Tag: Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnamize the franchise

Carl Jr, Starbucks, Hard Rock Cafe, KFC, BK, MacDonald, Circle K, Domino, Pizza Hut.

The age of franchise bull run.

When I said I had been to 40+ cities in N America, I actually meant, I have been to only one. The one with MacDonald, Starbucks, Walmart, Target etc…

You got the idea.

The funny thing was, per my  job, I had to zero in Chinese and Vietnamese niche markets in those cities.

And within these niches, I ran into Lee Sandwiches, Tung Ki noodles, Pho Hoa,  Hoa Phat Money Transfer, Le money transfer etc…

Can’t seem to find the authentically local flavor (maybe in New Orleans and Biloxi).

HCMC and Hanoi will soon be filled with similar landmarks, once the invasion of franchise outlets saturated those two engines of growth.

For now, it’s novelty to sit in a new establishment, place your order and self-serve your drinks (the age of prosumerism).

I ordered an iced coffee milk this morning at a local MacDonald. What I got was iced milk. And the cookie I ordered, I had to pay three times for it

(because the system doesn’t allow for customer to buy just one).

So, welcome to supply chain, branding and upselling.

And good luck with getting customer service at those places.

Indeed, one can go through life, at least here in the States, for a month without ever getting any help at all, over the phone or the counter.

See my other blog on “machine and me”.

It gets to be lonely. Hence the blog.

I hope Vietnam doesn’t get that way, at least, not yet until I can find a Carl Jr at every corner, right next to the Starbucks.

Third place, third screen, third world

Known as the third place (away from home and work), Starbucks did not stop after opening up in Forbidden City, China.

It has just opened for business in Vietnam (where the I-phone, our third screen – after TV and desktop – recently made a stirring appearance).

Vietnam young consumer segment and older generations with French-cafe habit are low-hanging fruit.

It will have to acquire prime real estate and make an inroad into tourist centers, or M&A with existing Viet-Thai International who operates Highland coffee chain.

Either way, the WiFi Third Place is here in once Third World., Cheryl Crow‘ s pipe-in music (if it makes you happy, and why the hell are you so sad).  After all, Hard Rock cafe has beaten Starbucks to the punch.  Now the hard part is how to translate those “tall ice latte” into Vietnamese.

Those slim bodies are ready to put on some weight.  Soon, location-based promotion will pop up on those I-phones, showing tourists where to get a foamy caffeine fix. It’s no longer Third World but where ever there is a Third Place with Third Screen, that’s home.

No need for coded song (White Christmas) to launch an evacuation. Just stay put for the next Cheryl Crow’s spin on an old Carpenter’s song “While life goes on around him everywhere he’s playing solitaire”. Third Place, third screen, anywhere.

Things we wish we could take with us

When at Indian Town Gap in 1975, I was busy helping out at the Bureau of Child Welfare so time passed rather quickly.

But not for my fellow countrymen. Many sat there worried: how were they going to make it in America, that winter was coming.

Many hurried weddings took place at the camp chapel.  People were busy matching up sponsors and foster children.

For me, I was glad I could earn a few bucks by being a translator. And spent them all on cassette tapes.

We recorded music (one machine would play, the other recorded, in the barrack’s bathroom).

“Lovin you” was number 1 on the Hit Parade that year. And ironically, someone was playing “Band On the Run”.

We left unfinished youth: time spent at cafe, listening to Lobo‘s number 1 hit “You and Me and the dog named Boo”.

Or felt so spiritual with “My Sweet Lord” .

If you want to “break in” to the Vietnamese market, best way is to figure out your niche, then play those music subliminally.

Mix in some French songs, because the Romantic era never left Vietnam, especially Hanoi. In fact, time seems to freeze there.

You can still see a Citroen on a good evening.

Back to my odyssey. So when I got to Penn State, I immediately made friends and we threw a party.

It’s one of those times when you could spot someone Vietnamese on a cold Harrisburg night, and he would let you sleep on the floor.

And never forgot the hospitality of people of the same human condition. And I realize now the things I wanted then to take with me: my dreams, my expressions of those dreams, and the heritage I left. No wonder song writers wrote about Hanoi after the evacuation of

1954, and Saigon, 1975. Those places are symbols of one’s lost times, unrealized dreams and definitely, curators of both wise and foolish choices.

To tourists , these cities are just crowded network of concrete dividers, and  trees are few. Tourists would place Hanoi, Hue and HCMC against a back drop of 100 places to see before they died. But little do they know, they have their own” Hanoi” and “Saigon” too. They just didn’t care to acknowledge, until the 11th hour.  No wonder I can identify with Cinema Paradiso. The Italian have a lot in common with the Vietnamese. We both like Sophia Loren.  We know what’s nostalgia is and do not feel ashamed to admit it.

What’s wrong with burning incense and feeling reconnect with loved ones, since they might not be living, but the relationships are very much alive. In fact, one loves one’s parents more when they are gone because absence makes the heart grow fonder. ” I love you too much to ever start liking you, so don’t expect me to be your friend”. Lobo knows how to say it, in a very Asian way. No wonder he can still have some Asian fans, late in his career.

Clarity begins at home

April 27th Newshour  featured Viet entrepreneurs coming back to Vietnam :

a. to set up shop

b. start an NGO and

c. work  for the Clinton’s Initiatives.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june10/vietnam_04-27.html

We found in it our own Victor Luu (Software), Andrew Lam (writer), a coffee-house artist and an NGO dedicate.

The piece provided balanced perspectives  to the extent that there is a conspicuous absence of  white folks.

It’s as if Spike Lee were filming Denzel Washington in South Central during the LA riot.

You can change “China” for every “Vietnam” word that appears, and the segment still holds (except for the historical film about 1975) i.e. poverty reduction, rural and urban uneven development pace etc…

Victor was careful to stay out of politics. He runs a tight shop in HCMC which has just been through the ripple effect of this Recession.

Point taken: lots of brain gain (including PhD trained from the former Soviet bloc).

The other point made in a Hanoi interview was that the younger generation Viet Kieu are now discovering more of Vietnam (thanks to reunification) than their parents, who had stayed mostly in and around Saigon during the war.

The final episode addressed women trafficking prevention: don’t speak to strangers.

Clarity begins at home.

Andrew Lam, however, noticed a “spiritual” vacuum, which according to him, did help Vietnam withstand successive invasions by the Chinese, the French and the Americans.

He forgot to mention that there had competed forces trying to fill that vacuum, especially since the time of Vietnam joining WTO.

(see my other blog on “Luxury brand beachhead Vietnam”).

The vacuum, or social-economic gap, is widened as more students graduated without a job.

Vietnam is heading right for a trap (Middle-Income Trap), with mismatched talent-opportunity pairing.

Its advantage: young workforce. To lift the economy, that gap of job market and consumer market needs to be bridged.

Then we will see another Singapore or Taiwan right here in Vietnam.

PBS I am sure has more stories than it could fit in one hour: Goldman Sachs testimonies in Congress, Financial regulation proposal, Greece pulling the Dow down,

Catholic church crisis and apology etc..

So I am grateful to see an under-covered story like this one get air time. Someday, maybe the Nguyen foundation will underwrite a small part of the Newshour, just like the Carnegie Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation etc.. You’ll never know. Clarity begins right here at home, in this case, the United States, our home away from home.

 

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.

 

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.

 

cyclo in the time of google

By now, you can still see a few weather-beaten cyclos around albeit restricted to tourist quarters.

I still remember the sound of horse carriage in the streets of  old Saigon.

My kid will be lucky if she knows what a cyclo is.

She knows Google though.

Paperless and painless search. Now with semantic search.

My profile, age in particular, triggers online ads on retirement funds.

Each day, we clear out trash in our home office and online.

Meanwhile, cyclo guys paddle along, knowing that their trade is joining the ranks of old scribes, horse shoe makers and Kodak shops. And the cinema is about to close its curtain. My uncle’s cinema is now a storage.

I came back fully related to the character in Cinema Paradiso,  with nostalgia.

The underlining theme is still there: where is that old blind film projectionist/mentor ? Mine is a guitarist who has recently been out of work.

We both need a gig. Maybe it will work out for him since he has upgraded his play list on an Ipad. But not for the cyclo guy.

Perhaps the best they can hope for are a few passengers per day, hauling bulky merchandise. Cyclo and modern supermarkets don’t go well together. Instead, it is now relegated to being a ride to a colonial past: white folks and colored coolies, on a leisurely ride along smoke-filled streets packed with motorcycles made in China. Future shock has moved on to its Third Stage (Muscle, machine and Mind), from cyclo to moto-cycle and onto Google. People are making money by a click of the mouse, and not by paddling those three-wheelers, using 21st-century skill set and not primitive strands of muscle.

No turning back, or you will turn into salt. Gosh, I miss the sound of horse carriage at Ben Thanh market. I miss being skinny , vulnerable and trusting. Faith that can move mountain. That some day, I will see face to face, although meantime, only through a mirror darkly.

Wisdom comes from mistakes, not missed opportunities.

I’d rather tried and failed than failed to try.

Tell that to the cyclo guy, who ordered two glasses of sugar-cane juice, while I could barely gulp down one. All I did was googling, while he was cycling. Muscle man in the age of Machine.

 

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.

 

Luxury brands beach-heading VN

It started with Gucci and LV. More will be coming to test the warers, from McDonald to KFC , from Starbucks to Burger King.   Everybody is into location, location, location. I look at the city as if it were a big fairground, where interested parties are staking out their prime real estate. Flag and flip.

Both AE and Abercrombie are selling well among the youth segment (XS size).

And Hollister also (if they only knew what cow country the place was in No Cal).

Floating dinners on the Saigon River facing an Japanese alley.

In the backpacker’s section,  Lonely Planet guides are sold and read like bibles: “don’t drink from tab water”, “make sure you visit the Cu Chi Tunnel” etc..

And “The Sorrow of War” by Bao Ninh, available as cigarettes sold in open boxes.

Westerners love Vietnam. It presents a challenge to their categorical living: Vietnam doesn’t fit neatly into their frame of reference. Now with Gucci and LV facing Hotel Caravelle, and Sheraton/Hyatt, with beggars and lottery peddlers lounging out front, the scene begs for an asterisk (*) in an otherwise neatly classified tour. I saw a tourist almost tripped over an uneven pavement.

You want to tour Vietnam, you ‘d better drop your preconception and expectation. Tourists can ride cyclo tour or Cu Chi tour, peddling and crawling around, but  you will come away never forgetting those indelible smiles:, crooked teeth but definitely no Mona Lisa‘s . Post-war hardship has given birth to an insatiable demands for goods.  Luxury brands are welcome! And coming they are.

body building in Saigon

I have paid my first-month membership and come back for seven days straight.

The place is tiny.  I must have timed it badly: my body peak performance coincides with peak-time traffic which weaves through the front door (bikes found their short cut artery in an alley).

So I lift while listening to Michael Jackson’s CD. I feel proud, to be among muscle men, although if you get at the truth, I am more like Charlie Chaplin at the swimming pool (who pretends to get water out of his ears, while actually stays out of the pool altogether).

So here I am, in a city of roughly 10 million. People try to get home by bikes or buses. A bike front ended a Hyundai at an intersection this morning. People exchanged some unpleasantries, and went on their way. No wasted time. Lean city. Lean people.

Back to my muscle men. The owner put up whatever pictures and posters he can get his hands on: his own when winning medals, body muscle tissues poster straight from medical book and half-naked lady (but tasteful art).

He said if I wished, he could open the door at 3AM for me.  I said it would be more likely 3PM.

When your body produces endorphin, you feel less of a need for caffeine or nicotine.  I feel refreshed now, after two weeks of reverse culture shock.

The dust, the noise and the heat. There is tension in next door Thailand and earthquakes in Japan and Indonesia. China is building a huge project in the Mekong River, which might threaten the natural down-hill flow of SEA including VN.

The bodies and muscles here will need a lot of strength and endurance to withstand all that is throwing at them. And mine in particular, will need even more since I have used to working out in an A/C gym. Now,  I learn how to sweat it out among others in this steam-bath gym. I need to pick up on that: no wasted body fat, or any fat anywhere in the city of millions. Lean bodies in motion.  No wonder westerners found Saigon a great place to shred a few pounds, with or without joining a gym.