podcast full of white people and full of white guys. Because if anyone ever suggest someone to be on the podcast, it's usually a white guy. And if anyone asks to be on the podcast, 100%, it's always a white guy. I'm very aware that I'm awake guy. But as someone who's traveled the world, I like to think that I'm inclusive of everyone and accepting of everyone. And I'm sick of hearing from white guys. So I'm very conscious of that as the horse. I'm 50% of it. So I've always wanted to make Vietnam a podcast to give a voice to other people. So if you look through. It should be. And it's nearly, always 50, 50 male female. Again, that's completely by design. When a plan out of the podcast episodes for each season. And who I want to interview a mixture. I have a 50 50 ratio. Um, and then I obviously went interview Vietnamese people. I don't have specific numbers on that, but Vietnamese people, people of color. Um, the biggest thing or the biggest criteria really is just not white guys. Uh, or white women for that, for that reason. So for each episode, each season is about 10 episodes. And in those 10 episodes, I try to limit it to normal than to in maybe three white people. And I want to give those other seven or eight episodes to people of color. Um, and also the other big thing is people from the LGBT community. So again, if you go through all the past episodes, this is completely not by accident. I always make sure to give voices to people who are either trans gay, bisexual. Um, anything on the spectrum of the LGBT community. Because again, I want to give voices to those people because those are interesting stories to hear. I'm sick of hearing from white people. And I want to hear from interesting people and give them that platform to speak. So for me, that's definitely been the most exciting. Not the most exciting, but it's definitely been, uh, been, been very proud of that because I think it would have been very easy to just interview white guys and have. Made a very conscious effort not to do that.
Nancy:
What have you learned about Vietnamese culture through your interviews and research, and how has it changed your perspective?
Niall Mackay:
This is a hard question to answer. I've been here seven years and I feel like I should have a better answer. I mean in terms of co-chair I feel like, uh, yeah, maybe I'm just not realizing, I've obviously learned so much. I don't know, like history of the culture, but I do know the culture. I know more about the culture in terms of how it has been affected by the war and not just the Vietnam war or the American war, but. They've been at war with, well, they're being colonized by France. Um, and then obviously they had, uh, They've taken over. I think I see of my history is terrible by China. Many many years. But I know about the culture. Yeah. I mean, there's just such a pro Pro-D nation. And I see that even in my classroom, when I'm doing like games with the students and they will throw themselves at the Blackboard. Chalkboard, sorry, is that the PC town these days where they will throw themselves at the chalkboard to be able to get to be the winning team. And I just watched the ferocity of the competitiveness and. It may be completely misplaced, but I think that just to me is a symbol of like the Vietnamese prayed. Um, and how they like to do things themselves and how the, they just want to get things done. Um, but yeah, mostly through the interviews. Yeah. I mean, it's hard. I'm not thinking clearly right now I've learned so much through the interviews. Especially from. The perspective of, uh, via. Or overseas Vietnamese people who that's been the biggest learning has learned from people who've been born from Vietnamese parents who moved overseas, either for economic opportunities, education, or because they were Vietnamese boat people and fled Vietnam after the war. And learning their stories and what it's like for them to grow up in a mixed culture with Vietnamese parents in a Western background with a Western society. But then longing to learn more about the roots and be told by their parents that they're Vietnamese, but then also to kind of not to be Vietnamese or to learn from the culture that they're our own and find out just. How much of a, how much that Massey's with somebody main and again, thinking. Always transplanting back to yourself and I'm like, I just don't have that. Perspective or experience because for me, I was brought up in a homogenous society. Pretty much all my friends and family were why they were all, all the parents were born in Scotland. So nobody I knew had this kind of immigrant or third world culture, kids syndrome. And so that to me was just like really, really, really interesting. Um, has it changed my perspective? I mean, of course, like massively just kind of saying like, what do you, what are your preconceptions or misconceptions of coming to Vietnam? I guess like anyone, that's what you think it's going to be like you, maybe you think it's going to be poor. I guess the thing you think is everything's going to be cheap here and things can be cheap. You can go out and get a beautiful 20,000 dong like a dollar if you want, but you can also go and get a beer for 150,000 dong, which is still cheap compared to like craft beer in the U S or the UK. But you can spend some money. If you want. You can go to nice restaurants. You can go to. Nice cocktail bars. And so I guess that's really changed my perspective from the seven years I've been here in the beginning. I would only go to plastic stool bars, drink cheap beer and have a great time. And then all the team. As you realize that the Vietnamese culture is a growing globalized culture, that once all the mod cons that everyone else has, but they still have their own perspective on life.
Nancy:
How do you think the Vietnam War has shaped Vietnam as a nation and its relationship with the rest of the world?
Niall Mackay:
I don't have too much to answer on this question just because I'm not an expert and I don't want to talk on something that I'm going to sound stupid about that I don't really know what I'm talking about. Obviously the Vietnam war has shipped Vietnam as a nation, but I don't think as much as we all think. I think there's a. A myriad of other things that have shaped Vietnam as a nation. And they're policing the world, not just the Vietnam war. That's just such a kind of American Yuki Western centric. View of Vietnam that this whole country is. Thinking all the time about the war and everything's related to that. The longer you live here, you realize like, it just almost never comes up in day-to-day life. It's never mentioned. And again, but that's maybe just in my day-to-day life, maybe within a Vietnamese family, they are talking about it, but from my experiences, With Vietnamese friends. It's just something that doesn't, doesn't come up with me or with their families. I don't think at all. And so now I just think Vietnam has relationship with the rest of the world is based on globalization. It's based on, you know, Nike factories, apple factories, um, building semiconductor chips, green energy solutions. Um, You know, it's a man. It's no, the manufacturing part, one of the manufacturing powerhouses of the world. And with that, the population is just booming. The economy is booming and it's just a really exciting place to be. And it's exciting to see Vietnam having an impact on the rest of the world as well, which we can see now through, through design through actors. And the best example is. And I'm going to get his name wrong. Was it? We care Quang. Uh, butchered these name, but just winning an Oscar that really just puts the, that just sums up the amazing things that the Vietnamese diaspora are now doing across the world.
Nancy:
What advice would you give to someone who is interested in learning more about Vietnamese history and culture?
Niall Mackay:
There's a bit of a boring question from chat GBT, and it's a pretty boring answer. If you want to learn more about Vietnamese history and culture, go to the library. Do those still exist? Go to Amazon, get a book, read a book. I mean, that's how we learn. Come over here. And explore the police for yourself, but if you really want to know the history and culture. Read a book. I don't have any recommendations. But if you come over here, obviously go to the Vietnamese, Vietnam war, remnants museum, go up to the Hanoi Hilton up in Hanoi. You can learn some stuff here, but mostly just read a book. Or a Kindle.
Nancy:
Are there any particular aspects of Vietnam's history or culture that you find particularly fascinating, and why?
Niall Mackay:
I sound so basic. Cause I've not really done much, I guess, learning or research in Vietnam's history or culture. But one of the things I did find really fascinating and I feel it's like, One of the hi, it is still well-known, but I think it's something that not a lot of tutors do when you go up to Denang there's. Uh, police code My Son or My Son. I said this to my students the other day and they laughed down because I said it wrong. Um, M Y S O N two words, and it's just those hater, the Nang get on a bait drive over there. And it's basically looks like a. I'm going to say this wrong Cambodia, Thailand, Cambodia. And I can't even remember the name of the people. They're so bad, my knowledges and my memory, but it's got these beautiful tempers. There are nothing like have seen in, in Vietnam before. I'm pretty sure it's Cambodian. Um, so the remained you have police, he's like no anchor what specifically, but please he's our own, they incur war and all these temples. And it was when those people migrated. Again. If I remember correctly from Cambodia, they were Buddhist. And V I'm sorry, not produced. What were they? Um, completely blue in this, I'm doing an interview with a GPT. With an AI model and I still can't ends up properly. But, uh, anyway, check it out. Nissan, really fascinating how the people move there. And then to go back to the war, when you do go there, apparently the local people were sheltering in these temples during the war, and you can still see massive. Um, holes in the ground were bombs had hit when they were trying to bloody bomb up beautiful temple to try and get to the people, which is another story in itself. If you didn't know it was a bomb crater, you would just think it was a holding ground, but then there's a sign and you're like, oh, that's interesting. So, but I would definitely recommend if you want to do something a little bit different, that Vietnam is not. So well-known for go check out. My Son just outside of Denning.
Nancy:
How do you see Vietnam's future in terms of economic development?
Niall Mackay:
Well, this one's an easy one. Just booming. Vietnam's economic development is insane. Um, and being here in Saigon seven years, you just see it, new buildings going up more and more cars, which is a horrible sign of development, because you would hope know by this day and age, you would be moving away from cars and into more green energy, but not yet, but it's still. Amazing to see there's a new coffee shop opens up every day, somewhere here. And I just don't understand. There's already so much coffee available here in Saigon. I don't understand. Jose Guinea is, can consume. So much in every time one opens you're like, how is this going to be popular? And then the next day it's absolutely packed with people. So that's just like coffee is just one example. It's just exciting. Like I mentioned, ELA with the manufacturing, but it's now moving more into the service industry. There's so many digital nomads here. There's so many startups. Tech companies. And it's just, it's one of the, I don't know the stats, but it's one of the fastest growing economies in the world and being from the UK, growing up during a recession, and then just hearing how horrible the UK is basically seems to be for many years now. Um, being here during a time where things are opening all the time, it's really exciting to see buildings going up, bridges being built. New jobs just as it's just nonstop. And so obviously that probably won't go on forever, but while it's here, it's exciting. And as obviously Vietnam, like most coaches will probably move away more from manufacturing to the service industry and technology. Um, there's no reason why it's going to stop anytime soon. So. Uh, Vietnam's future looks really bright and the biggest thing, as well as being a teacher, you go out and you have to teach 50 kids. Five 50 kids in a classroom. And you go into a school where there must be at least two or 3000 students. And then across the road, there's another student of the same size. Sorry. Another school of the same size. And I just read yesterday, I think, and again, I may be getting this wrong. 60% of Vietnam's population is under 35 or something crazy like that. It's like such a young population. So that can only Bordwell for the future of the economy is basically when you see countries like Japan, where it's almost the opposite and more so in. The country's in real big problems. So the fact that it's just got such a young population, um, Vietnamese overseas are coming back, Vietnamese students who go overseas. And used to be. We'd often then stay overseas and try and build a life that was kind of the goal, you know, good Australia, good America, the UK. Build a new life there. I think from what I've had, a lot of those students are now coming back. They'd rather come back to Vietnam because it, before it was a poor country. So there was less reason to come back. Now they're like, okay, I'll go and get my education overseas. And now I'm going to come back to Vietnam, start a business, be with my family. It's a much cheaper lifestyle. It's a culture and used to. And we, we always think of like the dream of the American dream of moving to the us or Australia or the UK, but in reality, it's expensive to live there. So yeah, sure. Your, your salary might be like really good, but it's so expensive to live there. You're barely sending any money home. You're not really saving any money as your labor, really that much better. So it's the future economic development of Vietnam is, is so exciting.
Nancy:
And last question What do you hope listeners take away from your podcast, and what impact do you hope it has on their understanding of Vietnam and its history?
Niall Mackay:
A few so basic. And that actually is one of the reasons going back to the very first question, why I started the podcast, because I felt really BC called the did was like drink beer and not really many hobbies or anything like that. So I was like, okay, I'm going to kind of start a podcast. But I sometimes hear people answer questions and they give these deep and meaningful answers and they really thought the moat and that there's like a really deep meaning behind why they do something. And I always think that I'm saying I don't, I don't really think like that. So. Again, it's a really basic answer, but what do I hope listeners take away from this podcast? I just hope they enjoy it. That's really just the basic thing. And it seemed when I do stand up comedy, I don't have any big goals. When I do stand up comedy, I just want to make people laugh. And if people laugh and they come and have a good time, then. Then I'm happy and I feel like they do so. Same with the podcast. I just hope they enjoy it. Um, one of the most exciting things was at a comedy show a couple of weeks ago, and there was a guest there. And she told me after the show, she's like, oh, I found your shoe. Cause I listened to your podcast and I've just moved here and I've started from the beginning and I'm working my way through every episode. So I guess, yeah, for anyone who's wanting to live here, Uh, wanting to move here. If he can listen to the podcast and get a bit of an insight into what it's like to be in Vietnam. Then that would be awesome. And then if people who already live here, I would love it. You have, they listened to the podcast and they get a different perspective on Vietnam that they didn't know about. That that would be really cool as well. Um, and then the understanding of its history, I think. Read a book, but I think most people. That don't come to a Vietnam podcast to learn about Vietnam history. Well, thanks very much. Chad GS PT. Uh, Hope everyone enjoyed this. This was pretty cool. Cheers.
Nancy:
Thank you for listening to A Vietnam Podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode and gained valuable insights into Vietnam's history, culture, and people. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and share it with your friends and family. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future episodes, please reach out to us. Until next time, xin cảm ơn và hẹn gặp lại!