Week 9 -- Kristina Nguyen

The brand of Vietnam that most people are familiar with is that Vietnam is still a war forsaken country, even though the war happened around 42 years ago. However, even though the war is not ongoing, the consequences from the war still linger in some parts of Vietnam. In the article by Michael Palmer, he studied the contaminants of Agent Orange (AO) in central Vietnam (miền trung) and saw that "one in every 10 children suffers serious birth defects such as spina bifida, cerebral palsy, physical and or mental retardation, [and] missing or deformed limbs" in some observed villages(Palmer 1062). Using AO is, in fact, "allegedly a war crime" because of how toxic the herbicide was (1062). Now I feel that Vietnam is starting to rebrand itself from that negative viewpoint and, with the help of tourists and việt kiều coming to Vietnam, is promoting an environment where entrepreneurs "can create and shape new markets" (Rowan). Also, whatever an entrepreneur decides to do in Vietnam, there are three regions that have different atmospheres with different ways to run business. In Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon, part of miền nam), their business ideologies aspires to be like Bangkok or Singapore in "the commercial and cosmopolitan aspects" (Rowan). In Hanoi (part of miền bắc), their atmosphere is more in regards to "vibrant underground music and art scene" which is maintained between local and foreigner communities (Rowan). Danang city (part of miền trung) "openly modeled itself after Singapore in its developmental aspirations" (Rowan). 

Although Vietnam is trying to rebrand itself, there are some cons to how they are promoting their new brand. Some of the untruths in Vietnam is due to locals being accustomed to their own culture that foreigners look from the outside and think that the Vietnamese are shady. For example, in America, contracts are held in high regards while in Vietnam, "[it] serves as acknowledgements that there is an existing relationship between two people or organizations -- but it's up to both parties to keep that relationship in good standing," which means that most of the time there are a lot of coffee meetings that are social, which blurs the line between business partners and friends. It also takes a really long time to build relationships in Vietnam, so if someone was trying to do business in Vietnam and had no connections to the locals, they would not really consider that person unless a few people provided good word about that person. In the case of our research project, it is not necessarily that we have untruths, but we just can't guarantee that things will go according to plan once we are actually doing it. It is different when you plan things and believe that it would work because there is always the human interaction part of it that makes a program like ours difficult to foresee the future. 

Ha Long Bay in Vietnam.
source: http://www.vietnam-guide.com/ha-long-bay/

Sources:

Palmer, Michael G. "The legacy of agent orange: empirical evidence from central Vietnam." Social Science & Medicine60.5 (2005): 1061-1070.

Rowan, Andrew. "Excerpts from Andrew Rowan's Manuscript."