Vietnam as Nammers Know It

 We all respect Bác Hai.

 There was this moment during Tet, when I saw Bac Hai taking the time to fix his grandson’s shirt. And it’s not just any grandson, it’s his cháu đích tôn (eldest son of his eldest son). It was a tender moment, and child stood still, like the family ground beneath his feet – as if he knows, that he too bears the heritage of the Phams.

  Under that roof, titles and possessions do no matter. It’s each man and woman facing their own value, judged by and watched over by common ancestors, comforted by the warmth of home.

  Being the eldest, Bac Hai never turned his back on any body. There was this cousin who joined “xã hội đen” in the early 90s. He always had people after him, and through the darkest of times, he remembered but only one place to crawl back to – bac Hai’s home. Bac Hai did not have much, selling ice-cream on the streets for pennies at a time, but he took care of them all. 

  That is heritage. The calling of the nesting place when holidays come, and each member feeling the higher obligation to grow out their branch in the tree, to take care of it.

 I am feeling that calling.

My little sister really took some nice photos recently, here’s one of them:

“Morning massage”

2009 economic forecast: depressed, recessed, and with chances of companies going under here and there. It’s not looking good, folks.

And that’s just the better half of the world. Here in Vietnam, it’s “waiting to exhale” for banking and manufacturing sectors, as people still have no idea how badly it will hit, and how this up and coming nation will weather the storm.

 We in Venture Capital business, the guys in between (we are not really bankers, nor are we manufacturing anything to export), are not in the business of hiring massively on the ups and cutting back crazily during the downs. Since we don’t trade anything to make a quick buck, rather just build companies for the years to come…we are not riding the same roller coaster – we just feel its trembling and smell the burn as it’s screeching to a halt somewhere at the bottom. In other words, we are indirectly affected.

  So doing my share of preparing for the storm, I have been trying to live on VND 1,000,000/week (that’s roughly $65). I do not even count weekends, when I go to the countryside and live off the parents in our little hut.

  To give you an idea how much 1M VND is, imagine that a starting school teacher only makes VND 1.5/month. So you think making it on 1M/week is a piece of cake? Somehow it is not so in Saigon. It’s a huge gap between living expenses here and anywhere in the country, especially in the central provinces.

 Since I spend most of my time here in Saigon and try to at least maintain a healthy and normal lifestyle in the gloomy economy, please forget the activities reflected in “the Good Life”. It’s now frugal Pho…and increasingly so.

 Skip tennis lessons (VND 120,000/hour). Just play tennis with Hưng my CIO and really frustrate the ball runner who keeps having to run very far to collect balls (who costs VND 20,000/hour, btw).

    I sometimes find myself subconciously doing silly stuff to save money, like taking more showers at the gym and using less shampoo and body wash (ok, they are Shiseido Tsubaki and L’Occitane).

    I would not compromise on food - the stuff in put in my body has to be at least healthy, or I just drink water. So I have been drinking a lot of water.

   Make my own coffee. Sometimes the part-time maid does. I wait around until she finishes making the coffee and drinking it at home, instead of rushing out of the house and grabbing the $4 latte at Gloria Jeans or Coffee Bean.

    I wake up earlier now, running to get some sticky rice (xôi) for VND 5,000 and buying groceries for the day. I also cook at home more both for me and my sister. She also cooks more (I think my Jamie Oliver cookbooks finally helped inspire her).  

   No more K-cafe sushi. Actually, that’s because the chef disappointed me twice with his hamachi – and I lost face with a sushi-craving business partner.

  I don’t automatically pay for business lunches anymore. I actually think about how much this lunch benefit the other party or how many people are in their party, and see if they want to pay for it this time.

  No more skipping receipts: my line of work involves a lot of coffee session and lunches/dinners meetings, which can add up. Before I used to skip out on receipts (sometimes out of politeness), but now I subconsciously stay for them. Company will reimburse these.

   I did all of the above.

  I just read what I just wrote, and think to myself “whoa, no wonder it’s only Friday 4pm and I am down to my last VND 50,000″. Skip tennis, fire the maid, shower at gym all the time, meetings at office only, and resort to instant coffee and instant noodle? It might just come to that.

  Back to the 50K dilema, how am I gonna eat tomorrow and Sunday?

  Time to take out that fishing pole.