Tag: Asia

La vache qui rit

Forbes recently printed a McKinsey report about the coming consumer society in Vietnam. In other words, we will soon see La Vache qui rit in supermarkets along side real cows which are still allowed to roam free in the country side.

Vietnam 2040 will very much resemble US 1950, when the going was good: chicken in the pot and Chevy in the driveway.

Auto dealerships have sprung up at the outskirts, such as Dong Nai: Toyota, Honda and Ford.

Billboards build brands: Liberty Insurance, Prudential and VNPT.

Supermarts, hypermarts and convenient stores are found everywhere, selling of course, high margin, high carb items. KFC, Carl’s Jr and Lotteria employees are tasked to ask if you wanted fries and soda (combo no 1).  An underground mall has recently been opened in Hanoi to much fanfare.

In the country side, people however are happy with satellite TVs, internet hook up and mobile phones. Every house is an enterprise, either bed and breakfast, or coffee shops.

There is a price to pay by giving up traditional society for a consumer one. Vietnam will encounter those social problems Westerners already knew too well:

attachment to things will only lead to addiction, called shopaholism.  Shopaholic sometimes turns shoplifter as well.

It’s an unending cycle: the more things you owe, the less satisfaction you get out of them, hence, the more you think you need to reach old-level high. More results in less and not more happiness.

But advertisers will push this Pavlovian model to the brink.

Kids with glasses spend more screen time than face time with their parents or friends.

And they will eat La Vache Qui Rit, an inherited brand since before 1975,

and never know or see a real cow. It will be the age of vending machine: putting in a coin, and the coke comes out. No question asked. Period. Have you ever seen a real cow laughing? Or the sound of one hand clapping? Get real!

torn between two places

Yahoo News had a piece about Diaspora, the return.

It features Mrs Nguyen Cao Ky, who is now a proud owner of a Pho restaurant in former Saigon.  She said to have spent a few months in the US, and the rest in Vietnam.

Other Viet Kieu expressed similar sentiment: “when I am here, I miss the States, and vice versa” said wife of a former Vegas casino host.

The attachment to places.

We are creatures of habits.

I found myself gravitated toward District 3 where I grew up.

I turned my head every time I passed by L’Ecole Aurore.

To lend some credibility, the article quoted Professor Hung, of the U of VA, who said what everyone had already known: the less attractive the US economy the stronger the pull of  Vietnam .

So, we have Vietnamese moving out of Hotel California. The choices are Houston or HCMC. Sociologists couldn’t have foreseen this 38 years ago.

I didn’t. We were in a state of shock!

Those of us who weren’t religious person then, became one.

Churches and synagogues welcomed the displaced.

So, my sweet guitar gently weeps.

I admitted to eating a bunch of church pot-luck dinners to get through college.

Then, upon graduation, I paid it all back by offering my ration packs to Boat People in Asia.  Whatsoever you sow, you shall reap.

I saw what people went through at seas to get to shores, to Hotel California.

Now, I met people like Mrs Ky who discussed opening up shops in VN, organizing a conference there, and perhaps buying a piece of land.

I do miss the comfort in the States e.g. clean beaches, ample parking and ubiquitous police. Over-protected in one place and under-served in the other.

Torn between two  places, feelin’ like a fool. Blame it on war, blame it on peace. But mostly, blame it on greed which brought down house of cards. As of this edit, I have read excerpt of Andrew Lam‘s latest Birds of Paradise Lost which is an expose on the theme of Diaspora of millions Viet Kieu, suffering the fate of “neither here nor there”.

The strangest moment came when songs of the 70’s got played at coffee shops in Saigon. It only accentuates a known fact: the place seems to have freezed up in time. Those music got me nostalgic for Vietnam when hearing them in the States, but then, to hear them play here in VN makes me nostalgic for time past, not the place itself. We all swim against the tide of time.  Boys-men-boys, in my case, a boy from BAN CO. Even grown men need to have some fun. It’s either biking or swimming now.  For that, you can do it anywhere.  But who you would ride with, that depends on the place. Those who went through the piercing experience of separation and exile are rarely heard nor noticed. Most force themselves to forget and move on. Others leverage new skill and contact to return, a phenomenon known as “brain re-gain”. More are coming back. Yet remain forever “outsiders”, torn between two places.

The Vietnam that could and will

You can feel it. The energy, aspiration and action.

I haven’t seen an idle person here in Saigon. Even people with great disabilities crawl on their hands and knees, through rough and uneven gutters to sell lottery tickets or variety of snacks.

Everybody is proud of their native son: Ngo Bao Chau, math genius.

The country is rooted firmly in the past, yet yearning to be integrated and connected to rest of world (hip hop, fashion).

Garment has been upgraded and sold at Macy’s. Now, it is its turn for playing the “bad guy” (after Bangladesh and S American countries, whose “low labor” have supplied over-weight Western clothing excess before Vietnam even got there).

But here in Vietnam, it’s all small businesses, low-skill : coffee shops, then pure-bean coffee shops. I sat at Rain, and saw tables turn over quickly. High Margin.

Just pour your heart into it.

The music is ear-deafening. Louder than the disco near by where servers would come, one by one, to cheer you up and to toast.

Before the night is out, you are so beat, so broke (since there were so many people pouring your drinks, all deserved a tip). Not unlike Vegas, you admitted to having a good time.: what happened here stayed here.

I am not the only Viet Kieu often discovered this secret irony: the very place that we ran away from, is the scene we yearn to come back to.

Like Jewel, who was once sleeping in car in San Diego, now wants to set up residence near the Mexico border.

We are creatures of habits who tend to follow the path of least resistance (the only way to test this out is for me to travel to Havana some day, and see if I like it there more than Saigon).

Cuban Americans in Miami are probably going home en mass these days.

I have seen them shop at Outlets such as Sawgrass Mills and Dolphin Mall.

Back to RAIN. The owner or manager was young, hip and alert. He made sure guests got situated, servers take orders and tables cleaned very quickly. Every one dressed up as hip as could be. Just to sit at a trendy cafe. Reminded me so much of my high-school days, when we tried various clothing styles and any cool English phrases.

The high school I went to, once renamed something else, now has got its original name back. The round-about near my school never got repainted as neatly the Catholic church nearby. But I understood for the first time the significance of statues and memorials: they stood the test of time. Bookends in the sand of time.

I took that path home for four years. Sometimes just walking, biking or hitching ride. We lived life selflessly. Listened to Steely Dan‘s Do It Again or Carly SImon’s You’re So Vain.

Now we are scattered to the seven seas. Many went abroad on labor contracts, Others scholarships. But when they do come back, unlike my visitor’s status, they will stay to build a Vietnam we have yet to experience. (As of this edit, I look forward to our min-reunion this afternoon at of all places, another cafe).

Best days are ahead.

Imagine the possibilities. Imagine solving the kind of math Ngo Bao Chau did. The ingenuity is there. Just give it time.

Just harness the energy, and focus on the goal of not falling off the competitiveness chart. Carl Jr, Starbucks and soon MacDonald are all here. And according to Friedman of The World is Flat, once two nations are fully MacDonalized, they are unlikely to be at war.  The last chopper left Saigon 38 years ago. Still, everyone rushes about as if it were their last scooter that is leaving Vietnam.

strong as an ox

I am back to the land where people work animals into daily speech:

– strong as an ox

– wrinkle as a monkey

– dumb as a cow.

Everything gets used more than once (recycled): plastic bags, banana leaves. In Understanding Vietnam ( through literature) published by Berkeley Press, the author, after surveying many well-known pieces, came to see that the tension between “Hieu” and “Tinh” is key to understand Vietnam.

I would posit that this tension gets new expressions and variations in today’s context. For instance, the “Hieu” (loyalty to parents and extended families) could easily evolve to loyalty to a team or support system (women group).

Meanwhile “Tinh” gets complicated with the introduction of Western understanding of sexuality (even homosexuality).

I can understand why Asian young struggling with changes challenges.

PBS has a piece on this subject. A Chinese peasant girl went to the city for work (garment). She saved up enough for the annual trip back home on the train. Upon arrival, her independence came to a head- on with traditional mores.

Bang! Conflict. Collision. Compromise.

Changes in morality, changes in the tools we use and changes due to the influx of FDI and foreign influences (smoking or non-smoking?).

Web sites are discussing a country bride who was set up to marry a Korean man through a matchmaking service, only to die a week after her arrival to the new country.  Groom wasn’t well in the head and did not take his medicine, or so they said.

Infrastructure need FDI. People need Foreign Aid even without “Tinh”, as long as the “Hieu” gets taken care of (building country houses with modern electricity and plumbing for parents).

This tension intensifies with each new element gets added-on into the old system.

So the parents of the dead bride now experience the most extreme of unintended consequences.

This leads me back to the bamboo as a symbol of strength, but a quiet one.

Bend with the wind. Unbreakable. Resilient.

I would rather use plants to describe strength, than animals (the Zodiac leads first with the Rat, yew!).

Western world, on the other hand, works machine, instead of plants or animals, into their daily figure of speech: robust, retooling, reboot.  Whatever the dominant factor at the time in that society becomes the mental construct of the day.

With 90% back then, and 60% today, Vietnam can’t help using the buffalo to describe strength (Buffalo Boy vs Cowboy). Everyone can relate to the usefulness and stamina of an ox, a traditional symbol of strength in Vietnamese literature. After all, it has been around helping to cultivate the field for thousand of years. (Similar to Wolf Totem in Mongolia).

But it’s bamboo that helped mobilize Quang Trung‘s troop to traverse the entire expanse of the country, during New Year, to defeat the invading army. Two soldiers carry the one who rests. Very much like Spain during World cup. They were unselfish. They stayed with their triangular formation.

They claimed victory, rightfully. History (rewritten one) always favors the strong. But the strong have known this for  some time: strength alone doesn’t assure victory. Just go to the museum of Natural Sciences and see now-extinct dinosaurs for yourself.

 

tricycle economy

Easy to propel forward. Easy to stop and stand still.

No fear of falling (gravity) and no incentive to pedal forward (inertia).

The blessing and curse of a stimulus-dependent economy.

To move  forward, one needs to fight both gravity and inertia.

An extra wheel offers the illusion that things are stable and safe. But it does not create momentum.

If we start with Apple and ATT network, then where are the “B”‘s companies which are the engines of growth? BP?

Then we got C for China. They are going to play soccer today on world’s stage.

This comes after their space exploration and oil exploration.

China has government subsidies as well, But it empowers the province level to bid for businesses.

And if we skipped to S, we have Singapore. And it is a success story there.

Singapore now allows casinos. But only after it opened to tons of industries and foreign companies with rep offices.

Singapore economy is not run on three-wheels.

When you are busy, like Apple having sold 1.7 million I-phones 4 in a  few days, you don’t rely on third wheel, or any wheel.

You start flying, on adrenaline. Confidence feeds itself. Fear of falling on this side of  winning keeps one humble, but not from moving forward.

The wheel needs to come off to return our economy to a fast-moving Tour-de-Lance. G-20 countries seem to agree. Our muscles will be sore.

It will be good for us because muscles toned are muscles healed. Just another paradox.

Other countries, like China, have to struggle with limited language, limited natural resources and limited world trade (it barely joined WTO at the turn of the century), yet it hums along. Hence, besides IQ, EQ and SQ, we will need CQ (not the magazine, but C for confidence. Yes, we can). History tends to reward those who tried and failed than those who failed to try. We need that frontier mentality. Bold thinking, ballsy moves and gut-level execution. Time to take off that extra wheel.

 

Self-monitoring Vietnam

Two articles on Bloomberg Business Week.

One on Clicking with co-workers (productivity increase) and the other, Vietnam is finally ready for foreign investment ( with a question mark at the end).

The former article is based on a study that people who work and play together make a great team.

The other, since its neighbors Thailand and China are facing internal pressures (upheaval and worker strike) Vietnam might emerge as a strong off-shored contender. (As of this edit, BW has an article on Vietnam’s emerging role in Regional Security, with Mr Hagel meeting with Vietnamese counterpart in Brunei).

Huge hotel infrastructures have been up, but cautiously, taken a lesson from China’s building burst.

Meanwhile, Utah just put a man down via firing squad, a century old practice which has just been banned in Vietnam.

How is that for Amnesty International observers? Be fair and be balanced.

Have you read Banners from Heaven, a tale of struggle and murder in Utah?

There are Evil everywhere, even in the self-professed  civilized society ( And conversely, there is kindness in the most unlikely place.)

Back to our Bloomberg articles.

The clicking which results in team synergy came from self-monitoring (social intelligence).

And Vietnam, to build critical mass in global integration, will need a dose of self-monitoring as well.

By installing VINASAT 2, it will soon be able to see things from outer space.

And this GPS view will help it to see its geo-economic position against its neighbors: Thailand to the left and China to the North.

BBC did an interview about the subject just last week at the World Economic Forum i.e. China + 1. And Cisco signed a deal to build Smart buildings.

It’s not good enough these days to build world tallest hotels. Our expectations have increased : we need not only sky view, but also broadband access.

The rich want to be connected (it’s lonely at the top). And Vietnam, wanting to “click” with ROW, will need to accommodate those wishes, among them, high-speed rail and mail. The list of unintended consequences just gets longer each day. And that’s the price of growing pain. Instead, it is considering blocking off Skype and Viper, disruptive services which eat up the shares of state-owned shares. All the energies devoted to catching the “bad” guys could be channeled to “creative destruction”. It’s not too far-fetched to see Vietnam young come up with another Yahoo or Skype itself. Just a matter of time.

Work in team and play in team. It’s best that way!

 

Up the value chain

China is dreaming up its own Silicon Valley.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127742250&ft=1&f=1017

Its young are flocking NE universities in the summer, learning about American culture and history.

While in San Jose, they visit Tech Museum.

Are ideas and innovation moving offshore?

I was told to “follow the money”.

Does anyone know what time it is? Doesn’t anyone even care? (Chicago).

Actually, they have been nickel-and-dime, with rising costs (of wages, inflation pressure etc…).

Either they move South to Vietnam, Cambodia etc… or up the value chain.

Moving of the mind instead of moving the factories.

In crisis, there is opportunity. (Inida after 4 decades of leapfrogging the manufacturing step, end up with inflation).

30 years ago, China did it, out of necessity (with obvious consequences such as wage pressures and pollution).

This time, it is forced to go beyond dorm-room refrigerators to solar panel and software development.

Already we saw Baidu. And cities which offer high rebates for film makers (free extras). Watch out Bollywood!

If history taught us anything, it is this: China made a huge mistake by burning its world-class vessels back in the 16th century.

It drifted away and distracted itself  with opium and orthodoxy. Now China wakes up, moves fast and away from its progress-resistant mode. It has no time to eat or spend its money.

Money and success feed themselves. And each Chinese is moving up the Maslow scale. So is the interior country (with each province’s RFP and coordinated initiatives),

to catch up with Coastal cities such as Shanghai. The latter have been on steroid, while the former adrenaline.

Turns out, China is doing what exactly anyone in its place would: follow the money because its leader said “to get rich is glorious”, in this case, optimizing the value chain and use all its resources (which means it will soon have to outsource, offshore and build Tech museum as well). The force of nature favors survival of the busiest. And China is busy building its own Silicon Valley.

Sound of Saigon

Young population. Lots of noise and headsets. Night clubs and bars open every single night of  the week.  And let’s not forget those Karaoke stores, coffee shops and sidewalk beer stalls. Certainly not Sound of Silence here.

My morning starts with greetings from those neighbor’s roosters. From there on, it will only get louder: bike’s traffic (very few electric bikes), horn-blowing at each turn, people belling on the phone and at people on the other end, CD vendors on wheels with au-par-leur “we-buy-scrap medals…”, bullhorns broadcast a circus act in town etc…..The day finally ends with the peddling sound of a in-call massage vendor.

The emergency responders here drive like a maniac, Buses would swing from the far left to cut through bikes to stop on the right side of the street. Street sweepers would sweep the dust to the side (like their Mexican counterparts in the US who uses grass blowers) just to have it blown right back out by bikes approached illegally on  a one-way street.

Sound of Saigon. Simon and Garfunkel  “in restless dream I walk alone”.

Yet one thing is clear: the barber shops are busy with people who need to clear out their ear wax.  In the US, with the aging boomer population, it is predicted that audiologists will be in high demand. Here, the same would hold true, even for a much younger post-war gen. The DJ’s for sure will need this medical service.

I on more than one occasion asked the waiter to turn down the volume.

He couldn’t hear or understand my request.

At least the sound I used to hear (choppers and gun shots) are long gone.

Peace-time Saigon, with Hotel Caravelle and Rex no longer filled with Western journalists covering the war.  Now, they’ re just local businessmen hang-outs.

District 1 still holds its charm, but many satellite districts have sprung up to accommodate urban migrants.  I was hoping for some peace and quiet in South Saigon. And it’s true that the Highland Coffee in South Saigon close at mid night, Unlike District 1 clubs which have just begun to take on some life (party) at that hour.

I heard about a sandwich stall which only opens at mid-night and closes at 2AM.

Why bother working hard during the hot day when you can take in just as much income with less efforts?

Wonder if she participated in Earth Hour last night? If not, at least, by the time she starts selling her first sandwich, she can say, it’s already another day in Saigon.  And people shout from their bikes: “I want 2 special orders”, all for $1.50.

Then when I hear the sound of the massage vendor, I know it’s time to call it a night. It’s hard not to eat out at night, because it’s a quite a scene full of   sight,  scent and sound of Saigon. In restless dream I join others, under the neon gods that they made.

 

rollin, rollin on the (Saigon) river

Working for the man, every night and day… big wheel keeps on turnin,

River boat dining provides another view of Saigon Water front.

Hotel Majestic, Sheraton and Sun Wah guests look at you (dining on the river boat), while you look at them.

Tourists are still coming in drove and enjoying a night out.

From the gang-plank, I can see the unlit barge along side (and small speed boat, not Somalian though). Years ago, those barges carried human cargo. Mass of humanity, helplessly clung to the hope of a new tomorrow out there in the open seas. The “mini-mass” are trickling back. First as tourists, in cognito and blended in with Asian and Westerner counterparts.

Slowly, the feel of the place gets more at home: high-end hair salon and spa,

organized tours and menu in dollars.

District 7 now has  Lotte Mall, Parkson Mall and Crescent Mall. The view from those District 7  shopping centers and supermarkets in South Saigon could trick you into thinking you were somewhere else but Vietnam.

Construction crew heck away. English classes plow away. And of course supermarket registers chuck chink on. Reminds me of a childhood poem Au Marche, with glistening fish (reflecting the sun in open air market).

The Rock and rollers are getting older by the day, pony tail or not. But “you’re  still the one, I want” and of course, Proud Mary.

Rollin, rollin, rollin on the river. Tina Turner once said, despite her nth time performing that number, she has a way to deliver it differently each time.

I guess Saigon is like that song. You got to discover it anew, each time.

And who said you can’t swim in the same river twice. I just did, floating in the same river on two completely different vessels and traversing in opposite direction. Same river. that carries the process called Revietnamization.

 

globalize, empathize and digitize

It’s Kitchen God day in Asia.

Super Bowl weekend here in Miami.

And the DOW is down across the board.

Oh when the Saints oh marching in….

People were guessing, just like Mr Watson, that maybe the world can make use of a few computers, or move to digitization perhaps 15-20% of current load. Well “you’ve got news”: when e-government and e-MR digitization finished their conversion, we will be in for a surprise: perhaps more than 50%-80% current work load will get digitized (the more service-oriented the economy, the higher the percentage).

At this rate, we will be tutored by online English and Math in-pat teachers (as opposed to expats).

Pepsi decided against participating in the Super Bowl, a move which signifies the fork on the road: the online world now commands huge Corporate dollars traditionally allocated to the big Three over the past six decades.

New Orléans will celebrate, no matter what. Just showing up this Sunday has already been more than a boost for this Katrina-ridden town.

Next weekend, more than a billion and a half will celebrate the year of the Tiger.

On top of that, we got Valentine and President Day here in the US.

A warm spot in the midst of uncertain news and unwelcome weather.

Hold it: Defense, defense, defense.

For three hours this Sunday, I will join in and try to forget all bad news.

And I trust that our Kitchen God will bring full report Upstairs.

In Asia, we got our priorities right: food comes first. It brings harmony and social cohesiveness.

You eat soup, not Campbell, but from a huge common broth (Pho).  It’s up to you to throw in your basil leaves.

But on a cold evening, the context which gave rise to the Noodle King in Japan, there is nothing comes close to a shared bowl of Pho with friends.

New Orleans also knows how to celebrate, to put emphasis on food and drink (French Quarter). No wonder the Colonial theme pervades, both Hanoi and New Orleans : the coffee and pastries. Bon Vivant. After all, the French are now factoring in Happiness into their GDP equation, to count what really counts, according to their worldview.

I can empathize with that. After all, I learned my conjugation charts and early childhood songs, deciphering on the map where Lyons,  and Marseilles were. I know in this globalized world, we evolve, and borrow brilliance. We might try to solve one problem and end up generating a host of others.

The French got their shares. So have we. But this Sunday, some of their descendants will march and cheer. And I “want to be in that number, Oh when the Saints are marching in.” Today and tomorrow, Best Buy will sell a lot of HDTV‘s. Build it (digitizing), they will come. Still cheaper than going down there (or stuck in a snow storm with canceled flights), secure tail-gate parking, get to the stadium and not even sure you could get that kind of close-up views.

If you put TV and computer screen time together, we are on the way to be couch-potato nation. That’s one thing the world has in common, World Cup or Super Bowl, besides Katrina-size disasters.