Tag: Heineken

The Filipino Invasion

You will find a bunch of Filipino bands around Saigon, from Hard Rock Cafe to Acoustic.

When the British rock bands gained noteriety in America back in the 60’s, the phenomenon was coined The British Invasion.

Now Vietnam is experiencing similar invasion by their neighbors.  They got the language (English), the look (still brown-skinned), and the connection (E2 in cross-cultural distance).

Acceptance rates have been high.

You will find in Saigon clusters of APEC (Japanese Alley, Korean district , backpackers district and Chinese district).  The Filipino bands just show up, when it’s their turn to play.

Rap and rock.

All with long key chains, tight jeans and wool caps.

Some Western faces were there in the audience. Beer choices are also varied, from Tiger to Heineken, Corona to Coors.

To see Saigon of the future, you need to tap into this crowd.

Kids who first are in step with the beat from strange shores, then to eventually be resettled there (Ivy League even). It happened to me with “California Dreaming”. Now, a bunch of my classmates are living there.

This Christmas will see a wave of Vietnamese from overseas back for a vacation.

Fuel to the fire.

Rock on.

The irony is the Filipinos who taught ESL in the refugee camps back in the early 80’s, kept staying put, while their Vietnamese students (the audience in this case, which often had a feel of a “repeat after me” English class ), moved on to America, where the British Invasion once took place.

For now, while the set last, nobody noticed if you were black or white.

Music unites. Especially when singers stick their mikes to the audience during the refrain “I try so hard, and get so far, in the end, it doesn’t even matter”.

Saigon vs Little Saigon

Burger King near the heart of Little Saigon, Westminster, CA is now closed.

Burger King at Tan Son Nhut Airport is now opened.

Just one of the many striking contrasts e.g. scooters vs wheels nation.

Skin coffee vs alley coffee, homeless folks vs lottery-ticket sellers.

On and on. People in Saigon have a vague notion of what their fellow countrymen are doing in Little Saigon. They saw it on Music Video.

They heard it second-hand via tourists (often consisted of inflated tales of infidelity or gender role reversal). Entertainers have found inspiration and served as in-betweeners.

Instead of setting city folks against country folks, contemporary comedy focuses on overseas Vietnamese (Viet Kieu)  searching for suitable wives. Sometimes, with the help of  a matchmaker (equivalent of head hunter in the working world).

The cultural gap widens when the prospective groom is from Taiwan or Korea.

But it also exists with Viet Kieu, who grew up in N America or Europe.

He could use the chopsticks, speak a few lines of greeting “Chao Bac”, but he also works out at the gym and drinks Corona instead of Ken (Heineken).

If he chooses Mexican foods over Vietnamese, he definitely is from Little Saigon, and not Saigon.

Saigon now has cappuccino and espresso bars, while Little Saigon just wants to offer Cafe Sua Da and Rau Muong.

Someday, the twain shall meet at Starbucks.

For now, both like AE brand (XS size) and everyone loves Hollister.

California Dreaming still.

The strength of Little Saigon lies in its flexibility and fluidity (to and fro both worlds), while Saigon itself, is rooted in colonial French and rich history of openness and optimism.

One doesn’t spend much on room and board in Saigon. Just put on something hip, and hit the town.

Again, if they were to order Mexican, you can tell they are from Little Saigon.

Go Chipotle and Corona.

Saigon alley

I left W Palm Beach where some called “paradise” for Saigon alley.

Going from beach to bunker, I got a bump up in  the Happiness index.

Costa Rica for example has led this chart for quite sometime.

Vietnam, according to latest survey, ranked behind Costa Rica. In fact, having moved up on the Happiness  Index, it is de-listed from Singaporean Hardship Index (expat executives are no longer granted extra compensation for coming to work here).

Saigon got seasonal fruits, sea foods and sunshine.

Its nearest beach, Vung Tau, is quite crowded over the big holidays.

People in the alley know one another. They hang out at the corner coffee and eat the same meal.

District 1 and its alleys are geared for backpackers and tourists.

I had ended up first at the outer skirt then moved closer to city ‘s center.

Landlords are nice and respectful.

Neighbors are caring. Strangers leave you alone, although gossip behind your back.

Once in a while, a white-face is seen on scooters, with helmet and all.

A Viet Kieu from Australia told me after more than two decades, he could barely crack the culture code.

One dollar is still equal roughly 20,000 VND.

But aside from that, nothing seems easy. I miss the cinemas. Those old facilities have been turned into textile factory, print shop or opera school.

Valuable real estate.

Live shows here could be heard from the street. Some even stood on their scooters to take a peak (coi cop).

Karaoke houses still make money.

On summer nights, lovers  just ride around for ventilation .

They do that year-round, since it’s hot, flat and crowded here.

Neighbors would ask me to come over for tea.

Children run around, and young parents struggle to contain them.

Raising a family on two-wheelers is of course hard.

Worker bees know they have to show up on time, rain or shine.

Wages barely cover the essentials.

So coffee, coffee and occasional “ken” (Heineken) is a treat.

Birthday celebrations have become more prevalent. This is to show Vietnam’s transition from the old (memorial for the dead -a collectivistic and clanish event) to the new (futuristic and individual-oriented occasion).

Young students are catching on with overseas peers, at least in appearance (T-shirt and jeans).

IT workers at software parks also try to catch up : LTE, 4-G and IPV6.

The best about Vietnam is that it rides on two horses: the venerable and heroic tradition ; and the insatiable desire to integrate globally.

No where explains this better than Saigon’s latest tourism expo.

It’s held in the city’s water park, to show case local cuisine and at the same time, destination exotic.

Individual cubicle at work blends perfectly with shared rice cooker.

Saigon, the city, and its alleys, home to many extended families.

Pax Saigonese. It’s peace time, so don’t send war journalists here.

Just move about, and enjoy the counter-intuitive trends that co-exist.

Saigon alley, my home for half a year. Paradise or purgatory? Hardship or Happiness? Or just Peace inside out.

This Bud’s for Saigonese

The Bud‘s Bus is here. Clumsily made its turn around tight street corners, where beer drinkers sat on baby-size stools, surrounding a hot-pot or sea food grill.

I saw the Budweiser chariot and horses at the  Super Bowl in Miami.

And now, the brand appears here on the opposite side of the world.

Still, someone in International Marketing needs to take context into their planning.

Can’t go around the tight streets of Saigon with a moving billboard which can’t turn the corner.

Things have to be nimble and the look has to “fit”, like KFC on-wheels (scooters).

Now, that takes experience (KFC happened to buy all the Chicken Town outlets for instant dominance).

I must admit, the Bud girls tried hard. They helped out the servers at their assigned restaurants, on par with Hennessy PR girls, who dressed up as if the were beauty contestants.

Bud is playing catch up, before another Japanese brand, locally brewed, begins to make its entrance.

It’ s hot here. And beers have become the liquid of choice. Either that, or you get ENSURE as hospital-visit gifts.

Vietnamese male don’t like to go anywhere near milk, except when it’s mixed in their iced coffee milk.

I notice two beverages that dominate here, and have been for a while: iced coffee milk and Heineken.

One to put you to sleep and the other to wake you up.

And the cycle has never ended, at least for the past decade or even longer. The spirits business promises higher margin than food, which in the Vietnamese slang, “moi”, i.e. appertizers add-ons, translated into higher bill, which requires drinkers to work harder, thus, more stress to be released….)

It’s the loop, very much like the loop in the States, except in the States,

people live to work  (to pay for their expenses, largely bank-own housing.) Here, at least in the South, people work to live, as observed by one Vietnamese now lives overseas. Knowing this, Budweiser should

take a page from KFC play book: beer on wheels, and not huge trucks that can barely negotiate the turn.

Saigon open-air concert

Local singers here command higher caches seven nights a week by bar hopping. But occasionally, like last night, they showed up at an open-air concert to entertain the mass. Sandwiched between numbers were the Viet-Kieu comedian couple as special guests. They talked about how the US economy barely stayed out of the red. And of course, they picked on middle-aged men and women who opted for cosmetic surgery yet were so stingy that they overdid (cup size for instance) it to save money.

I took it all in.  I noted that years ago, I was among the mass of young people at an outdoor concert as well. Back then, you heard Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and the Doobie Brothers‘ ‘”We are American Band”. We were all-hair!

The CBC band was one of the highlights then. I heard them again in Houston a few years back. They were still playing at their own club but only on weekends. The once-skinny sisters/singers in the band are now in their late fifties.

Still, they shined in some of the French songs (Tous les garcons de mon age se promene dans la rue). And I am sure, their comedian counterparts are also doing what they must: traveling the distance in search of an audience.

The occasional breeze was quite refreshing, as rare as those few moments audience and singers feel connected.

What struck me was whatever the economic condition and whatever the political climate, people manage to survive, to love and be loved and try to make sense of what’s going on around them.  Here in Saigon, due to the weather, people interpret shared events over a Heineken. And whether the economy is up or down, Heineken is always up, in sales and branding, bottles or cans.

I was just glad I was among the mass. It took some traveling and resettling before I could be counted as one of them. One of us.