| has gloss | eng: Bui doi refers to Vietnamese street children, especially the Amerasian offspring of American soldiers and Vietnamese mothers abandoned at the end of the Vietnam War. The phrase connotes "uncared-for child," and literally translates as "living dust" or "dust of life". It is intended to bring to mind an image of a child abandoned and moving about without purpose, like dust. In Vietnamese, it has no racial connotation. Its application to mixed race children was popularized by the 1989 musical Miss Saigon. Vietnamese refer to Amerasians as Mỹ lai (mixed American and Vietnamese), con lai (mixed-race child), or người lai (mixed-race person). |