Dimensions of Fake and Real

In Vietnam people buy fake clothes, fake shoes, fake watches, fake bags, fake motorbikes, fake DVDs, fake books, fake alcohol and there are even fake hotels…. Still life is so real here….

In Singapore people buy the original branded clothes, bags, shoes, watches, DVDs, etc…. But still... life there is Fake….

It’s Fake vs. Real… the rest is marketing...

Custom-made shoes...

It’s been quite a practice in Asia for foreigners to have tailor-made shirts and suits (i.e. getting them from Bangkok). But now I advanced one step and now I got two pairs of tailor made shoes. For big guys like me, it is quite a hassle to buy clothes and shoes, or even condoms for that matter that would fit my size here in Asia. All things come in smaller size, or are damn expensive branded stuff. I have been looking for some nice shoes for a couple of days and did not manage to find my size, so my friend recommended to check out this tailor made shoes here in Vietnam. After two weeks I got my pairs and they are good looking and cool :)

You might think that I am spoiled and live an aristocratic life here, going for custom-made shoes and stuff like that. Actually I am saving lots of money, because these cost 75% less of those in the malls, specifically 25 USD for some kick as leather shoes (medium range quality that can be bought in the malls).

Now, before sounding like a girl, writing about shoe shopping, I want to turn the focus on the economics part of it. If custom made shoes can be as cheap as 25 USD, then imagine the cost of producing on factory scale the shoes in Vietnam… And then selling the same shoe in Singapore with 50-100 USD :):):) Or selling it actually here in Vietnam the same shoe in the mall for a 100 USD, as they do it now.... Maybe I am in the wrong business…. Anybody there who wants a JV for a shoe-factory? :)

Back to God...

Lots of things to write about my experiences in Vietnam and there are two things that stand out the most, which are very valuable. First is that I have found here a lot of self-confidence, that kind of was lost a bit while working in an MNC.

The second is that I have (re)discovered my belief in God. I come from a family with religious background (kind of). I myself was educated to a certain extent in that way, as some members of the family are religious and some others not. So I was kind of touched by the belief in God but on the other hand not really, especially on a ceremonial level. This also come that my family is part of the Unitarian religion, which is fairly liberal.

Once I have left my hometown, I got disconnected from religion and belief in God, and believed in the modern preaching of self fulfillment.

Vietnam does seem to be a sinful place, and one can live a very sinful life, by the measures of the religious teaching (oh, those nights in Apo…). However the experiences I have went through, made me discover my own God and the way I believe in good. Still living a sinful life somehow, but I see a clearer path now and I feel a strong belief in God, that it exists, and that it is with me. I have been thinking a lot about this in the past two weeks… I am still skeptical about religion itself, but not skeptical about God. I am happy with this. It just feels good. I hope I will not loose this faith again.

Moment of inspiration... while sitting on the toilet...

The experience of living and working in Vietnam is pretty much like eating Vietnamese food: it is fantastic... but often you need to spend a whole day on the toilet...

P.S.:God bless the guys who invented Imodium and Airplanes...

Love fridays

My favourite for friday morning:

>

And this one to put me in the weekend mood:

Dangerous Vietnam

While nowadays everybody is considering Mexico a dangerous place from a health point of view, there are some real dangers in Vietnam as well.... of a different nature of course:

http://www.thanhniennews.com/healthy/?catid=8&newsid=48173

"Doctors are reporting an increase in the number of men being rushed to hospital after their sexual organs have been cut off by jealous wives or girlfriends. 

The good news for the castrated men is that the amputated organ can be successfully reattached if it is preserved properly. "

..........

"Other cases turn out poorly for the man as the wife continues to vent her anger by throwing out the severed member for some dog to eat, or putting it in boiling water to cook for a while."

These Vietnamese women are really dangerous huh? Now you understand why i am still not married, yah???? 

Conclusion: make sure you have some ice, some salt and some clean plastic bag at home :)

This Earh Hour Thing....

For quite a white I see the promo on the TV about Earth Hour. I think it is a good campaign to create awareness in the developed world about the global warming and I support this initiative and general the initiatives that tackle global warming.

I allow myself to be a bit cynical though and also to challenge a bit the earth hour fans.

Firstly, I think the organizers should award Vietnam as a champion of earth hour, as here the electricity company makes sure that there is earth hour event quite frequently. Power shortages are quite common, especially in the dry season when the hydro power plants are not on full capacity. So sometimes I just stay at home in the dark and do my private earth hour.

The challenge for campaigns like the earth hour is that it engages the developed world mostly, and not so much the energy hungry developing world. Those people who have power shortages every once in a while, can’t really be enthusiastic about another earth hour. So how can the developing world be engaged in the discussion of global warming? How can we create awareness? Because most of the increase in energy consumption (and cause for global warming) will come from the developing world in the next couple of years.

Another personal observation is that during these power shortages, the sexual activity increases. I mean it is dark and you happen to be with a girl at home, what can you do? Now if 1 billion people join this earth hour, then there is a pretty high chance of some babies to be borne. How much is the energy saving from the earth hour and how much energy is consumed for rising up these new babies and whatever they will consume during their lifetime???? I am sure that over the years an event like this is increasing energy consumption, even if it is decreasing in short term.

Last year I have been invited to do this earth hour thing with my friends. So here I arrive to the place of my friend where lots of candles were burnt during earth hour. I am sure the energy consumed for making those candles+ the one used for their transportation is much higher then the energy used by an energy efficient light bulb. And after the one hour, they turned on to the maximum all the air conditioners…F#%&k

My point is that it is important to have awareness campaigns and the earth hour seems to be a decent one. But substance also matters and besides switching off the lights, others steps are needed. I rarely use air-conditioning, but sometimes walk naked in the house to coop with the heat. I tried to convince my bosses that we should apply the same measures in the office, but it seems they don’t care about saving the planet because they did not agree to that.

Now that my laptop is out of battery soon (and there is a power interruption in my flat), I have to finish this post, and will publish on the net later on. Signing off from the city of earth hour: Saigon.

On the way to become famous....

On the way to become famous, so far I have been featured in, gave interviews or participated in talk shows for:

• Local TV in my home town in Romania (Szekelykeresztur)
• Local Radio and Newspaper in Viborg, Denmark
• Regional TVs, Radios and Newspapers in Romania where I lived and also where I studied (Mostly in Nagyvarad and Szekelyudvarhely)
• National Public TV Channel in Romania (TVR2)
• National Private TV Channel in Hungary (TV2)

These were mostly due to my activities in different NGOs (except the Hungarian TV interview, which was about working in Singapore, and one newspaper article in the regional paper on the same topic). At a certain point I was more often on TV in Nagyvarad than at the courses at the university (hope my teachers don’t read this, or people blackmail me for this statement when I will become famous :):):) ).

Now I can add one more to the list (probably the biggest in terms of audience), which is the interview I gave yesterday for the Vietnamese National TV (VTV1) in prime time news about the stock market in Vietnam and the opinion of foreign investors in general. Hope that I was “intelligent enough” and sounded like an "expert" :):):) And hope that this did not cause the market drop today, after a short rally in the past days (joking yah?) :):):):)

The thing I hate in this media appearances is that one always needs to worry whether he/she looks stupid or not…. Can be stressful… No hot babe came to me to ask for autograpgh yet. My assumption is that hot babes don't watch news about stock market, rather than me looking stupid on TV.... Otherwise they should have come to me, is it?

Requests for further interviews will be a barometer whether it was a good or a bad thing what I have told, but I am happy to start building up my "brand" and public figure in Vietnam . PR helped me a lot in achieving my previous results where I worked and I hope that here it will make things easier as well.

Friday night's movie

I watched yesterday at the cinema the movie called Revolutionary Road. Actually did not go to the cinema with the intention to watch this particular movie, but just went randomly there and picked this one.

I am not updated at all on what new movies are out there and also what worth watching or not, so it was quite a gamble as I did not know what this movie was about, but it turned out that it was a good one.

I really liked the topic and it gives a lot of things to think about in terms of relationships, hopes & dreams and about all those dilemmas with the “settling down” thing. I really recommend to everyone to watch it…. (not commenting on the acting part though). Also the novel on which this movie is based on worth reading I guess.

The story of the domestic helper

In Vietnam one has to spend quite a lot of time with the day-to-day issues of life. Things are not as simple and straightforward, especially as one does not speak the language. So the free time that one has after work and after the day-today issues of life is very little. I have been struggling to increase this time and cut down on time consuming things. Hence I got a domestic helper. Of course I had couple of challenges at the beginning, like the language, so I had to switch a couple of them.

I almost gave up on the idea of having one, but then I went out one night in a bar with friends where you always have these girls to serve your table and entertain you. In this bar, they don’t do anything dodgy (i.e. offering “special services”), but just make sure that you consume as much as possible. So one of the girls there had some decent English and then we have talked about where she is from and what she is doing and stuff.

She is from the countryside and came to Saigon to study. Of course that she needs to finance herself, because the parents are too poor, and sometimes she needs to send money home as well. So during the day she goes to college and in the evening she goes to work to this bar, six days a week. Of course the pay is shit, her salary is around 55 USD and she gets another 100 - 150 USD from tips. Now with the recession, less and less people are going to the bar so the tip is less and less. She is struggling to maintain expenses and always short on cash (having a cash flow issue, but managing the overall costs well).

So I proposed that she can help me with my day to day issues and become my domestic helper, which she was very happy to accept. Of course I am a bit overpaying by local standards, but I guess it is a good deal for both of us. I have more time and she is financially more stable. I was a bit reluctant with the whole thing, because she has to work even more now, but she seems to be happy with the deal. Maybe I feel a bit of guilt for being an exploiter somehow…

For me she is quite inspiring, how she finances her studies and fighting to advance in life. I guess that is in the genes of the Vietnamese people and this is a very good example of that. Also a good reminder how lucky but spoiled I am now.

I thought that it is an interesting aspect of life here in Vietnam; you tell me your opinion.

The ghost town face of Saigon…

Saigon is a buzzing city, all the time people roaming around on their bikes and you wherever you look or wherever you go, hundreds of people surround you….

But suddenly all this disappeared during the TET (Lunar New Year) holiday. Pretty much just like at Christmas in Europe, everybody went home to his/her hometown, and suddenly Saigon became one of the quietest cities.

Pollution disappeared and I could breathe fresh air…. I could go to places in less then 10 minutes from my home, even if that usually took 25 minutes (loved speeding within the city on the empty roads)…. And somehow I felt the whole city as being a totally different one than the one I knew.

It is interesting how cities can change; the mood and atmosphere of a city can change, just like that of the people….

I really liked the quiet Saigon and I would not mind if every 4th week would be a quiet week like this :):):) For the rest of the weeks, bring on the buzz :):):)

Telegraphic post

• Here is my preferred hat that I wear in order to help me through the financial crisis and to motivate in achieving impossible sales targets:

• Luckily our company is doing well during the crisis due to good risk management procedures and smart decisions. My job is secure and looking forward to new challenges. Thanks for all your concerns.


• Just read shockingly that Cambodia’s budget for next year is US$ 1.9 billon… comparing with the numbers from the financial crisis and scandals, I wonder how much country building could have been done with that…. Maybe governments could bail out countries like these instead of rotten bank and auto compnaies….


• I was impressed with the whole Christmas decoration in HCMC. The center is full of lights and nice decoration and I guess half of the city is there to wonder around and enjoy the spirit. The place has a fantastic energy, boys and girls on motorbike just enjoying a great Saigon evening. Kinda cool and this is the magic of Saigon, this energy.


• 24 hours to go till my flight back home and did not buy yet one single Christmas present…. ah…. I am such a terrible shopper. It seems that I wasted 3 years in Singapore without learning the basics of the life there….


• I guess I was a terrible blog writer since I moved to HCMC and also very bad in keeping contact with all my previous friends from all over the world. It has been quite a marathon run for me. I guess that will be my plan during this holiday to catch up with as many as possible.


• Wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

The song of this week

I had this song on repeat mode this week, so thought to share it with you:

Living in the happiest nation in Asia

I was reading some report and have stumbled upon this interesting chart:

Now you definitelly have a reason to visit Vietnam:) Hapiness guaranteed :)

Good genes

As you can see, there are some good genes in the family (he is my brother's son, not mine):Posted by a proud uncle and godfather :)