The myth that Vietnamese traditional music is simply a version of Chinese traditional music has been debunked by scholarship inside and outside of Vietnam since the 1960s; however, the role of Chinese music in contemporary Vietnamese traditional music performance is not as well understood. Ethnomusicologist Le Tuan Hung argues that Vietnamese musicians in the early twentieth century embraced Chinese musical aesthetics and techniques as an antidote to French colonial influence; for example, performers of don ca tai tu, a “music for diversion” in southern Vietnam, used the Guangdong nuance (hoi Quang) to flavor the standard repertoire. In the contemporary period, musicians still use certain Chinese musical signs; musicians of don ca tai tu and cai luong, a kind of renovated theatre from southern Vietnam, inject short and playful Chinese tunes into longer performances oftentimes eliciting laughter from audiences. More recently, Vietnamese musicians build alliances with Chinese musicians during pan-Asian zither festivals and adopt Chinese playing techniques through the study of online videos. This lecture investigates the reasons why musicians continue to invoke Chinese musical signs in diverse ways in Vietnamese traditional music. For some, deploying Chinese characteristics is simply humorous; for others, recognizing Chinese influence accentuates the musical distinctions between Chinese and Vietnamese music. A small number of musicians even argue that adopting specific Chinese techniques helps Vietnamese musicians build a music better representative of the Vietnamese “soul.” Chinese music is deployed, therefore, in diverse ways as an effective interlocutor as musicians seek to sustain Vietnamese traditional music.