VietNamNet Bridge – Coming to Vietnam secretly and seeking every way to maintain their privacy but Brangelina was still the center of attention.


Still keeping secret of her fifth visit to Vietnam, Angelina Jolie unexpectedly arrived in HCM City on the evening of November 10, but this time with her family, including Brad Pitt and six children. Brangelina hired a plane to fly to Con Dao Island on the afternoon of November 11, for a five-day holiday at the Six Senses Resort.

The trip to Vietnam is firstly a home return for Pax Thien, Jolie’s Vietnamese-origin adopted son, and a holiday for the family. This eight-member family is moving around the world but the six children rarely have both mother and father with them at the same time.

With their rare days together in Vietnam, Brangelina devoted their entire time to their children. Except for the two sons, who are self-reliant, Jolie always carried or led four small children while Pitt always kept an eye on them. They were escorted by nearly 10 guards and assistants but the couple always took care of their children.

The media could not detect any sign of discrimination of Brangelina with any of their six children. Pax Thien sounds to be ‘favored’ a little than other kids because this was his ‘home return’ trip. Pax Thien had a lunch, with Vietnamese cuisines, together with Brangelina at the Cuc Gach Restaurant in HCM City on November 11.

With this trip, Jolie and Pitt have realized their promise with three adopted children – bringing them back to their home countries. Previously, they took Zahara back to Ethiopia and Maddox to Cambodia.

During other holidays, this superstar couple often “hided” their children to spend some time together, for example having dinner, watching a movie or visiting a local landscape. This time, they only left their kids to visit the Tiger Cage, the most terrible corner at Con Dao Prison. The tiger cages were built by the French colonialists to imprison, torture, and execute Vietnamese revolutionaries during Vietnam’s anti-French campaign which began in 1858 and ended with French defeat in 1954. They were later used by the Americans and the South Vietnamese regime.

Pitt and Jolie looked deeply touched after seeing the prison cells and punishment yards where prisoners were made to stand in the sun. “Oh, my God!” they were both heard whispering. That’s why they did not want to take children with them to this site.

They are superstars but Jolie and Pitt did not want to attract the media’s attention. The couple and their children wore casual outfit for their convenience, not for nice shots. As superstars, they are very experienced at “avoiding” the media and they strictly applied it during their holiday in Vietnam.

Only before leaving Con Dao Island, Jolie smiled with reporters and made a good comment on the island. Brad was friendlier when he appeared alone and did not have to take care of security for his family.

As influential superstars, Jolie-Pitt’s appearance is a perfect opportunity of advertisement for Vietnamese brands.

Wherever the superstar couple appears, that place will become a curious destination. In 2006, when Jolie chose Swakopmund, Namibia as the place to give birth to Shiloh, this African country was immediately flooded with tourist.

The Namibian Ambassador to the US at that time said that the embassy received a lot of phone calls requesting information about Namibia. The embassy staff became tour consulters.

Early this year, when Pitt went to Glasgow, Scotland to shoot “World War Z” movie, this city has become a hot spot, exceeding the capital city Edinburgh. According to BBC, thanks to Pitt, Glasgow’s tourism revenue rose by GBP2 million.

In Vietnam, the superstar couple stayed at the Park Hyatt Hotel and had lunch at the Cuc Gach Restaurant in HCM City; flew with Air Mekong and visited Con Dao Island, where they stayed at the Six Senses Resort.

During their holiday, Vietnam and Con Dao Island in particular appeared on the bulletins of many international news wires like AFP, AP, CNN, New Yorks Times, Telegraph, People, E!Online, Dailymail, Us Magazine, Radaronline, etc.

Understanding their influence, Brangelina behaved like real tourism ambassadors. Though she was reticent during the trip, Jolie made nice comments on places she visited. After having lunch at Cuc Gach Restaurant, she wrote: “Thank you for wonderful lunch. Beautiful place. Great food. We look forward to next time.”

Before leaving Con Dao Island, she said: “Con Dao is very beautiful. My children like it very much. We hope to return this island in the future.” During her time there, the actress often carried a Vietnamese non la (palm-leaf conical hat) with her.

It is not by chance that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie adopted kids in and visit developing countries. In an interview, Jolie said that she could not hold back her feelings when she saw unfortunate children in poor countries. She wished that through paying attention to her family, the world would know and pay attention to the situation in developing countries.

Early this year, when Angelina went to Cambodia to take a photo shot for Louis Vuitton, the media questioned why a poor country like Cambodia was chosen to shoot advertising photos for a luxurious brand like Louis Vuitton. But it was Jolie’s idea, to “highlight the beauty of this country” because “this is the place where people should visit.”

Jolie earned $10 million from the contract with Louis Vuitton but most of the sum was donated to a charity fund named after her son Maddox in Cambodia.

This was Jolie’s fifth visit to Vietnam. With a promise-respect star like Jolie, she will return to Vietnam in some secret day in the future.

VNE