Cholon

Without wanting to sound like a cliched magazine article, District 5 has a real mix of old, quite old and not old at all. It is true that the 'daily hustle and bustle' exists. For those who know the Chinese, their entrepreneurship within the family is visually obvious as every building is selling something, and inside behind the fluttering flags or bags of rice there's a bank, a clinic, an insurance company or a dentist in operation. Here you can see row after row of open fronted buildings below small apartments.

For the really old stuff, pagodas are the thing. Towards the beginning of Nguyen Trai St (no 802) is Ha Chuong Hai Quan, a 200 year old temple. It's under renovation at the moment.

Number 12 Lao Tu is where you'll find Quan Am, since 1816. It is the home of the Goddess of Mercy. Three adjectives I find noted down in my exercise book are 'decorative', 'active' and 'colorful'. From the outside....

Stepping inside, a large alter dominates the main hall. Step through to the rear of the building and numerous shrines line the walls. Here are some pics from this temple Quan Am, also know as Chua On Lang.

Across the street sits a garden with some lovely fountains......

And some obviously lethal water......

This next one is called Ong Bon. Quiet, with a large concrete courtyard out front.

Perhaps someone could explain to me the relevance of all the little tortoises in the enclosure around the back. Living below this Chinese mural depicting ancient shenanigans, I haven't had the will nor inclination to find out the reason for the little shelled reptiles.

Now to the not so old stuff in D5, An Dong market built in the early 1990's, looks like a Russian train station (in my imagination, never been to Russia).

Now it's on to the very new, Huong Vuong plaza, opened in June 2007.

To cut a long story short, it's got to be the flashiest department store in Ho Chi Minh City to date. There's a modern Singapore style food court on the 4th floor and Vietnam's first California WOW gymnasium, as well as all the fashion labels and brands you'll find in Diamond. Posh stuff, posh prices, but looks good. Seems to be the first place EVER in Vietnam that has been designed with the concept that people need SPACE - nothing more stressful than elbowing your way through a crowd just to get to a bargin bin of undercrackers.

Starting a Ltd Co in Vietnam: How to.

It all began with some wishy-washy ideas about 46.55 full moons ago. Wistfully gazing at one such beaming orb, watching the hair grow on the back of my hand, the possibilities were bouncing off the walls of my cranium. But how to turn ideas into a reality? Well, thankfully the only restriction known to any small business start up, that of cost, is not really an issue here in Vietnam (for westerners lucky enough to come here and earn well above the GDP and therefore enjoy a very low cost of living). Although of course, the business isn't mine. It's my wife's. She is the Managing Director. I am just Sales and Marketing.

Unsurprisingly, paperwork is a big part of the process of getting licensed in Nam. My wife may have prepared all the documents for the marriage certificate, but the business stuff was a step too far. We had a company arrange everything for us. First, you must apply online with the Investment Project Department. Once they reply with an approval of the name and nature of business, then you have the privilege of waiting for a really long time in a unbearably crowded, unorganised and unairconditioned office on Le Thanh Ton. If you're lucky, as my wife was, you'll be asked to come back the next day after an entire afternoons jostling for attention. Apparently, they change the staff every few months at the office to avoid business agents (those helping people to start up) becoming too 'friendly' with the government staff. Our agents 'man' was no longer working there, hence the long wait. When you finally emerge from the bowels of the building, looking like a businessman who just survived a plane crash and subsequent mauling from a leopard before emerging from the jungle, at least clasped in one hand is the legal document that made it all worth it, a business license.

The friendly, pleasant, and customer orientated staff at this delightful office have another network going as well. When they get hold of new business details, they phone up their mates at various newspapers. As by law, a new company must announce itself by way of one of four or five government newspapers, there is some competition as to which rag gets the juicy details. Cue unsolicited phone calls from journos to home and mobile at whatever time of day they feel like, and so the country ticks on.

Now, it's a jolly saunter down to the local police station, whistling 'Always Look On The Bright Side of Life' as you go, double skipping past cheery mechanics as they wave their oily hands in a toothless greeting, nodding approval at screeching schoolchildren, and finally laughing off the twisted ankle from the pothole in the road (better take the motorbike next time). Mr policeman will make a stamp for you. This is very important. You need it to stamp things, so now you can make paperwork too!

After this, get yourself over to the exhilarating tax department and get issued (as if you don't want to) with a tax code. Now dealings are handed over to your local tax center. From here, paperwork is needed to apply and pay tax for the first year, and also the first quarter, totaling 1,800,000 VND. Then, the jovial tax lady pays a visit to your office, just to make sure you're not fibbing, and you really have a company. Best to hide the choccies before she comes over, she likes them she does! Finally you can buy the mythical (but actually real) book of red invoices, the VAT book.

Now, that's all the boring stuff.

Our company is yet to start operating, but is oh so nearly ready.

First, you need an idea. I know! Tourism...let's jump on that gravy train. I know about traveling. I know about backpackers. I know about Vietnam. Makes sense doesn't it? Tourists need something a little different from what's on offer. So first, come up with some ideas and a name. We toyed for a while. I liked 'Kims Tours', but it was already taken (for the slow ones, that was a JOKE). Eventually we went with 'Connections' (Kết Nối). Next, ask a nifty friend to design a logo. I wanted some hands shaking with the Viet Nam flag incorporated into the design. My designer just kind of snorted in an effort to control himself, which was better than laughing in my face, but he used his talent to work with my idea and draw me up our logo.


Next, you need some publicity shots (luckily, the designer is a photographer as well.....)

An office helps, why not use your house. If you buy a fax machine, you officially have an office (I think it's in the dictionary).

Then, you need some business cards. Sounds easy doesn't it?

Then, get a website done. Here's where you can find out what the hell a company does, that is, if they just seems to waffle on in some unofficial blog without ever really saying what they do. http://www.connectionsvietnam.com/ (you are the first to see it and it isn't even out of testing you lucky sods! - so excuse some minor errors for the time being, most of it is done now).

Lastly, get a cheapo sign printed and blu-tac it to the door. Now you are definitely a certified company ready for customers. All you have to do now is find some. Hello? Hellooooooo......?

Trees go up, trees go down.

Efforts are being made to keep the city green, especially in areas where there is a chance to start with a clean slate. Out in D7, a new traffic island has an ornamental lamp post in the middle and is surrounded by newly planted flowers.

This road has a line of young trees planted down the middle.

Good effort, I think to myself. Well, hold your horses, because back in District 1, the trees are coming down. Why? Please let me know.

All down this stretch of Ton Duc Thang some of the trees have been reduced to lonely stumps. I saw them at it on Nguyen Dinh Chieu as well.

Please, please don't take away my oxygen.

Things You Don't Often See (By A. Cynic)

Settling down at a set of lights in Saigon rush hour traffic, I was preparing to tap fingers for two minutes when I spied a pair of cream-clad traffic cops and a couple of young guys they had pulled over. The cops motioned for the bike to be moved up onto the pavement, and they obliged. As one hauled the bike over the kerb, the other took a wander over behind a tree. His actions were highly secretive, only him and all the other bored commuters around me were watching. We knew what was coming, as he took out his wallet, leafed for a while and took out a hundred. He then folded it up into the palm of his hand and emerged from behind the tree. The coppers had their ticket book out and the sidebox from whence they had taken it was wide open. As subtly as he could manage, the hundred was tossed into the box, where we expected it would stay. But nay, followers of justice, the law immediately reached in and handed the offending note back, almost with a look of disgust. The lingering thought in my mind is that the 'honest bobby' was in fact more than aware of the number of prying eyes just behind him. However, I would really love to believe that he does that all the time.

Later that day, someone actually gave way and waved me through. First time ever.

Saigon Raiders - Since 1990

I've always wanted to blog a photo diary of a match day of the Raiders but never got round to it. Every game is an adventure, for many different reasons. Mostly, it's something to look forward at the weekends, a good workout, and some beers with lads after the game.

The Raiders were founded in 1990 and were Scandinavian in origin. Now of course, anyone is welcome. We play in the Saigon International Football League (SIFL - of which I am the chairman of the newly formed league committee) which was inaugurated in 2000, and the 2007-2008 season starts next month. Three other long term expat teams are regulars in the league, that is Olympic Saigon (French), Saigon Saints and Saigon Japan FC. A team of RMIT
students will compete, and Vietnamese teams make up the rest. After the season ends, we have a Cup competition. Raiders also compete in the Viking Cup every year, a tournament played by teams of 'Viking' history - 2005 saw HCMC hosting, 2006 it went to Shanghai, 2007 was in Bali and in 2008 it will move to Hong Kong/Macao. Our team also goes annually to the Manila Nomads tournament, a 6-a-side featuring 32 teams from across Asia.

For now, I have some semi professional pictures to share - certainly not taken by me. It was a rain-soaked evening some time in May when we were invited to play at the military stadium against a team sponsored by the German consulate.

Yes, it was a bit strange posing for the photographer who was up in the stands.

Here we are -- one very happy but soon to be very wet team.

Here are some shots from the game:

Clemens of Germany:

Bjarne of Denmark:

Floyd of Germany:

Thanh of Germany (center) and Khalid of England (right) giving chase...

Henno of South Africa and Backwater Views fame.

And finally, the official portrait of my good self - as I rarely show my face here - take a good look at this one and don't forget me the next time I shove you aside in the market or curse at you in the street.

If you want to play with the Raiders, drop me a line at jon.hoff@saigonraiders.com.

Things that go Brrooom in the night

Ahh, a mis-spent youth. Isn't it great to be free when your a kid - a teenage rebel has no fears, no barriers in their world. Unfortunately, I do. Fears such as being kept awake half the night and then being exhausted the next day at work......amazing how quickly one becomes a grumpy old man. In this case however, it may be justified. My apartment block sits by a canal. The canal has some green areas adjacent to it, which the youth of HCMC love to take advantage of.

The green tarpaulin laid out on the ground is what they slept on. This is about 5.30am, dawn. The boys have just finished about twenty minutes of racing their bikes up and down, up and down, up and down the same hundred meter stretch. They go up, turn around, come back again. Their bikes are bloody loud. Usually this occurs in the middle of the night. Not often, I'm sure the nightracers have plenty of spots mapped out around the city.

Just across the other side of the canal, we have some kids living in concrete pipes. And I mean living. Must be two weeks now and counting.

So with a motorbike drag race on one side and a bunch of sleep-away-semi-homeless kids gathered on the other, nothing can stop this guy from his bizarre exercise routine that most Vietnamese have picked up from somewhere. It involves a lot of shaking, twisting, turning and flapping, but not much actual exercise. Enough to get the blood pumping I suppose!

Cars Cars Cars. And Cars.

Stories get recycled here in Vietnam and often reading the news is intensely boring. There are only so many times you can read about Vietnam and Cambodia 'forging ties' or Vietnam and Boliva 'agreeing to boost relations', and so on.

One repetitive story that pops up in every loyal reporters briefcase every 6 months is titled thus or similar : Vietnam auto sales up 79 pct. In the article we hear from automobile analyst Nguyen Van Trung - "The rapid growth of the stock market this year has yielded a big fortune to a new class of investors, and now they are buying cars to indicate their wealthy status." Well thanks for that gem - if I may, and without being facetious, those years of automobile analyst training have paid off. Asia. Developing. Get rich. Buy car. Show wealth. Old news - Merci and Au Revior. . .

The poor old streets of HCMC are now groaning under all these wheels, years of added weight is not their idea of fun. "Automobile sales in the first half shot up to 28,524, a 79 percent year-on-year increase." An article published in April,Vietnam moving from two wheels to four, said "nearly 4,500 cars have been sold in the past three months, a 91 percent increase over the same period last year." Another article published in March this year entitled Vietnam Feb car sales surge amid equity windfalls. Doctor of Cars số hai (Phd) told us "Thousands of people have reportedly made huge fortunes in the recent months, prompting them to buy new house and cars to show their new wealth."

Are you getting the message? I can go back to 2005, and this article from the People's Daily Online,Vietnam's auto sales surge in first 7 months. Same story. And so it goes on...the number of articles about Vietnam's auto industry is staggering. Meanwhile, us non-stock-market-playing two wheeled mortals have to make do with what's left of the tarmac, and eventually, our lungs.

Recently, we found out just how revolting the air we are breathing actually is. Thanh Nien (as you can tell, basically the only news source I consider worthy) recently published reports on the issue of 'dirty fuel' in Vietnam. Here, we are told "It is worth noting that the sulfur content of 0.25 percent in Vietnam is 30 to 50 times higher than in South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, and up to 250 times higher than in Japan, Hong Kong, and the EU." Ooooooo lovely! Thanh Nien followed up the story here with some fighting talk...."With its continued support for the sale of high-sulfur fuels, Vietnam’s Trade Ministry seems to have worried more for fuel importers and distributors than consumers or the country." The story even made it to the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune (here), who commented that "Vietnamese companies authorized to import fuel are resisting buying higher-quality fuel because it is more expensive." Once again, we the people, bow down to you and give thanks for the level of social responsibility you show....and for doing all you can for the city, the people, the country, and the environment in general. Puuuuhlease.

During my commute home from work, a metallic tinge of nasty chemicals on the tongue is hardly what the growling stomach below is asking for. Crossing the canal on Dien Tien Hoang, I glance across to see my apartments shrouded in the thing that shrouded the whole city tonight in a big shroud - a loitering haze of exhaust fumes. Tonight was the worst I have witnessed so far. So now we know that lots of people are buying cars, more than ever in fact, and they are still pumping them full of the dirtiest fuel on planet Earth.

This month, yet more streets in D3 were turned one way. Vo Van Tan is now one way in the same direction as Nguyen Dinh Chieu, all the way from Mac Dinh Chi to Cach Mang Thang Tam. Nguyen Thi Minh Khai is now one way running north west (the same direction as Dien Bien Phu) from Truong Dinh to Phung Khac Khoan. Big blue banners worked hard to get the message across.

It may have relieved some rush hour chaos for now, but with those car sales inevitably continuing to rise, it won't last long. Get used to it.

Edit: Also see this story from TN : Toxic fuels don’t raise the same ire as dodgy soy sauce