Happy cold weekend, super folks! How’s your day going?
Before we jump into my Palawan blog, let’s take a quick commercial break. Who here loves watching musical plays? If you do—well, we’re the same! I may not be a super expert, but I’ve loved musicals since my high school days.
Have you heard of Lea Salonga, Darren Criss, and Nicole Scherzinger? They all have Filipino blood and are internationally famous musical theater actors.
"The heat is on in Saigon
The girls are hotter than hell
One of these slits here will be Miss Saigon
God, the tension is high, not to mention the smell
The heat is on in Saigon
Is there a war going on?
Don't ask, I ain't gonna tell"
“The heat is on in Saigon…”—and with those unforgettable lyrics in mind, welcome to dreamland. After sharing my Ho Chi Minh City travel experience in a previous blog, it feels extra special to now relive the story through Miss Saigon, which I watched live in the Philippines in 2024.
I still remember a particularly special musical I watched back in my college days—Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Main Theater, in Manila, with Lea Salonga bringing the title role to life. Years later, about two years ago, my colleague and I found ourselves watching Miss Saigon on its final day, a moment that felt just as memorable.
Miss Saigon unfolded before me as the heartbreaking story of a Vietnamese woman caught in the chaos of the Vietnam War, whose life is forever changed when she falls in love with an American soldier. Set against the final days of Saigon, the musical explored love, sacrifice, and survival in a world torn apart by conflict. Watching it now, I felt that this production was thoughtfully tailored for a new generation, with themes that echoed more recent global issues and felt strikingly relevant.
Some characters were reimagined in ways that strengthened the storytelling—most notably the Queer Engineer, whose presence brought a bold, dynamic energy to the stage and stood out as one of the production’s most iconic figures.
I do wish we had been seated closer to the stage to appreciate it even more, but those seats came at a higher price and simply weren’t within our budget at the time. Still, I found myself quietly claiming it to the universe—that in the near future, I’d get to watch more musicals like Into the Woods, Cats, Seasons of Love, and Les Misérables.
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