Although it will not screen until April 14, Ms Walls has reached the battle round of the competition, after singing a Vietnamese song during the blind auditions. 

"The song I sang for my audition was Vietnam's equivalent to My Heart Will Go On, it's a well-known love song," she said. 

"I was the only white girl in a sea of Vietnamese people."

The 27-year-old grew up in Orange, attending Canobolas Public School, Kinross Wolaroi School and Orange Christian School before switching to Orange High School for its music program.

Her parents moved to Hanoi in 2012 and to work for a non-government organisation - Ms Walls decided to visit them not long after they first left.

"I got a three-month visa and then I thought I'd just extend it another three months - by the end of six months, I'd found the music scene and I'd started working," she said. 

VIDEO: Ella Walls in action ...

"The culture is very family-centred and hospitable - it's really normal for my Vietnamese friends to feed me dinner and send me out the door with extra food and because it's a communist country, there are a lot more communist values like working hard and equality among the people."

She embraced Vietnam's diverse music scene, which ranged from the very traditional to K-pop, made famous in Korea.

"There are people from all over the world and we found a way to connect on a musical level," she said.

"We have a big jazz band with 15 members and we play all sorts of styles." 

She described her celebrity mentor on The Voice Vietnam, Tuan Hung, as a Vietnamese Robbie Williams and said the hardest part of the experience so far was being paired with a friend in the battle.

Battles only permit the winner to progress in the competition, unless one of the other mentors decides to save the other contestant.

"She's only 16 and has an amazing voice, but the song we're singing I really like and they've matched us really evenly," she said. 

Ms Walls said it was a tall order to win the competition, but hoped building her profile would help her start a School of Rock-style music school.

She will return to Orange for a month in November.