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America Tonight
Ten years ago, the advertising business didn’t exist in Vietnam. Now most of the major U.S. advertising agencies have set up shop, and people like Dan Nguyen, a Vietnamese-speaking American, are in-demand.
Nguyen is a new-media director at the New York–based ad agency Grey Group Vietnam, with a Western salary and benefits. But the rationale behind his move to Ho Chi Minh didn’t immediately strike his parents, who were among the 3 million who fled the communist takeover of South Vietnam decades before.
“Their first reaction was ‘Why?’” Nguyen recalled. “‘Why would you want to go back somewhere where we worked so hard to leave?’”
Ask any American at one of the many expat bars in Ho Chi Minh City, and the answer will be simple: more jobs, cheap living and a once-in-a-lifetime adventure overseas.
In Vietnam’s exploding entertainment industry, like almost every profession in the country, there’s a demand for skilled talent from the West. Filmmaker Jenni Trang Le said the number of locally produced features has quadrupled since she moved here.
Back in the U.S., she was a barista, waited tables and scooped ice cream at a Ben & Jerry’s. But when she decided to move to Vietnam, she wanted to focus entirely on her passion.
“I really decided, ‘OK, I’m not going to take any more day jobs. I’m going to do film and see where it takes me,’” she said.
Trang Le’s bet paid off. Her comedy about two dysfunctional brothers beat out the Hollywood blockbuster “Iron Man 3” at the Vietnamese box office. Movies are much cheaper to make in Vietnam, and the communist government has been opening up. Around a decade ago, the country embraced privately owned production companies and began permitting foreign films. A small army of Westerners soon arrived. As of 2012, expats of Vietnamese descent were involved with at least half the commercial films made in Vietnam, reported the San Jose Mercury News.
Americans without family ties to Vietnam are also making the trip in search of opportunity. In California, Paul D’Alfonso was one of thousands of chiropractors. In Vietnam, he’s one of a dozen. He doesn’t know Vietnamese, but, as it turned out, aching backs all speak the same language. D’Alfonso started a suburban clinic with a Vietnamese business partner and is planning on opening another one soon.
“The Vietnamese don’t like using drugs. They don’t like using surgeries,” he said about the success of his practice. “They like a natural-health type of setting.”
The health insurance system in Vietnam is also much easier to navigate, he noted.
With some sweat, D’Alfonso said, his salary could be comparable to what it was in the U.S., and the cost of living in Vietnam is far lower. He doesn’t expect the flow of foreigners to slow anytime soon.
“People come over here because there are a lot of opportunities, and they’re not going to get those in the U.S. right now,” D’Alfonso said. He added: “I think that the more American businesses come over here, the more Vietnamese businesses that just pop up to support those.”
For some expats in Vietnam, the Great Recession made the choice to leave a lot easier. When the financial meltdown unfolded in 2008, Richie Humphrey was a trader with Morgan Stanley. His industry shaken, Humphrey decided to go see the world, and ended up reinventing himself as an actor on Vietnamese TV.
Selected as a contestant on the country’s version of “The Amazing Race,” Humphrey is now a familiar face as the goofball American on sitcoms and commercials.
And for a hustling actor, he can afford a pretty nice lifestyle. He estimates that the cost of living is about one-seventh what it is in New York.
“It started out as a three-week tour of Southeast Asia, and here I am four years later,” Humphrey said. “It does feel like home, and when I’m away, I do miss Vietnam.”
This generation of expats has virtually no memory of what’s referred to in Vietnam as “the American War.” And Humphrey said that in his years in Vietnam he’s never encountered a shred of resentment.
“I’ve never been asked to play a bad American, or an evil American soldier, or anything like that,” he said. “… I don’t mind playing the bumbling American, it’s just kind of fun.”
The only bitterness Nguyen said he’s experienced has been from his family.
“Some Vietnamese of the prior generation still hold a bit of uncomfortable feeling toward Vietnam because of the circumstances in which they left,” Nguyen said. “So, when their children have the urge to come back here to learn about the culture, to reconnect, there might be some animosity.”
And ultimately, a cultural experience and a spell of good work are all that most of them are after. None of the young Americans here indicated that their adventure in Vietnam would last a lifetime.
“I probably won’t stay here forever because, essentially, I’m an American and I’m used to America already,” Nguyen said. “I feel like I’m on an extended journey right now.”
Correction 07/01/14: An earlier version of this article stated that Dan Nguyen didn’t have much work experience and couldn’t qualify for an internship in the U.S. According to Nguyen, he actually had over a decade of work experience in a range of fields, and never applied for an internship.
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