Savoring Boudain's "Lunch Lady" noodle soup

Travel is a passion of mine. It is for a lot of people.

Once in Jakarta as a young businessman, I moved out of my five-star hotel for a weekend, just to stay with back packers in another part of town. That, however, was a long time ago. Yet, with such perspective in mind, let me share a few personal experiences from Vietnam during my recent visits there.

• I absolutely love Vietnamese food. I’m addicted to the intense flavors from the tropical herbs and spices. I adore the fresh vegetables and appreciate the small portions of food. One of my favorite meals was from Anthony Boudain’s recommended “lunch lady”. Finding her was difficult, but the $0.75 bowl of noodles with pork and solidified blood was well worth the search effort.
• There are also great mainstream Vietnamese restaurants. One of my favorites is Quan An Ngon, where various vendors cook different regional foods, while as a customer you can order any combination of dishes from your table. I particularly enjoyed the snails in coconut curry and the shrimp on a sugar cane with rice paper.
• While taxi’s are cheap, the fastest way to get around is to ride on a back of a scooter. It’s exhilarating to be maneuvered around the congested streets on a scooter. But be warned, this is not for the faint of heart.
• Talking to locals whether they want me to or not is always fun.  Once, a street vendor desperately tried to avoid eye contact as I walked up and ordered a “banh mi” (a Vietnamese sandwich). We kept motioning to each other until I realized that she wanted me to choose a type of sandwich. Eventually, I pointed to a chunk of unfamiliar meat. After getting my sandwich, I gave her a 100,000 vnd bill (around $5.50), causing yet another adventure for her. She went to three different places to find enough change. When we finally completed the exchange, she  gave me her first smile — a beautiful smile — obviously relieved that we were done. I want to go back another time when my Vietnamese is improved to see how I can make her smile then.
• I like watching the economy behind the economy. There are street vendors everywhere in Ho Chi Minh City. While the tourist and local upper class frequent the store fronts, many of the workers at the store fronts frequent the street vendors. I’ve watched with fascination elderly women conduct bustling business with one huge pot of soup delivering breakfast and lunches to the workers in the stores.
• One great moment for me was watching a little girl in clean but worn clothes, holding her grandmother’s hand with tenderness and steeled determination, crossing a crazy roundabout street of Ho Chi Minh.
• Given that extended families live together in small houses or rooms, young couples don’t have many places for privacy. So, near the Saigon River, under bridges, I unwittingly witnessed many young couples cuddling and kissing on parked scooters. They seemed quite dexterous on those little two-wheelers.
• One of the my favorite things about Vietnam was getting “the treatment”. For me, this was a pampering session by a few young ladies that included a head and face massage, a shave, a facial, a neck rub and sometimes a manicure or a pedicure.  Why ever wash your own hair or even shave yourself when the whole experience runs less than $10?

To be fair, a few things that bothered me.

• Ho Chi Minh is not a good walking city. The sidewalks are over run by vendors or scooters, and there is no subway system.
• There is a lack of any ethnic diversity, but this may be an unfair complaint given that Vietnam is a developing country, and Ho Chi Minh not yet cosmopolitan.
• Music is too loud in clubs, and they over-play Akon’s “Right now, (Na Na Na)“. There’s no way of getting that song out of your head once you’ve heard it 20 times at an ear-piercing volume.

Lift9 is building part of its social media research center in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam to support our efforts here in the states. We believe that in order to make much of the social media data relevant and useful, extensive research needs to be a big part of the solution.

While initially building the research team in Vietnam, I was excited about the eventual competitive advantage that was being created. Later during the process, however, I became just as excited about the human element of providing employment and opportunities to our new recruits from this foreign land.

I was impressed with many of the candidates’ English skills and willingness to interview in a foreign language. They asked critical questions and each sold him/herself in different and interesting ways. The interview process was difficult, with language and cultural barriers among other challenges. It, however, was an extremely rewarding process, as we bonded with those who joined our team. Breaking down the additional barriers makes the eventual relationship that much sweeter.

Moving forward, we will continue to have barriers to overcome. For one thing, the employment practice in Vietnam is to have sequential one-year employment contracts with an initial two-month probationary period. This creates a business environment of higher potential turnover, as opposed to the life-time employment culture during the “developmental eras” in Japan and Korea.

Yet, we’re excited to overcome these barriers. We plan on providing a nurturing, creative and challenging work environment for our Vietnamese staff. They are valuable contributors to our overall solution, as well as human beings deserving of respect and capable leadership from us.

You know, this is actually a lot of fun.

Ho Chi Minh City traffic

I hold on tightly behind my brother as he deftly maneuvers his scooter through the seemingly chaotic traffic of Ho Chi Minh City.

At first, watching hordes of cars and scooters sharing the streets and avoiding each other without apparent defined rules can be both astonishing and terrifying. But from the back seat of Paul’s scooter, I soon begin to understand certain rules and reasoning behind the commuters’ actions. The traffic, as it turns out, moves along rather well, despite the congestion of the city.

Doing business in Vietnam works in similar ways. The rules and expectations are different than in the US. People seem to be coming at you from all directions, but then a pattern starts to develop.

Vietnam is a developing country. Its people have a relatively high education level.  The country also has a disproportionally high number of young people under the age of 30 compared to developed countries. The government is very stable. Compared to its Southeast Asian neighbors, I’ve also noticed that the Vietnamese culture has more elements of the Chinese work ethic like those in the Far East countries.

In addition, Vietnam is a handsome country, with a long, beautiful coastline. Vietnamese food is fabulous, gaining popularity throughout the world. With a population of around 82 million, Vietnam could someday become an economic pillar in Southeast Asia.

For now, though, Vietnam remains a developing economy, and the labor extremely cheap. Get a haircut, and you can have one person cutting your hair, while two others will manicure your finger nails. I played golf, and frustrated with a bunker shot, I raked my own mess. My caddy (and you have to have a caddy) thanked me profusely, embarrassed that she didn’t move fast enough to take the rake away from me. People are everywhere to serve you. It can be humbling, yet charming.

For the right type of business idea, Vietnam represents tremendous opportunities. Some entrepreneurs have already built technical development teams here to service the West’s appetite for off-shoring those components. International marketing and research firms have established operations here to help foreign brands move into the Vietnamese market. To support new innovations, venture funds are now being established here with both foreign and local money.

Nonetheless, many more foreign ventures will fail here than succeed. It is not easy to manuever through the local business and cultural environment. The risk remains extremely high. Like Paul steering us through the traffic, any company that has a fighting chance of success here needs the guidance and support of someone(s) who already understands the business climate and culture in Vietnam.

Having lived and worked in Europe and Asia, I was comfortable with either or both. As fate would have it, I’m heading back to Asia and couldn’t be happier about it.  If the business plan is well executed, we’ll be in Europe soon enough. Discussions are already under way.

For now, I’m excited about coming back to Asia. It’s so different here than the US, and that’s a good thing. I get to be reminded about a whole different point of view, and that’s invigorating. People are capable of such diverse approaches to life. What a privilege to have chances to witness these differences.

On our plane ride, my colleague Ed Kim and I realized that we both brought Vietnamese phrase and custom books. Mine, thanks to my niece Aileen who lives part-time in Vietnam.

Look, we know even just being able to say courteous Vietnamese phrases will require a lot of time and effort. The joy, however, will be in trying. That attitude will change everything forward about our experiences in Vietnam regardless of how much Vietnamese we eventually learn.

Yes, we are going to Vietnam with a compelling business plan, but what a shame if we came back not having soaked in some of the local culture as well. I’m determined not to let that happen.

Right now, during a four-hour layover at Taipei Airport, I saw a person who looked curiously at me. I smiled as warmly as possible looking straight into that person’s eyes. She ended up helping us get into a wonderful Airport business center that has made the layover enjoyable and productive. So, in many ways, we are so much alike as we are different.

We want to keep smiling at locals with an attitude of professionalism, empathy and respect throughout our business ventures in Asia.

Joe is a single 30-year-old Korean-American, born in Vancouver, WA and never lived outside of Washington state.  He gets teased sometimes for being a banana, an endearing (hum-hum) term for his Asian appearance but Americanized attitude and ways.  

Joe is a man about town in Seattle.  He is known to frequent Belltown establishments in the weekend and has an extensive network of friends who all enjoy time together.  So, what could Southeast Asia possibly offer Joe?

“People are so much nicer (in Thailand),” he said.  ”It’s the land of smiles.”  Yes, true, the Thai are known as very hospitable people with warm dispositions.  The Buddhist culture shines there.  But it seems that Joe, the banana, would have some more interesting insights; after all, he’s not just your average “Joe, the Plummer”.

“Well, there seemed to be a lot more women (than men),” he said.  Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.  He lowered his voice a tad, as if letting you in on a secret, “They were a lot hotter than i expected too.”  Really?

Lucky for Joe, Korean pop culture is pretty hot in Southeast Asia and many admired his boyish Korean looks. His friend whom he was visiting, played that up as well, telling the locals that Joe was indeed a Korean actor.  Hum, I wonder how they got past the fact that Joe doesn’t really speak Korean at all.

it was obvious that the trip has had a profound impact on Joe.  He speaks of possibly returning and living in Thailand for some time.  There, he saw elephants in the streets, snake shows and constant friendly smiling faces.  Everything was hot: the weather, the food, the night clubs and the women.  He saw the stark contrast between the ultra modern and the old that are always evident in developing countries like Thailand.  

Now, with the economic downturn in the States and the relatively lower cost of living in Southeast Asia, the temptation to move could be great for a growing number of Americans.  Additionally, when the economy returns to steady growth, more and more of that growth will be generated from Asian economies.

Well, we can’t finish Joe’s story without some romantic elements.  In vietnam, he was introduced to a very nice local girl through some friends.  They met a couple of times with other friends, which was important since she didn’t speak English and he didn’t speak Vietnamese and needed interpreters.  When they would text each other, it was obvious to him that she was getting translations from Babelfish or some other online translator.  The sentences were cute but often difficult to decipher.  Nonetheless, he appreciated the effort.

Finally, when they decided to go out by themselves, he was surprised at how well they could actually communicate through facial expressions, hand gestures and body language.  They ended up in a club where he ordered a bottle of whiskey for the table.  The night flew by and they ended up drinking the bottle between them.  ”Oh, the girls there can seriously drink,” he added.

In the end, it was a date like he’s never had before — not at Amber, not at Venom, not anywhere.  It was a date full of animated conversations, but without many words.  It was a cool date.  

“I felt like i had a better connection even though we couldn’t verbally communicate,” he said.  ”I can’t explain it any other way.”

Joe in the middle

Today, he’s more fashionable, still in good shape, more outgoing, and some say he hasn’t aged a bit (maybe the reverse). What’s his secret fountain of youth? Maybe it’s hanging out with his 23-year-old son, Aaron. In fact, they started a business together in Vietnam called Met Vuong (means square meter), a real estate information company based in Ho Chi Minh City.

After graduating from Pepperdine University, Aaron asked his father to go to Asia with him to look for business opportunities. He knew that no one would otherwise take a 22-year-old seriously in that part of the world. Aaron had run a very successful internet company, PresalePassword.net, while studying at Pepperdine and knew he could continue that and peripheral ventures from anywhere in world.

Paul, at the time, was retired, and jumped at the chance of working with his son. First, they went to Shanghai in 2006. They soon discovered that Shanghai already was well on its way in economic development. “There’s enough money and people there that things were already being tried and funded,” Paul says.

As a former member of Asia-Pacific Business Advisory Council (a business advisory group for the governments of APEC), he visited Vietnam in November, 2006, and was coaxed by local business leaders to relocate there. They moved in mid-April, 2007 and had a difficult time finding appropriate housing: No central database of real estate listings; no internet listings. A-ha!

Paul knew that it would be critical to solicit influential real estate companies as partners. He not only signed up partners but allowed some of them to invest in Met Vuong, further solidifying the relationships. The coding on the site started in June with Aaron in charge of the website and its developers, while Paul worked his relationships and managed the business plan.

In September, the website launched with content from such partners as CB Richard Ellis and Savills, as well as a host of Vietnamese real estate companies. Next month, Met Vuong will launch its first magazine publication. Paul and Aaron believe this will be a vital component in becoming the de facto real estate information company in Vietnam. The business plan calls for both online and offline reach in the developing country.

So, what’s it like working with your 23-year-old son after having run a public company? Overall, it’s been great, says Paul, but “we’ve had to work out some issues.” Aaron had never worked in a corporate environment, but had become a successful entrepreneur at a very young age. So, he would challenge some business protocols, which weren’t necessarily bad, but time consuming to work out.

“Overall though, it’s been a great experience for both of us,” Paul emphasizes. For others contemplating doing the same thing, Paul advises to make sure NOT to lose perspective that family relationships are more important than the business itself. It’s easy to get too wrapped up on the business, but Paul’s main reason for moving to Vietnam was to have this experience with his son Aaron.

So Paul, ethnically Korean who grew up in the US, lives in Ho Chi Minh City with his son. They are very similar in many ways. They both have steely laser focus, extreme ambition, and a propensity for technology.

They also are very different. Paul’s more apt to be found at a night club in Ho Chi Minh City, while Aaron is more likely to be at home spending alone time with his finance, Aileen. Paul enjoys fine wine and designer jeans, while Aaron doesn’t drink and would rather be in shorts. Nonetheless, together this father-and-son team is making their mark – in Vietnam of all places.

Oh, so is it more difficult working with your brother or working with your son? “The son,” Paul says, “We’re way too much alike.” Right answer.