A City in Flux

Hanoians buy and sell their way to a new international economy.

View Photos (6) Image © 2000 Lou Dematteis

As Hanoi and the nineties collide, the city itself seems to be in constant motion as it scrambles to keep up with the dramatic changes it is undergoing. The two million Hanoi residents energetically join in this fray, working to usher in the new economic success. By six in the morning joggers and tai chi classes are in full swing, and the rapid pace continues until midnight as Hanoians build, buy, and sell their way to a new international economy.

The sense of change in Hanoi becomes evident the minute one deplanes Air Vietnam at Noi Bai Airport. A tired Soviet-built airliner is parked on the tarmac next to a modern French Airbus, which delivers travelers to Vietnam and shares bookings with Cathay Pacific. Customs forms are available in Vietnamese and French, but the English language forms are difficult to obtain.

Cabs are either brand new Toyotas or Russian models that resemble 1956 Plymouths with small triangular windows that fold out for ventilation. The road from the airport to Hanoi has recently been completed along with new bridges, yet water buffalo and aging Chinese and Russian trucks and tractors are the main mode of transportation right outside the city.

In Hanoi, thousands of tiny family-owned shops, many of which double as homes at night, open right after breakfast and stay open until 11 at night. Everything from the sweetened condensed milk used in Vietnamese coffee to "Rolex" and "Patek Phillipe" watches are available for sale. Following the tradition of an ancient Vietnamese emperor who proclaimed that special districts be dedicated to specific commercial activity, there are sections for selling melons, pork, hardware, tile, plumbing supplies, building materials, and linens. Even street barbers have their own district which, ironically, is across from the hospital.

Around the corner from these commercial districts, the scene shifts to a banyan tree-lined boulevard with stately French colonial homes. Despite the change in aesthetics, this is also a business center. Many of these gracious homes are now corporate headquarters for global companies such as France's Alcatel and Italy's Marconi. Here too, the U.S.'s Pepsi and Coca-Cola now rival each other for a place on Vietnam's 70 million palates.

With the opening up of Vietnam to American business and products, the pace of change is intensifying. Pepsi recently co-sponsored VIETNAMERICA EXPO '94-Hanoi's first trade event dedicated exclusively to U.S. companies wishing to showcase their products after a nearly two decade embargo. Pepsi introduced such products as Kentucky Fried Chicken, Frito Lay potato chips and Pizza Hut pizza at the Giang Vo Vietnam Exhibition Fair Centre. Other U.S. companies represented at the event were Gillette, Carrier, Culligan, IBM, Digital, Microsoft, and numerous smaller to mid-size companies.

For Bill Willert of Willert Home Products based in St. Louis, Missouri, the exposition was a chance for him to play a role in creating employment for Vietnam. While at EXPO '94, his company, a manufacturer of household fresheners, made arrangements to grow flowers for a line of potpourri in the agricultural region of Dalat. Willert, who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, is among numerous Americans who see the economic opening of Vietnam as a chance to make some sense out of their involvement in the Vietnam War, put the episode behind them, and do something positive for the Southeast Asian nation.

VIETNAMERICA EXPO '94 was the brain child of Giang Tran of Vietnam Investment Information & Consulting. Tran, a Vietnamese-American who runs his company from offices in Hanoi and San Diego explains, "The EXPO has been a turning point that has allowed the people of Vietnam and the U.S. to come together with an eye toward the future and toward building more commercial, cultural and personal relationships between the two countries." In a symbolic gesture of this new era of positive relations, both the American and Vietnamese flags flew side-by-side at a public building in Vietnam.

The emerging relationship between the U.S. and Vietnam has attracted the attention of an international press corps, which has not covered Vietnam so intensely in over 20 years. George Esper, who covered the Vietnam War for the Associated Press for 10 years, has returned to establish a new AP bureau in Hanoi. The bureau now generates news about Vietnam daily. The bureau also serves as a home to visiting American journalists from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Detroit Free Press, and dozens of papers that now regularly cover the new Vietnam.

Hanoi is becoming the place to meet and make business contacts. And the hot place to meet in Hanoi is currently the cocktail lounge of Sofitel's Metropole Hotel on Ngo Quyen Street. Sooner or later everyone stops at the recently renovated Metropole, and everyone is doing deals-sometimes at a pace that resembles a feeding frenzy. One Singapore developer who builds apartments in Hanoi approached a stranger in the lounge to present his card and offer an exclusive arrangement to broker property in the States. Reserve has no place in this new business frontier.

With the influx of foreign business, Hanoi is enjoying a newfound financial power and is enthusiastically meeting the nineties.

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Published on 10/1/94