charvey in Vietnam

Skype

I've been using an Internet service called Skype to call folks back in the States.  Using it I can make calls from my computer to any phone in the USA for $.02 a minute (some of you have already received a few drunk dials - heh).  I can also place free (yep, free) PC to PC calls to people who have Skype on their computers.  If you think this is a hint, you're right.  Call me anytime.  My Skype ID is harveyc99.  If I don't pick up you can leave a voicemail. 

Technology is cool.

Vietnam: Hype or Reality?

Last night I had dinner with an American guy who works at an investment firm here in Saigon.  He's been in Vietnam for 5 years and it was interesting to get his perspective on prospects for Vietnam's rapid growth.  His general message was "Things are getting better, but don't expect Vietnam to take off overnight."  It seems like there are private equity groups who have launched funds and are hyping the market like crazy.  The hype may be outstripping the reality, but then again it may catch up.  Stay tuned.

Here's a Wall Street Journal article that appeared on May 24.

Vietnam Growth Lures Investors,
But Supply of Shares Is Limited

By JAMES HOOKWAY
May 24, 2006; Page C12

Increasing numbers of foreign stock investors are struggling to gain exposure to Vietnam's fast-growing economy -- and that is spurring ideas on how to get it.

Demand for Vietnamese shares exceeds the limited supply. So investment companies and analysts are creating funds and suggesting that foreigners invest in companies that do significant business in Vietnam but list their shares elsewhere.

After several years of slow progress, Vietnam has been generating some buzz. Last month Vietnam's top leaders excused themselves from the ruling Communist Party's congress to shake hands and be photographed with a pillar of the capitalist world, Bill Gates. The Microsoft Corp. chairman was in the country to put in a good word for Vietnam's high-technology aspirations. It was a potent piece of public relations, following closely on the heels of Intel Corp.'s decision earlier in the year to build a $300 million semiconductor plant there. Indeed, Mr. Gates was given a rock star's reception in Hanoi.

Since then, the U.S. has agreed on a trade deal that opens the way for Hanoi to enter the World Trade Organization, marking a move that will further open the Vietnamese economy, which expanded 8.4% last year and is expected to grow more than 8% this year.

The problem for investors hoping to piggyback on Vietnam's expansion is that the country's capital market is tiny and too prone to speculative flurries to provide attractive, reliable returns. The Vietnam Stock Exchange index, for instance, comprises just 36 stocks with a combined market capitalization of about $1.8 billion. The index has almost doubled since February -- showing a symptom, analysts say, of a lot of money chasing too few assets.

"There's no doubt that Vietnam is a compelling story. But the question is how to get some exposure without being sucked into a bubble," says a U.K.-based fund manager.

Foreign money tends to be invested in funds managed by local specialists such as Dragon Capital, VinaCapital Investment Management, PXP Capital and Mekong Capital. In the short term, that trend looks set to continue. VinaCapital, for one, is opening a new technology-oriented fund to enable foreign investors to get some exposure to that potentially lucrative slice of the economy.

Louis Nguyen, managing director of VinaCapital's technology practice in Ho Chi Minh City, says the goal is to invest in Internet and technology companies that, under Vietnamese law, multinational players such as eBay Inc. or Yahoo Inc. will need to form a partnership with to set up in the country. He hopes to raise $20 million to $50 million for the fund but may increase the figure if there is demand.

"Two thirds of the fund is subscribed already, so we are pretty pleased with that," Mr. Nguyen says.

While VinaCapital's approach owes a partial debt to speculation on Vietnam's growth, Merrill Lynch & Co. believes it has come up with an alternative: investing in a basket of stocks with strong exposure to Vietnam's boom but traded on overseas markets -- including companies as diverse as Malaysian budget airline AirAsia, Singapore-listed consumer-goods-and-property company Fraser & Neave Ltd. and South Korea's SK Telecom Co., which owns 27.5% of Vietnamese mobile-phone network S-Fone.

"These probably represent a much less volatile, and more diversified, way to build exposure while we await the process of more profound capital market development," Merrill Lynch strategist Spencer White wrote in a research report this month.

F&N, as the Singapore company is known, has exposure to Vietnam including property developments and a venture with Heineken, Asia Pacific Breweries.

Write to James Hookway at [email protected]

Sheer Terror

By a special guest correspondent, Aunt Jackie.

Jackie here.  The traffic in Saigon is chaotic and insane.  There are no actual  traffic laws, so everyone does their own thing.  Traffic lights are few and far between, and they are mostly ignored anyway.  Vehicles are overwhelmingly motor scooters, motorcycles, and bicycles.  There are some cars, buses, minivans and SUVs thrown into the mix.

The noise is at top level from the engines and the constant horn beeping. I think I have figured out the horn code.  It can mean: watch out, I'm coming, get out of the way, leave me alone, or I am here, don't hit/squash me.

Crossing the street is a great adventure, and a test of your fear factor.  There is no such thing as a break in the traffic.  You must guage the volume of the traffic.  When there is a change in volume, you must go for it. Keeping a steady speed is important.  No running or hesitation when crossing. Those on or in the vehicles will judge your rate, and they will go around you.  It works !! 

The Tunnels of Cu Chi

Today Mom, Aunt Jackie and I went on a day trip to the Cu Chi tunnels about 60 km outside of Saigon.  The Viet Minh (later called Viet Cong) began digging the tunnels for resistance against the French and Japanese before and during WWII.  They used them to move undetected, store goods and even had entire living quarters including hospitals, machine shops, dormitories (if you can properly call them dormitories) and mess halls underground.  (Above left: Our friendly guide Trung demonstrates ducking and hiding into a tunnel.)

The VC used the tunnels to avoid stand up fights with superior American firepower.  Instead, whenever Americans or the ARVN (Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) would roll into an area the VC would escape into their tunnels and pop out once and a while for harassing fire.    When the Americans left they would exit and reassert control over the local villages.  The last time I was here I read a fascinating book about the tunnels called "The Tunnels of Cu Chi" that details the underground war from both Vietnamese and American perspectives.  It seems that although a few individual American units figured out how to detect the tunnels and flush out the enemy, American military leadership didn't realize the importance of the tunnels and these lessons never got disseminated widely enough to make a difference.  There's a good management lesson there.  (At right: Trung demonstrates a booby trap.)

Conditions in the tunnels were absolutely filthy, claustrophobic and miserable.   Judging my short 20 meter jaunt through one of the tunnels they were hot as blazes too.  Forget about politics -- the fact that people spent years living and fighting from these tunnels is a testament to sheer human will.  These people were way motivated.  (At left: Aunt Jackie, yours truly and Mom with a few local cadres.)

I spotted these two local women on the roadside peddling coconuts.  I bought a few.  We communicated with hand signals because their English was terrible.  I mean, they sounded like they were from New Jersey or something.

You can learn more about Cu Chi in this concise Wikipedia entry.

My Public

Hey, thanks to all of you who have posted comments to the blog.  It feels a little weird, knowing that what I write will be read by friends, family, friends of friends and family, and God knows who else out there in that crazy Internet world.  But then again, it feels pretty cool that I now have a Public.  "*My* Public."  Hey I like the sound of that. 

If you'd like to know more about a post or anything else about Vietnam, post a comment.  I am all about communicating with the little people, erm, I mean my Public.

Tennis Anyone? (just couldn't resist ;-))

Dad and Marty, you'll be happy to know that I've found a great place to play tennis here in Saigon.  It's the Lan Anh Club.  They have an indoor court with stadium seating, seven outdoor courts, a squash court, a pool and a fully equipped gym and lockers complete with sauna.  It's quite excellent.  The courts are all hard surface (just like the US Open).  In fact, there is a women's tournament going on right now although didn't catch any of the action.  From my limited experience it seems that there's a bona fide tennis culture already established and gathering strength in Vietnam.

An American friend introduced me to the club and set me up with a local pro, Yung.  Although Yung's English is pretty much limited to "low to high" (90% of a good stroke) I can see already that playing with him regularly will improve my game a lot.  We did some forehand, backhand and volley drills, with Yung modeling the best strokes and showing me what I needed to improve.  I think you'd like Yung, Pops, because he tells me the same stuff you do -- don't back up, low to high, and keep my wrist firm on ground strokes.  An added bonus to the session was having a ball boy.  My friend, who's been in Vietnam for years, told me that he "doesn't even remember how to pick up balls anymore."  Sweet.

Saigon's Kid Entrepreneurs

Present everywhere throughout Saigon's streets are kids looking to make a buck, mostly from foreigners.  They have different specialities.  Some shine shoes (like these great kids pictured on the left) but most peddle some product or other -- gum, books, coins, drinks.

The kids in the picture at left convinced me to shine my dusty dogs near the Notre Dame Cathedral in central Saigon.  They were as curious as they are industrious.   "Where you from?  Are you married?  How old are you?" are questions foreigners get asked a lot.  One kid really reminded me of a Vietnamese Eddie Furlong, with his floppy hair, casual attitude and cigarette dangling out of his mouth.  Hilarious kids.  They all speak very good street English.

Although I'm pretty sure they never read "Power Negotiating" by Roger Dawson, they are natural negotiators.  Asking "How much? will elicit a reponse that is 2x what you can get if you take the effort to bargain a bit.  If you keep the bargaining process light and fun it can be a very entertaining experience.  I like to do the "flinch" when they tell me the price, then make my counter proposal.  Of course, I clown around and my expressions are totally exaggerated for effect (Dawn, you would call this the "cheese factor"), and I treat it like the game it is.  Fun stuff.  These kids asked for 20k dong at first, but settled for 10k dong (about 65 cents).  But then they cleverly upsold me another 10k to fix the sole of my shoe.  Their hardnosed capitalist instincts brought tears to my eyes...sniff.

While some kids are just trying to make a buck for themselves, there are younger kids (8-11 or so) who I get the feeling are impressed into service by their parents.  They usually sell gum.  For a while I was buying gum from every kid I met, which was unsustainable unless I wanted to enter the gum reselling business.  If you decline their products some resort to tugging at your heart strings with well worn stories like "Why you no buy?!  I need money for milk for me, um I mean my younger brother."  One kid kept asking why I wouldn't buy and I eventually told him that I didn't like kids.  I felt a little evil but it did the trick >:-).

Other Cool Vietnam Blogs

Ok, so I've been messing around with this blog thing and have discovered some cool stuff.  I can pull in feeds from other blogs and display them in the left-hand margin.  So I've added two blogs that are almost, but not quite, as cool as mine.

The first is "Target: Vietnam" by a Brit named Matt Powell.  He works for CB Richard Ellis, the real estate broker, in Hanoi.  From the looks of his blog real estate in Vietnam is heating up nicely.

The second is "Noodlepie" by Graham Holliday (another Brit I think).  Not only is his blog technically impressive, but he uses highly advanced adjective technology to describe Vietnam's many culinary delights.

It looks like I can also embed video, photos and do more tricksy things with the layout.  More to come.

Back in the 'Nam

Viet Nam.  I am here.  Welcome to my blog chronicling my (mis)adventures and experiences in this fascinating country.

For Americans, the word "Vietnam" is fraught with imagery and history.  Jimi Hendrix.  Hueys.  Kent State.  Jungles.  Oliver Stone.   Napalm in the morning.   But that was 30 years ago.  The reality today is totally different.  Motor scooters.  Internet cafes.   English and accounting lessons.  Five star hotels and restaurants.  I love the irony present in the picture to the left -- ah, the empty economic promise of communism (you can tell by their uplifted faces) juxtaposed with the bounty of capitalism.

I arrived this morning, not sure how I would react to actually being here.  Well, it feels pretty much exactly like I expected it to feel -- great.  I was ready to bust a move and make a change.  I crave adventure and new experiences.  So I just did it.  It wasn't so hard, really.  The toughest part is coming to the point of making a leap -- making the leap is actually pretty easy.  It's a lot like standing on a high dive, trying to summon the courage to jump.  The worst part is the moments before you jump where sometimes you can be seized with fear (I have a thing about heights).  But the act of jumping and falling is actually rather exilarating.  "Hey, that's not bad at all!"

The purpose of this blog is to share with my friends and family some of the color of my life in this country.  Oh yeah, and to write.  Writing forces me to think, which I generally avoid doing.  So maybe I'll have some great, pithy entries about the meaning of life and fulfillment.  Or maybe I'll just race to the lowest common denominator and start a celebrity blog about Brad and Angelina.  Or maybe I'll just tell fart jokes.  Stay tuned.