Good morning from Saigon!

Click this link to see pictures from this post.

Four and a half weeks in Vietnam already and boy oh boy, what a change.  It took me over a week to get over the 14 hour difference, so now I can start sorting things into business, cultural shock, weather shock and other buckets.  So here come my first impressions from first 30 days of being here.

I arrived to Ho Chi Ming City late Friday and got picked up by a driver that works for the lady that rents an apartment to me.  The apartment is located right on the Saigon river, is large and bright and has nice river views from my 12th floor.  It is a strange feeling to be in a completely normal modern apartment with AC in the middle of a country where an average wage is 200US per month.  Of course I now know that my apartment location is good for going to work with only a 30 minute ride in a company car, but it is far from any expat life, restaurants and shopping.  As originally planned, I will try to move to another for October to be able to start making some connections. 

Our office is interestingly located in District 12, just like the home of Catness from the Hunger Games.  In general Vietnam seems to have some interesting similarities to the society in the Hunger Games series: there are very rich and very poor districts, all supporting the elite few.

My first memorable experiences

·         Becoming a multi-millionaire at the age of 40! I exchanged 300 € at the airport and got 7,700,000 Vietnamese Dong!  Definitely need a bigger wallet!

·         Went to a supermarket for the first time.  Was able to easily identify apples, Pringles, coke, ritz crackers.  Everything else was in Vietnamese and packaging nothing alike to what we know.  So after some investigation I found some yogurt, cookies, milk from New Zealand and even some extremely expensive edam and gouda cheese.  Here I relieved myself of 1.3 million Dong at the cash register.  Basically: supermarkets are very much geared to the rich and the expats and the prices resemble those in Spain.

• I was very proud of myself when in the regular market I found and bought a metal coffee filter that everyone here uses.  Fact: Vietnam is the second largest coffee producer in the world after Brazil, threatening to go number 1.  After, I bought best coffee brand in the store (Trung Nguyen Coffee) and the first Sunday  I was stoked to make myself the first cup of jo Vietnam style.  I got my condensed milk prepared (which they use here as cream and sugar in one) and started the drip.  What a huge disappointment!  When I opened the pack of the ground coffee of the best brand in Vietnam, it smelled somewhat strange, with hint of hazelnut or some other flavor, and it tasted nothing like a normal coffee.  Then I find out that Vietnam produces a lot of coffee but the way they roast it is completely different from Europe.  They add some oil and other additives which makes it taste strange (it is similar to Louisiana chicory coffee).  So for now the closest I got at home is a German Tchibo instant.  I also learned that I can get "normal" coffee in many coffee shops downtown that do espresso from Italian roast.  Now I am on a quest to find my own...  Believe it or not, they have a Nespresso store in town and a number of Startbucks stores.

·         You know the old saying "slow road to china"?  Well, I have finally experienced this first hand!  Just imagine that it is very normal on a highway to go about 33 km in 1 hour!  Or 200 km in 5!  That is a normal thing here, due to congestion, scooters and really really bad driving.  I am just surprised there aren't more accidents.  Traffic is insane! I thought Italians were crazy and Spanish were bad, this is infinitely more insane!  The city is about 10 million and everybody drives a scooter (reportedly 5 million scooters here), because the cars are reserved for the very rich and cost 3 times the price in Europe due to government tax.  Just imagine your Toyota 4 runner costing you 100k!  The streets are crowded with traffic jams, there are barely any traffic lights so it is a free for all.  You will see every kind of thing carried on a scooter, from building materials to 10 bottles of office cooler water to huge bags of rice.  While helmets are obligatory for those over 9 years of age, the little ones are carried on those bikes with no helmets, many times asleep.  You will see entire families on one: parents with 2 children or 5 kids on one!  Essentially, Vietnam is a great testing facility for motorbikes (aka scooters) as they undergo extreme trials on a daily basis. Parking a scooter is an exact science as every establishment has security guards that will look after your bike for a nominal fee, otherwise it will get stolen.  Elsewhere in the city and the country there are some new roads and highways which we used over the weekends.  While the toll highways are good, driving is no better.  A Canadian would go mad here: all the slow traffic is in the left lane and you go passing them on the right.  Add to this 120km/hr speed max, and situation is not at all optimal for safety.  Breaks, tires and horns bust be the biggest sellers in this country.  All this said, I already got a scooter, as without one living in Saigon is impossible.   Now trying to get a licence.  Maybe should have done this the other way around…. Oh well…

·         People seem very nice here, they are very polite, still quite traditional but it is changing.  Many young people coming to Saigon to find work and better life, so easy to see lots of western influence.  So far my interactions have been limited to the office, and here staff seem normal, hard working, with their own issues and concerns.  Privacy seems to be not a concept they embrace much: they will ask very direct questions about family, marital status, age, etc.  I am sure I will get more insights later.  Starting to meet some business people in Saigon, so networking scene in this city is very promising.

·         Weather here is hot all the time and humid.  Slowly getting used to it but being out for extended periods of time is hard, so a coffee shop with AC is a good escape.  Summer is the rainy season and winter is dry, but the temperature in winter is still in the high 20s, which I think is quite pleasant.  Good time to visit Vietnam for those thinking about it.

·         Ho Chi Minh City is a fast growing city.  The downtown is almost all new, full of tall buildings and a few skyscrapers.  Aside from the famous reunification palace, Note Dame Cathedral and French central post office (designed by Eiffel company, same guy that stood up the Eiffel tower in Paris), the downtown looks fairly modern, clean and an epitome of what this country fast becoming.  All the luxury brands are here (Louis Vuitton, Dior, etc) along with many US fast food chains like KFC, McDonald's, Dunkin Donuts, while the statue of Uncle Ho (Vietnam 's liberation hero Ho Chi Minh) proudly stands overseeing the main downtown plaza being invaded by the capitalist promise of tomorrow.  There are entire new districts being built, skyscraper apartment buildings for luxury living, sky train and metro stations to connect the city.  The city and the country are on the move where the luxury and the poverty coexist in a dynamic, almost symbiotic way, and there is no stopping the progress.  Soon this city will resemble many other large cities with its cleaned up waterfront, more green spaces, more restored monuments.  Exciting to be here during the metamorphosis.

·         Communism is still well and alive in Vietnam.  It is a Socialist country with its red flag with a gold star in the middle.  You see much propaganda art, banners and flags, all reminding me of my childhood.  In fact this is the closest I have gotten to time travel, going back 30 years.  In some ways I think I even understand some of the people dynamics here, because individualism is still an evolving concept.  But as with any totalitarian regime, there are many aspects that are common in a transitional economy.  You can guess what they are.

·         Pollution and garbage is a big issue.  There is no recycling.  People litter and don't seem to care, as they have more pressing needs.  Government has to pick up after them.  Again, much hope for the future and I feel the next few years will start introducing these changes.

·         Restaurants and food are plenty in Vietnam, from cheap cheap street vendors to fast food to qreat restaurants that are as expensive as in Canada.  Wine, given it is an import, is expensive, comparable to Canada, but there is some good selection if you look.  Beer is cheap if you drink local.  Vietnamese food seems very varied and appears very healthy, with lots of rice, herbs, vegetables, seafood and a bit of meat.  Dairy barely exists and meat is a luxury, so fish, rice and veggie are the fare.  Everyone says Vietnamese food is healthy and it looks and tastes that way, but I do really wonder about the production of it, as I am sure the quality standards for chemical treatment controls are nonexistent or low.  Despite my thoughts, I have tried some tasty soups, their famous fish and shrimp sauce, rice rolls, fish and rice: all wholesome, tasty and plenty.  With a beer or ice tea to accompany, it is not a hard thing to get used to.  And for those times when I have a steak craving, I can always go to El Gaucho Argentinian restaurant downtown to scarf down a 50$ US steak.  Good excuse when an American client comes to visit.  One more thing: in many restaurants when you sit down, girls show up wearing beer brands, trying to convince you to buy their brand.  We like Tiger girls best; they also have Saporo, Heineken, Saigon, etc.  I order Saporo or Saigon as I am not a massive fan of Tiger.

·         Language is interesting: I have been asking my driver to teach me a few things so I have about a 40 word vocabulary and can ask for the bill at the restaurant.  The hardest part about it is pronunciation, given that same word can have multiple meetings based on how you say it.  Will let you know how my 5th language progresses.  So far so good, and staff have been impressed me making an attempt at the official gala dinner.  They politely laughed.

Other adventures during my 4 weeks here included a company staff trip to a beach town of Vung Tau.  A nice town that is becoming a big beach tourism destination.  Water cleanliness and overall pollution still an issue, but the town is making strides to improve.  Saw a beautiful Pagoda and 5 Chinese temples, one of which was dedicated to a whale!

Then we did a trip to Can Tho, 4 hours away from Saigon, to visit our 2nd office location.  We were taken at 6am by boat to see a traditional floating (boat) market.  A very traditional way of buying wholesale fruits and vegetables. 

We had coconut water, sticky rice with banana and pineapple for breakfast there.  For those technically inclined, the engines on these boats are mostly car engines with direct drive shaft with a prop at the end that gets dipped into the water.  It is like taking a weed eater, attaching a prop at the end and dipping into the water.  What a great idea!

War museum was one of the most impacting experiences so far.  It is a very graphic exposition of the Vietnam war against the US, with various artifacts and photographs.  While I read about the war before coming here, the stats, the pictures and the stories are truly shocking.  Especially the Agent Orange use to defoliate the jungles and the catastrophic effects it had on the country.  And then the killing of civilian populations that went completely unchecked.  While not for the faint of heart, it is something everyone should see and know that humans are still very much capable of doing the most atrocious things to one another.  And then I wondered after seeing this, how a nation of Vietnam had the strength and the humanity to forgive the aggressors and move on.  Today there seems to be no animosity towards the US and the tourists, as long as they come in peace and with respect.

So my first four weeks have been quite full of sensory input, not to mention a new workplace and all the issues that come with that.  Step by step I am adjusting to my new circumstance and feeling privileged to be able to experience this new Land in all its business and glory.  Next week going to Switzerland for business meetings for a week, so will make-up for my cheese and schnitzel cravings.