Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 518 - What Happens When A 1975 Refugee Returns To Saigon 50 Years Later? - Phuc Tran

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518 - What Happens When A 1975 Refugee Returns To Saigon 50 Years Later? - Phuc Tran · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have Fuchang on the author of Saigon.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've, uh, we had Fuchang many years ago when he was, um, a young buck, just starting out his writing career.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just kidding.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's your question.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So here's a go.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, why is it?
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, 20 is literally joking about this, but oh, but you're still young buck.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my kids that you told call me a young buck.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can I get on I get on I get on getting I get called on all the time at my nephew Oh, thanks
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: The reason I asked you to come back on because I know that you just went to Vietnam and this is 50 something years later.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: You left Vietnam when you were two.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you're a young hunk today.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm here to hear,
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: what you think of the trip before you left of Vietnam and then your thoughts now that you've come back for a few weeks now.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's start with what did you think Vietnam was going to be before you left and all these years, 50 years of living away from the homeland?
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: What did you think it was going to be?
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know my brother actually went like 20 years ago in the early 2000s and then you know my aunts like a bunch of aunts and uncles have been back but they usually tie those trips into like Singapore or Bali or like Japan you know and like I think
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I have this expression among Star Wars fans.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I always say nobody hates Star Wars as much as a Star Wars fan.
• 1:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like that's like low key also true for Vietnam.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like nobody hates Vietnam as much as 30 of these people.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So my aunt's like, wow, it's like, oh, so dirty, it's crowded, people are rude, and like everyone's on their phones all the time, and the phones are on full blasts, and like, shit's crazy, and I was like,
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, but I think like I'm also I think I'm reasonably good at just like having like sort of not having expectations about trips, you know, especially like traveling with kids like you just, you know, like when you're traveling with the
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: your family, like it's just like stuff goes, like shit goes sideways, really.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or just it just doesn't go according to plan and that's okay, right?
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think like that's that's like my been like my biggest takeaway is a parent.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I really went into the trip with no expectations other than like, you know,
• 2:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's not get food poisoning.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's just accept that it's going to be like hot as fuck in the end of June and early July.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was amazing.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was amazing.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, man, how do I get back?
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: How do I afford to get back?
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: We were talking about before we started the podcast about.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: how expensive it is, you know, for the flight, especially for me being on the east coast, like maybe on the west coast.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're cutting out like six hours of travel time, but yeah, it was it was amazing.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I have a lot of thought, you know, I have like lots of like sort of complicated thoughts about
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: being Vietnamese American and sort of like learning and learning stuff about my own family history, you know, especially in light of the wars there and like sort of who was on whose what side it's like it's so complicated.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was fascinating for me, especially
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: talking to our tour guides and sort of like getting some pretty frank opinions from them about the board like we went to the you know the American war crimes museum or what they call it and all the war remnants museum you know we went to like the Kuchi tunnels out inside you know outside of Saigon and stuff like that so yeah.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you regret not going earlier?
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I only, only because like it's so built up now.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that was the thing that I was most surprised by was especially like both like SIG on and Danang, especially like when we got to Danang, like our guide was like, welcome to Miami.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh damn, like it's crazy.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I guess,
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I would have loved to have seen it, like, 15.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, probably years ago.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I don't, and that's, that's not me making like a judgment about what, you know, they're doing now.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, I would have loved to have seen it.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, my favorite parts were the rural parts, you know, and I want to clarify, like, I don't, like, I wasn't there for, like, poverty porn, like, I didn't want to be like, ooh, we're so poor.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there's water buffaloes and they're wearing the rice hatch.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I just love seeing.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, you're like, you see a city, you kind of like, they all kind of like have a, like, this big city vibe, even though like, you know, like it'd be at the mean city is very different from a European city, but still a city.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think like rural life just feels more different.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was there just sort of experience, you know, sort of as much as I could and as many different things like, but yeah, are you mom and dad still around?
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that was part of why I didn't go sooner.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I spent so much time doing this full court press on them to try to get them to go with me.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they were just like, no, they were, I mean, they're very hard feelings, you know, for them.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so like, after like 10 years of trying to get my parents to go and them just kind of like shooting me down.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was like, okay, I guess I'll just go by myself and then, you know, we had kids.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: This was like, you know, when there are like 30 years, you know, we started having kids and then I was like, ah, like, you know, no, no, now, how do you do like a two week or three week trip to Vietnam when you have like infants?
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: So then we're like, all right, let's wait till the kids are old and off, et cetera, et cetera.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So,
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, I definitely wish, you know, and also it's just like a resources thing, you know, it's just like, you're in college and you're broke and then you're out of college and you're broke and you're in your 20s and you're just busy doing another.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm shit.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're broke.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Also.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also like trying to give you another dump shit and then.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you have kids and then you broke.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Basically, you're, you're, you're like, broke all the train degrees of being broke and then at some point.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was saying to you, and I don't mind saying this like, you know,
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: airfare was so we almost went with like my cousins last year and the airfare was so expensive like we couldn't do it.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was like a 2500 bucks a ticket.
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then the only reason that we were able to afford this trip was because my uncle passed away and let me some money and my aunt was like this use this money for the airfare.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like don't be a dick.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like your uncle died.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Go on his
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So wait this is your mom and dad's sibling one of them yeah, okay, so this is your dad's brother, right?
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did your parents not like see your dad's brother going, wait a minute, I think he would have liked for, focused on his family to go to Vietnam and I'm gonna set aside some money and I mean, is still with all of that energy like no change?
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, they just, well, I think it's maybe like less.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: it's less like bad feelings now and they're just like part of it is like they're just like out of where too old it's gonna be too hard and like the travels to you know my parents are in their 70s now it's and it's real right it's like that that flight well maybe not as hard from California but it's like you know it's like for us from the East Coast it was like a 20 seven hour travel day you know like it would like lay over some stuff so it's it's hard
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's just like too hard for them now.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And frankly, as you know, like, they have all the Vietnamese shit they want in Orange County, California.
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're kind of like, I don't want, it's like, it's almost like, first world Vietnamese stuff.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're like, I don't want to go back and, you know, all that said, like, you know, when we were, you know, on our block in Saigon and like, I was like sending photos to my dad and like all this stuff.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he was like very, um, he was very responsive.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, oh my god, I remember that, you know, our neighborhood, she lives in the back alley, that there's a, you know, so it's like very, you know, like he was engaged and I, I think even from my back and forth with my father, I think there's a part of him, I don't know, I don't think he would admit it, but I think there's a part of him that's like, I wish I hadn't gone back, I don't.
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: like I don't I don't and I don't get the sense I don't have clear sense of how many sort of vehicle go back to Vietnam like I'm sure it's different but like what like in what is your sense in your community kind of like how many people go back to Vietnam?
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: to travel.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody goes back here.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think on the West Coast we go a lot because of our proximity, but I think there's also this sort of open-mindedness when you're around a lot of Vietnamese people who are a constantly talking about being in Vietnam and you're having FOMO.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a big part of it, you know, and no matter how anti-government or anti-whatever you are, you're going to be thinking about, oh my god, all these, like, generals and lieutenant kernels are going back now, and they're like, they're having a great time, I mean, yeah.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think, yeah, the West Coast has a problem with going back as much as the East Coast people.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and maybe it's just like certain generations of people, you know, I think my parents held out for so long because of their politics and then now, you know, yeah.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's do a thought exercise.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where in the world would you other than Vietnam or the US where in the world do you find it to be super amazing?
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you had a chance you would relocate there.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, to live, to live, you know, in your entire life, you know, has been Paris, has been London, I guess because we think that we live in the best country in the world, do United States, I mean.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Traditionally that's how we've thought right not anymore, but I'm thinking like if I came from Vietnam back in the 70s and I'm your dad and my dad And I'm like, oh, that is like living in the best place in the entire universe Yeah, how would you ever want to go back to Vietnam?
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess that's the only way I could see our our parents generation making that decision It's like
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the only way I get it.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, okay.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I made it to the promised land.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no reason.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go back in time and like go back to this to them.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Probably was a really bad place.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was gonna use some other choice words, but they don't know.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also like, I mean, they lost a civil war.
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like in their mind, they're like the country that they know.
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the only god, right?
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's like, you know, and the house is demolished and all this stuff.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and then they probably, I've never talked to anybody about this, but they probably feel a certain way about being responsible for the loss, maybe, or being on the losing side.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe there's a shame that I've never heard anybody talk about like the shame of losing, but I'm sure that's part of the, that's got to be part of the equation where you don't want to go back.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, and, and.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: and also like, I don't think anyone would ever verbalizes, but they're like, I'm sure there's like the thought of like, were we the, were we on the wrong side, you know what I mean?
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, not necessarily, but we're just born into a situation where the bad guys, maybe, I don't, I don't know.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know a lot of second generation guys like our age, you know, are thinking that all the time, but they don't, they can't admit it because nobody wants to, yeah, wait, you're born on the conferred side.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you need to make that comparison.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've made that comparison, too.
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure, for sure.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what have you, if you don't mean asking so, please ask,
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: your parents' generation, like those most of those folks have gone back to Vietnam.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: In multiple multiple.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: My dad lived there with my brother back in O4, O2, O3, O4, for many years and they started businesses and they really got active.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's amazing.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But my dad was like,
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was very intellectual about the whole thing.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was always like, there is no national pride in him.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was always like, the only language I speak is a language of intellectuals.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: He always said that to me.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you'd mean, there's only one language, language of intellectuals.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Show me some thinking, show me some critical thinking and then we're in business and it doesn't matter if it's in Vietnamese and Latin in Greek and Chinese.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about the exchange of thinking and thoughts.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be okay and it doesn't matter where.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we can debate, we can debate the thinking and the thoughts to where blue and the face and we're still going to have a great time.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if we're debating nationalism and who's a national dishes are better, that's when we're going to find ourselves in some deep due to, yeah, yeah, that's super interesting, yeah, I love that.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I love that.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think I guess, you know, my parents are just like outliers in that regard.
• 13:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: in the in the sense of like that they're refusing to go back.
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd be curious that maybe I'll ask next time I see them and we're talking to them.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll ask them like how many of their sort of orange county friends are holdouts like they are.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm not I'm not saying there's no holdouts there are holdouts.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm just curious that like my parents, you know, like I wonder if it's like my parents like, oh, 50, 50 or whatever, also it's like an age thing, right?
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's like, you know, literally said like that flight is just so burly and
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: But being born in America for me, I can't imagine not.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: going to the homeland.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't imagine not knowing who my ancestors were.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't imagine like thinking or not thinking about where these bowls of like who they'll come from.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just can't do it.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's like impossible for me to not like live in the excitement and the curiosity of like where our culture comes from.
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's ridiculous.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then,
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I was thinking of America as a, what they, the same Vietnamese, it can look so cool, which is a super, you know, it's a super nation.
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're not gonna, they're not gonna reach the, the shores of the US and then want to go back to the Vietnam in their lifetime.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our share for share for sure.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 14:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think like there was like, and then, and for me, I think like going back, I was like, oh, there's like parts of me that are very, like, I'm like, oh, that's like culturally.
• 15:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, this is very Vietnamese.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then there are other parts of me, I was like, nope, I'm so Americanized.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like they're cutting in line.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, drive you nuts.
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Band in line.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like why are you like, and it's like little ladies and like, you know, little aunties and just, and finally you're just like a kid.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I gotta be a dick and like push somebody.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the cutting in line was really culturally like probably the most like even more than the driving with driving I'm like I let's find whatever like you know everybody's like You know, they're all they're all in the road like you know, they're sort of like mutually you're sure destruction if like you drive like a But like the cutting in line was so brutal That is so funny.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is so funny.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would, yeah, I would stand in line thinking, um, I'm not being a dick.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm, I'm just being Vietnamese and that's nothing.
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing to judge here.
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know, never judge her.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, because everybody's doing it.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that there's no, I think all over Asia.
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's that way in China is like no tourists for that Hong Kong is bad.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, Vietnam's bad.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think the whole idea of like standing
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: England maybe, I don't know, but you know, I don't know if you heard like, you know, Beat Tongue, tell that story about how like when he and his dad, I'm telling you his story, but you know, I think it's like it's out there in the world.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, his dad was always like, you know, you're Vietnamese, you're Vietnamese, were Vietnamese, and then we went back to Vietnam, and then they came back and he's like, oh my god, no, we're so American.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, they're just like they've been here too long or whatever, but it was, you know, I don't think it's like quite like that for me, but I appreciate the opportunity to reflect on the things for me that I see in myself that's like very Vietnamese and then the things that are like, oh yeah, like, I like, I like an orderly lie, you know, I like taking a number and being like, okay, I'm number 15, you know, instead of just like the scrum at the window, you know, it's wild.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, yeah, and I also like price tag.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't like haggling.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like haggling really stuff.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I find it really stressful, especially like the, and then also like the plastic right like you show up.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you're just like, you know, Vietnam is very poor.
• 17:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just like, I don't want to haggle with this old lady, like, or whoever, you know what I mean?
• 17:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like just tell me what the price isn't.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then like, you know, then they think you're a dick because like they like, you know, they like ripped you off or whatever.
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, no, no, no, I like whatever you're charging like I'll pay it.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Cause like at the end of the day, like it's like,
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: $3 or $4 or $4, yeah, but let me give you, let me give you some insight.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let me do some insight.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so if you're in Japan, right, which is the big market, right?
• 17:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're in that thing, so many of those stalls are impossible to buy.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can't just like get a stall, right?
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you, and you don't realize like you're negotiating with people who have
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: for a fact.
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Fuck, this is a fact.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of those stall owners are generational wealth.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: They come from a lot of money to be in there.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're printing money.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: They make more money than you in one day than you making a month.
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
• 18:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you're sitting there.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: That makes me happy to hear actually.
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you're sitting there thinking poor poor poor poor, but that's not
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: that's not the case at all, they are rich, the people in that market, I found out, you know, families told me, you know, we're making a lot of money to buy a stall there is like no easy fee.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've had to like really grind it out for so many generations to finally make it in there and then what you're in there, you're making a lot and then looking at you like poor, full, poor
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're just chummed for there, you know.
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's great.
• 18:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're just a big, blah, blue, flintuna, you know, and they're just fishing.
• 19:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 19:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate that.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's it's good to know.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll keep that in mind.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean also like I don't also just feel like such a tourist trap there, right?
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it just gets like it's just crazy.
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I went into this is a kind of like look at it, but I was like, I can't I can't buy anything here.
• 19:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's too crazy.
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's pretty nuts.
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, travel kind of have you traveled the length of the country like you've done like,
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did it my first time when I went back with my mom and dad.
• 19:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like in my early 20s, very 22 23.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my mom and dad had a hard drive roll with the Terry at that point.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just got on the military right a year or two.
• 19:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: They hired a driver with a 12 seed or 15 seed passenger bus.
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so we went with like, my mom and dad's uncles and cousins.
• 19:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's like a grown-up trip with like these old school people.
• 19:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like half the, half the bus, half that van has died off.
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, like uncles and stuff to have died.
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, we went from, um, SIGON to, um, Hanoi.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: We went actually all the way down to Kamal, which is a southern tip and then we went back up.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they're probably... For some things?
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Three weeks.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Three weeks.
• 20:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a picture of my mom and dad sitting on this beautiful mountain top.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I forget the name of the...
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know the name.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have to look it up.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But...
• 20:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: It ended up being my mom and dad's tombstone.
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the shot that I took them sitting together.
• 20:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: My mom's still alive, but she wanted that to be the tombstone, because they're both going to be buried together in one, one, a lot.
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so that was like the first shot that I took of them and they, every time I visit my dad, I'm reminded of that first trip that we had as a family back to Vietnam together.
• 20:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.
• 20:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's Dale Hyvan, is the name of it, you know.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, good job.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't believe you just talked about it.
• 21:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do want to know, when you went back this time, did it create material for another book perhaps?
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I took notes for sure.
• 21:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I took a ton of notes.
• 21:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm,
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Part of me is just like processing it still, you know, like it's less than them, you know, it's really been back in the US like three, two, three weeks, um, I don't know what I would say that isn't like super cliche either, you know, like, so I think in some ways, like it's like, oh, like, I think I'm just having all the things that like many sort of like, you know, be a key you have when they visit Vietnam or like, you know, there's like a spectrum of emotions and feelings there.
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe an essay for sure, for sure, but I don't know if it's going to be like a full-blown book.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think if I did a book, it would be like, you know, it's like food can kind of threaten motorcycles, and we ride from Saigon to Hanoi.
• 21:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like that, that I think like, you know, some hijinks wouldn't, and so we'd do.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's a book, because you know, like, you know, I know who it is.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it's like a dire exaction.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's not like a new version of like Zen and the art of motors like this.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: No psycho maintenance.
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I've been thinking about like, I mean, that's, I mean, how can you not travel there?
• 22:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just traveling in general, but like I think a place that has a sort of like emotional weight like that and not have it sort of like trigger.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know an engagement and sort of like deep inquiry inside.
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it just takes a lot of time for me to process, you know, it's gonna take some time to process, but yeah.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you think any of the real Vietnam has erased or demolished any of the fantasy Vietnam that you had in your mind?
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I think only because, again, I really, you know, I traveled to China maybe 10 years ago.
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember we were on a tour and, you know, we were in like Shanghai and like Beijing.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, um,
• 23:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: when we went to like the rural parts of China, I was like, oh, like in some ways, right?
• 23:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like it's like the thing that like meets your expectations, right?
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like a little bit of like this like Western gaze, I guess.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're like, you're like, oh, this is a China that I thought I would see in my brain and they're, or you know, like, I don't want to use the word authentic.
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was just like the China that I thought I would see, like I saw it and I was like really excited by it.
• 23:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And not that like Shanghai is like not amazing, but it's just like crazy.
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: It just looks like Blade Runner or something, right?
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And our tour guide was just like, oh, you just want to see the poor China.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, damn.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like he really called me out on it, not in a mean way, but he was just like, there's more to China than just like poor China.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, like that made me reflect a lot.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think like on this trip, like I really wanted to be sort of thoughtful about like,
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to see what I see, like, I don't have expectations for it.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was really surprised by how built up it was, how, like, how propulsive, like, the infrastructure, the investment infrastructure is, that was steamed really intense.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I was, I asked, like, one of our guides, I was like, what?
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are you guys thinking about like the environmental impact on stuff, you know, like it's just like, you know, and he's just like, this is the price you paid for not being, you know, for for joining, I guess, let's just call it the first world or whatever, right, like a, you know capitalism, like it's just like they're like so, like they're all in on capitalism and the free market, right, and like the government obviously is still communist or single party, but
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's just like environment and, you know, like whatever, like he's just like, how else are we going to like, you know, have a seat at the table?
• 24:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I worry about that, but it's also like, it's a privilege for me to be like, oh, which is a portable water, you know, like, what did you work on that or whatever, you know, like, um,
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what are your thoughts?
• 25:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I mean, you've seen it for 20 years now, like you saw it like before, like Nvidia and Apple.
• 25:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, yeah, it was like, you know, Nike, investment, I mean, I have my thoughts on the pollution thing.
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: But,
• 25:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'll bring it back to three different countries.
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: My first country is watching L.A. pollution in the 80s.
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember how thick that smog was, right?
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was so thick.
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then I remember going to Shanghai in 2007 and how thick.
• 25:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Guangdong, Guangzhou, all of those places, their pollution was super thick.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't been back since, but I've heard that they've cleaned it up tremendously.
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've done a great job cleaning up Shanghai.
• 25:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know what it was like 10 years ago for you, but I remember it being the Jetsons.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think 20 years ago it was relatively polluted, but it wasn't like
• 26:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: LA pollution.
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: LA pollution was like not the carburetors or whatever they weren't they didn't have filters and they didn't have laws to protect the environment in LA in the 80s when I was growing up going in elementary school.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember how much of a headache I would have coming home from school every day.
• 26:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I remember Shanghai, and then I remember in the most recent trips going that is the price of modernizing Vietnam But it will be cleaned up because they talked about it, and I don't know for whatever political purpose or economic reasons They're talking about banning anything with the gas brand a motor
• 26:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, so everything's supposed to go back to your supposed to go to electric vehicles, whether it's motorbikes or cars.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they had this big push, but then there's this political side of this big push.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about Vinfas being the reason why the government's pushing for everything to go to electrical vehicles.
• 27:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what to believe.
• 27:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter to me, but I know within 10, 15 years as everybody's not worried about lining their pockets, which I think eventually happens in every society.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: People, the young people will remember, oh my god, I grew up in dirty, polluted air.
• 27:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I need to not have my children go through that.
• 27:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the Politburo I think will make strides to clean it up as people get more rich and they're not concerned as much about making that kind of money that the previous generations like China and Angelino's were when Los Angeles was industrializing in the 50s and 60s.
• 27:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's just
• 27:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: richer and as a result people want better life.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like LA now is like it's not perfect, but it's not near as polluted as it was when I was growing up.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's always that hope for me when I think about Vietnam I'm a very optimistic guy when it comes to the optimistic Yeah, yeah, okay, but about the water like the portable water piece, you know, it's like right now you've like a hundred million people all drinking like plastic
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, fast-sid water, microplastics in the seeped in, I think that's happened in L.A. too, I think it's very difficult, it is what it is.
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is what it is, but I think that there are a lot of filtration systems being sold, both in L.A. and in Saigon, that you can connect to your water, but these are powerful filtration systems that are being sold on the market, you know, but what can we do?
• 28:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's
• 28:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who knows you got food?
• 28:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, what do you want to hear about?
• 28:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, I have my question, but if you have questions for me, I'm here for two.
• 28:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, when you go back now, it's just like a family trip, like you just always go to a side-on to visit your brother and have you, and I guess you've been going back for 20 years, so like you've really like traveled to all the corners of Vietnam.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't say all the corners.
• 29:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, have you been saying all that else?
• 29:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have not.
• 29:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've not been a denang of not being behind yours.
• 29:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, no, I've been on the first trip, but I've not been back.
• 29:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't, I guess I'm, yeah, I'm curious about, um, I don't know what's your feeling on like the sort of watching like the infrastructure and like the modernization for lack of a better word, sort of explode.
• 29:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's always gonna be mixed emotions for me.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God, on one hand, I'm like, oh my God, it's just so beautiful to watch Vietnam prosper.
• 29:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: But on the other hand, what am I gonna say?
• 29:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey guys, slow it down.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: We still like the poverty porn that we get to consume on the outside.
• 29:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not fair.
• 29:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not fair to have that, you know?
• 30:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that with development comes, it's pros and cons.
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that it's almost like an exercise and futility at this point to really debate it because it's gonna happen.
• 30:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: There is corruption, like there is an every growing society, it will slow down like every uh, society that grows, um, you know, Los Angeles is slow down with this growth and building out and building up.
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's, it's, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's
• 30:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think it's going to run its course as well, and I think that I'm here to see and be excited about how far it gets to run.
• 30:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not being said, I really do think that environmentalists eventually will put the cabash on Vietnam's development eventually.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it happens when
• 30:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: sounds really weird but when people have enough and people will get enough and I'm not saying people are generation I think the young kids of parents of our generation they're going to be like mom dad we have enough we have to stop this and I don't think it's happening in our lifetime but it will happen yeah I think it does happen and tell me about like do you did you have a feeling
• 31:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: when you're especially in your sort of like long view of it, like the things that like do you associate the modernization of Vietnam with Westernization?
• 31:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like you work?
• 31:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 31:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's no way for Vietnam to modernize with the law, so maintain sort of its distinct Vietnameseness.
• 31:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Very difficult.
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: because it's all it's all bending around commerce, a capitalism, right?
• 31:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And capitalism is distinctly Western, right?
• 31:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: With like, you know, profit and loss and sales and like, you know, timely delivery and product and love a blog.
• 32:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think you have to be very mindful if you're a young person in the development space, whether it's the architecture, the food, the music, whatever, to be very mindful to make it,
• 32:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: stay distinctly Vietnamese.
• 32:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's very hard.
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here's what I mean.
• 32:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think in every field, there's this idea of best practices, right?
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like, if you're building a mall, so it can be like, what's the best way that you can have people flow through this thing and maximize your dollars?
• 32:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, how do you set up the elevators, escalators, theater, like, well, so everything's laid out like, all the best malls in Dubai.
• 32:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, or all the best malls and wherever the best malls are.
• 32:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And where did the best malls learn from?
• 32:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: They learn from that prior previous iteration of the best malls.
• 32:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the kitchens are the same.
• 32:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the Michelin restaurants are the same.
• 32:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: What does a dining experience of the best feeling come from?
• 33:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's been studied through whatever, you know, food production.
• 33:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: to make anything different, you really have to be very intentional.
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's where everybody in the world, maybe there's fault with that.
• 33:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like we don't want to think outside the box.
• 33:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we don't want to think about like being intentional about how distinctly wonderful our cultures are.
• 33:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we want to like, we want to jump ahead and be like, okay, what makes most
• 33:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then put some skins on top of it, right?
• 33:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like let's just make it feel like it's Vietnam, but at the end of the day, the engines got to be efficiency.
• 33:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And efficiency has predominantly come from the West or iterations of things from the West.
• 33:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's just my opinion.
• 33:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the fact, but yeah, that's how I think about it.
• 33:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my aunt when she was just there like four months ago, maybe, which she, you know, she was texted with me and she was just like, you know, makes for her as like an OG, you know, via the least person from the 60s and 70s.
• 34:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was like, I'll feel like,
• 34:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: they're just like changing themselves in order to appeal to like at least on the tourist side right like we're on the travel and tourist side like that they're changing themselves to accommodate like the sort of the money that's coming in and and also losing the thing that like made them distinct
• 34:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that is the hallmark of progress.
• 34:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And here's what I mean by that.
• 34:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I think if you like, and obviously these are no hard and fast rules, but I think that when you think about systems of finance, systems of moviemaking, systems inside of a kitchen that come from France, systems that come from moviemaking that come from like,
• 35:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: the Jewish culture in the US moviemaking dating back to, you know, the days of the founding of USC, the university and how they like indoctrinated moviemaking at that level and then it's like built out like the military is built out when you make a movie.
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: All of these best practices are now done in Vietnam.
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that whether they're adapting it in a, in a, in a smooth and efficient way, or they're doing it, whatever way they are, but it's still like the best practices.
• 35:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the best practices are creating all of these products that we get to enjoy with some level of our cultural, intentional, littering in, in the process of whatever we're making.
• 35:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it makes me think about like what are the things like what are the pillars of a culture, right?
• 35:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's like the language, the cuisine, the customs, et cetera, et cetera.
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I mean, I just, and like you said, like I think there's, you know, I don't, I don't want to like fossilize Vietnamese culture in amber and like be like, no, you can't.
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you can't progress or grow or anything like that, you know, in the same way that like, you know, I go back and I, you know, I call an airport, you know, if you're jumping and then everyone laughs because they're just like that's not what you call an airport and I'm like, I'm sorry, like I'm speaking like 70s Vietnamese, you know, and
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, it's yeah, I mean, you know, let them progress the way they want to progress and and I think the thing that I also took away that I thought was really interesting was like thinking about how Vietnam has always been the crossroads of many places, you know, cultures like for a lot, you know, thousands of years, let's say, right, it's like the Chinese and the come at the career, right, or the the champa people and then the French and so like I think it's always
• 37:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's always just been at a crossroads.
• 37:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's always like taking in influences and...
• 37:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and also as a Vietnamese American, like I, you know, obviously like my opinion is this like it's whatever, you know.
• 37:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think it's fascinating to, I guess I want to be open to having Vietnam and young Vietnamese people change and adapt and and take in more influences and and keep moving it forward and and if it means like taking some, you know, capitalism and American culture and like, you know, putting it in the cocktail shaker and shaking it up and
• 37:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be different, right?
• 37:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's not going to be like a cookie-cutter version of America, but you know, yeah, good for them.
• 37:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm looking at, I think.
• 37:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: What would you ever move and retire to Vietnam?
• 37:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I literally, only because I did the math.
• 37:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, God damn, it's so affordable here other than the air fair.
• 38:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I wonder if my 401k could float me in Vietnam.
• 38:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: How would I do that?
• 38:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was, I mentioned it to my wife and she was like,
• 38:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's like, it's crazy hot here, and I was like, I know, but there's air conditioning also you just get used to it.
• 38:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, across my mind, you know, I'm so far, I don't know, I'll probably work tell them dead anyway.
• 38:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it did cross my mind.
• 38:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: What about you?
• 38:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Have you thought about it?
• 38:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are you going to do it?
• 38:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think about it all the time.
• 38:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think about it all the time.
• 38:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I, it really depends on my children.
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, if based, if one of them, it's just need, I just need to have one of the two of them say, no, I want you here with me and I, I won't leave, but if both of them are like, dad, go to your thing.
• 38:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, go have a great time.
• 38:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it'll be out.
• 38:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 38:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you know, if they're in New York or if they're in DC and I don't get to see them, like, but once you're twice a year, then what difference is I'd probably see them more if they.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, yeah, I just don't think, but if they lived in LA and they stayed here, then I think we're going to, I think if they said, please stay at stay.
• 39:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 39:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you know that if it's, if it's easy to, for, like, let's say if you decided in the next 10 years to, like, me wouldn't buy property, but like, you could, like, rent a apartment or something.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: They can rent an apartment, but you can also buy, like, a pretty decent condo for, like, 350 right now.
• 39:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's crazy.
• 39:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You gotta play some, pay some HOA, like a hundred bucks or something like that.
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, fully like, you know, there's a pool and it's safe and you're gated and all of that.
• 39:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, how much is it really?
• 39:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know so many expats, you know, so many Vietnamese have gone back to Vietnam and retired.
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you asked them, they would be like, are you crazy?
• 39:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why would I not do this?
• 39:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I, my money gets to be stretched at least six to 10 times, you know, depending on where you are.
• 39:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I thought about that as soon as it's funny, I mentioned that to my wife.
• 39:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I will see.
• 39:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to go back.
• 39:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to go back.
• 39:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like we on this trip, like I really were there for two weeks and we booked the whole trip through a tour company.
• 40:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, okay, let's pretend this is the only trip I'm ever going to take to Vietnam.
• 40:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, let's just go, let's go for it.
• 40:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, so it was like super intense, like we did a lot, like we did a lot.
• 40:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think like I would love to go back and have it be a slightly more relaxed trip or like I got to eat like more fun.
• 40:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like I, I was just like, you know, there's so many things I wanted to eat and places I wanted to go.
• 40:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I didn't, we didn't go to Sapa, you know.
• 40:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: then like, yeah, and we got to go to Hanoi, yep, yeah, we landed in Hanoi, yeah, and that was where we landed.
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then it was so funny, like I got, we got there and I was like, is my feet and it means really bad, like, what?
• 40:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it really bad?
• 40:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I have such a hard time understanding people, and then later in the trip, I was like, oh, that was just like the Hanoi accent.
• 40:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was like so hard, like, right, all right.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: some difficult to understand.
• 41:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is if you're not used to it.
• 41:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It really does.
• 41:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, we're talking to when we're in the night and we're talking to our tour guide.
• 41:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I was like, oh, I understand you way better.
• 41:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, do you know what that noise accent?
• 41:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, oh, yeah, he's like, and I never understand what, like, I know if people are saying to me, I was like, okay, that makes me feel a lot better.
• 41:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's almost like a different language.
• 41:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's, yeah, like, instead of like, instead of saying, like, you, they would say like, you know what?
• 41:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, like, what?
• 41:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, it was like, the tones were like crazy.
• 41:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, anyway, it's just, you know.
• 41:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was, it was amazing.
• 41:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Have you talked to have many people on your podcast about like their sort of trips back?
• 41:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I try to every time.
• 41:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I try to.
• 41:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every time I know somebody who hasn't been back, you know, ever like Chris Doe, you first time coming back, if they've been on the podcast, I always reach out.
• 42:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because they always post something like you did.
• 42:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's my first time back.
• 42:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I always reach out to them and like, hey, let's talk about this.
• 42:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I would love to.
• 42:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just got to win the power ball or something.
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll, like, so when we were sort of going back to like your when we were talking about like, you know, sort of thinking about like, oh, where we like on the right side of the wrong side, we are it.
• 42:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: uh... we were in the mecon delta and uh... metah and and i like texted by dad and he's is like oh that's where your grandmother's from and like you're you're a great grandfather had a hotel there uh... and i was like oh what happened to him and he's like oh you got dragged out in the middle of the night and murdered and thrown into the mecon wherever and i was like shit i was like i didn't know the story right so i was like what happened
• 42:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like during the 1940s during Japanese occupation.
• 42:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 42:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like the Vietnamese, right, who, just for your listeners, I guess.
• 43:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the Vietnamese during the 40s were trained by the US government, right?
• 43:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like the OSS to resist the Japanese.
• 43:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, Ho Chi Minh is a product of US training to resist the Japanese.
• 43:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, is that, is that, does that drive with what you understand like the vehement in the 1940s World War II to be?
• 43:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think there are so much covert operations that we're happening that I don't I have never heard of anything confirmed, but I have also heard what you've heard and I've also heard people fight back that as well because there's just so many opposing views about this, but that's my understanding of it, but what I do know is that the Vietnam came to my great grandfather.
• 43:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, who owns his hotel and they're like, we need your help resisting the Japanese, and he's like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm gonna collaborate with them so they like drag him out of the middle of the street and execute him and then throw him his body.
• 44:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I texted my dad, I'm like, so was he like a collaborator with the like Japanese?
• 44:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like was he just sort of like, whoever's the boss, like I'm with you and my dad was like, no, not at all.
• 44:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, he just hated the French.
• 44:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: He hated the French so much.
• 44:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: that he was so delighted that the Japanese had kicked the French out, like he was like great I love you guys and I guess in my his mind he was worried maybe that like the Vietnamese were going to like
• 44:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: not, you know, create a vacuum for the French to come back.
• 44:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have no idea.
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Was it fascinating to, in a quick succession of text messages to be like, oh, man, I was like, like, great grandfather was like a collaborator with like, you know, occupying, you know, colonial forces and I was like, my dad's like, no, no, no, he just hated one colonial
• 44:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, sort of power more than the other.
• 44:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, all right, I guess that makes sense.
• 44:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's complicated, but it's not complicated.
• 44:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, here's the real crazy complication.
• 45:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is that I have never really heard from my mother's generation or my grandmother's generation, a hatred for the French.
• 45:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Always a hatred for the Japanese.
• 45:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ha!
• 45:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, oh yeah, no, like I hear a fair and and I have relatives who are French, yeah, they I love the French video people love the French.
• 45:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's like us studying history and realizing no, all colonizers are bad, but it's more nuanced than the more I get to sit with people, the more I realize like there are people that absolutely love the French and my grandfather
• 45:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Great grandfather.
• 45:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: No grandfather.
• 45:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: My grandfather was also killed in the same time for him, 1943. killed by the vitamin, because he also didn't want to collaborate, but he was also a French he was a French tap.
• 45:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was blessed by the French to be the town police, so he was backed by the
• 46:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's so wild that they really killed both of our great-grandfathers, but both of our great-grandfathers refused to collaborate for different reasons, right?
• 46:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Totally.
• 46:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a fuck.
• 46:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, totally, totally, and um, yeah, and then that based the question, like, here's a thought that I think about a lot is that my
• 46:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: grandfather served the French.
• 46:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then my dad and his brothers were in the CIA Phoenix program.
• 46:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so they served the Americans.
• 46:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then my brother and I both US Marines.
• 46:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So up and down the chain are arguably people who are born in the wrong side of history to the people Vietnam.
• 46:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: To the 100 million people in Vietnam right now.
• 46:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a family of white loving.
• 46:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
• 47:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll go bunch out of all times.
• 47:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 47:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: was Ho Chi Minh, you know, and the other five guys were like political, you know, their political ideologists that were trying to break free from the French, and here I am as a child of the south, you know, harping on how beautiful like, you know, this title could be, you know, Vietnamese heroes, and the whole table walked out of the dinner.
• 47:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was
• 47:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was mad, it was manning, yeah, after it was, yeah, and I didn't talk to him because you included what you meant in that list.
• 47:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because I said, well, maybe at one point we were born on the wrong side and you know, guns were drawn, you know, I'm like, hey, this is a thought experiment.
• 48:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I have the right to say all this because we are.
• 48:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: White, uh, we're on good times.
• 48:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I can say that because I am, I did, I went through it.
• 48:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, I served the US.
• 48:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I did my time.
• 48:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did my tour.
• 48:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, my brother did too.
• 48:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: My dad and his brothers.
• 48:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: We all like, uh, on the same.
• 48:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're on the side of democracy.
• 48:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh,
• 48:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's weird how you just can't say whatever you want to say when you have this responsibility to honor the folks that lost their lives in this particular fight.
• 48:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's really hard for people to come to terms with.
• 48:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the idea that they might, they might or their ancestors with their family might not have been the good guys.
• 48:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think we all want to be the heroes, right?
• 48:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's really hard to interrogate a narrative or even entertain a narrative in which you were not the good guy of your own life.
• 49:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Never mind.
• 49:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Totally.
• 49:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Et cetera, et cetera.
• 49:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can say that about my time in the Marines.
• 49:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can say that just, I'm not gonna comment on my dad and his dad's time.
• 49:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I can comment on my time.
• 49:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't a mistake that I did that.
• 49:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I had to go through it.
• 49:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was just part of my life experience and I don't regret it.
• 49:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I can also two things can be true at the same time.
• 49:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had a great experience, I, you know, very proud that I did that, but at the same time, I can also say, you know, I'm not very proud of a lot of things United States have done in the last 50 years of me being alive and keeping the time that I served in the Marine Corps, you know?
• 49:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was just reading a statistic, the bombings and the destruction of war in the world has 90% the United States footprint in it.
• 50:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's selling missiles or weapons or actually flying our own planes, US planes over to drop bombs, we are responsible for 90% of the destruction.
• 50:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you go and you think about China in the last 100, 200 years.
• 50:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Has there been any instruction coming up?
• 50:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 50:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: China, it's like nothing.
• 50:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, I mean, others than brutal repression, right?
• 50:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: But totally not on the scale of the US.
• 50:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also, like, there's no other country in the world that has like military bases everywhere, right?
• 50:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, imagine it's like China had like a Air Force base in the US, like people would be losing their minds, but like the US, they would completely unacceptable.
• 50:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: You didn't have China had a base in Guam.
• 50:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It would be completely like what?
• 50:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: But like you know, I mean, like we, you know, the tentacles of the defense department are long and, you know, anyway.
• 50:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're deep, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and anyway, that's fascinating.
• 51:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do you like, I guess?
• 51:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I, I'll say this is so superficial.
• 51:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was really, I like talked to my cousin, she lived in Vietnam for a while, and like prepping for the trip, and you know, and I feel like we really prepared very well because we like overplan and we travel a lot.
• 51:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I brought all this bug spray and there were no bugs.
• 51:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bro, where were the bugs?
• 51:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: There was like no, where did I stay?
• 51:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're in the city, we're in Hanoi, we're in Nenbin, we're in, you know, how long they, we're in Denang, we're in...
• 51:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: and we were in Sagan, we were in Kentucky, we were in Utah.
• 51:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: No bugs.
• 51:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: We were in the jungle in trippy.
• 51:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is that somebody said that maybe it was like so hot in the summer that like the bugs were in hell?
• 51:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 51:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 51:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've never thought about it.
• 51:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a mosquito attracting blood type person.
• 52:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't get bit often.
• 52:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do get bit, but not as often to the point where I'm thinking about bugspray not working or not no need for bugspray.
• 52:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 52:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a really interesting point though.
• 52:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was very surprised.
• 52:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: No bugs.
• 52:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And all four of us, like my kids and my wife were just where the bugs, it was why.
• 52:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, other than that.
• 52:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, frankly, that was like a flea note that was like a five star experience.
• 52:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like great.
• 52:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm not getting eaten alive in the jungle.
• 52:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did your kids feel about the trip?
• 52:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: They loved it, but we really tried to give them a pep talk and just to talk about the itinerary and how I was like, this is not time to be a picky eater, just fucking eat whatever isn't in front of each of them, it's going to be what it's going to be, they're 12 and 15, so just about 13 and 16, and they're old enough that we can reason with them, you know.
• 53:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they were great.
• 53:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: They were really great.
• 53:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think it was, I think like the chaos of it was very eye-opening for them because we've traveled to Europe a lot.
• 53:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and this was the first time that they were traveling to like, I guess, like, the developing world.
• 53:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're like, holy shit.
• 53:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, watching like dudes like doing like hardcore construction and like flip flops, you know, like, oh, like there's no OSHA here.
• 53:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, there's no...
• 53:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or like I think like maybe like on the second or last night there they saw some like street kids like some, you know, beggar kids, you know, homeless kids, I guess, you know, it's like gone and there that was like, that was really like upsetting for them.
• 53:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're like those kids didn't have shoes.
• 53:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, yeah, I'm like, probably because they're homeless.
• 53:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, like, and then also seeing some like, agent orange, you know, folks.
• 53:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, yeah, I mean, so that was, I think it was great for them.
• 54:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I think it's going to be a long time for them to process, you know, and they'll have like sort of, you know, different takeaways, you know, I think it's still pretty fresh for them.
• 54:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: But,
• 54:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: But all in all, like, it was an amazing trip for all of us.
• 54:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad to hear that.
• 54:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so happy that you are willing to share and be so open about the trip.
• 54:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like you had a great trip.
• 54:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to ask you, what are you doing any?
• 54:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you writing?
• 54:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not about the trip or anything like that, because I see that.
• 54:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: But are you working on a new book?
• 54:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, next.
• 54:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just got out from under my, I just finished like a fulfilled my contract for the kids book series, the cranky cranky the crane series and then I actually have a writing retreat coming up in like a month where I'm just going to go off into the woods.
• 54:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: At this artist retreat and I've got a week carved out so I'm going to try and get make some headway on a novel which I'm not at these are to disclose anything else about novel as it's a novel, but you know.
• 55:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not writing for a paycheck.
• 55:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not writing for 10 years.
• 55:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I like to joke that it it makes me like the most dangerous person to be writing anything for him to leave because love it.
• 55:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
• 55:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that because now you're not beholden to anybody.
• 55:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Any corporation, any deadline?
• 55:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm just going to write whatever.
• 55:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: You may agent hates it when I say that.
• 55:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's just like, you're writing for me.
• 55:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Come on.
• 55:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Man, you know, I just discovered this writer.
• 55:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have
• 55:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, I haven't, don't, yeah.
• 55:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Man, I just learned about this guy.
• 55:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was on Rick Rubin.
• 55:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, Rubin, the producer?
• 55:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: The music guy, yeah.
• 55:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So for everybody, anybody who doesn't know Rick Rubin as Rick Rubin is, one of these guys who are super old school, you know, start out producing for the Beastie Boys.
• 55:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, in recent years, you know, has worked with everybody in the music business.
• 56:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can have that idea.
• 56:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we wrote this really cool book and he has a podcast series now We're you know who talked to Ferrell who talked to all like the great, you know all the the big people in the music business He had Joseph win on I didn't even know who Joseph went in until one of my friends go dude.
• 56:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have you checked this guy?
• 56:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have you had him on your podcast?
• 56:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like I've never even heard of him.
• 56:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then I listen to the podcast and then I realized like he was saying something he goes
• 56:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did not have a book publishing deal from the get-go so I self-published and what I did was I read excerpts every day I read like at least three to five times a day and put on my Instagram I my Instagram grew and pretty soon I was selling 20 to 30,000 copies a month yeah
• 56:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, Joseph Lynn.
• 56:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll check him out.
• 56:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Joseph, when, yeah.
• 56:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he talks about, you know, stuff like, you know, it's very close to like, atomic habits and, you know, it's very mainstream in terms of like, you are not what you think you are, I forget the name of the book, but if anybody who's following Joseph when these days, Joseph, when, what a gangster.
• 57:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's written four books now.
• 57:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now he's got this like super cool set out, which is,
• 57:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: He has a hybrid deal with the publishers, so the publishers want him so bad.
• 57:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're like, no, no, what can we do to help?
• 57:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, I'm not telling the really can't do anything for me.
• 57:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But they're like, but do there's like bookstores and there's these things that you, you can't get to just simply because you, you know, and there's traditional people who buy from the bookstores.
• 57:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, okay, okay.
• 57:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's do a hybrid.
• 57:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever you put in these bookstores, we split the profits in the book.
• 57:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when I'm making on my own through my own channels and people are ordering through me and my Instagram, I'm keeping that.
• 57:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: What?
• 57:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: A genius.
• 57:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, why are we all not doing that, right?
• 57:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's like a little bit odd.
• 57:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's very, that's sort of what Andy we are, right, that author of the March, right?
• 58:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: He wrote that and put it out in the internet and then people lost their minds and then he signed a book deal.
• 58:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So afterwards sometimes sometimes, sorry, it is a meritocracy, where it sure feels like it's sometimes.
• 58:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
• 58:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, you just kind of like study how it's being clocked by the algorithm, how it's done because I mean, you know, I think once you learn that and you grow, because I went from 16,000 followers to begin with this year now at 24,000,
• 58:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So after the first five years, I had people who I hired to come on to the team and they figured it out.
• 58:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now it's like, I get how this is done.
• 58:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You just have to understand the algorithm because the content hasn't changed.
• 58:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've just figured out a new way to put the content into people's hands and now so I'm gonna do exactly what Joseph Windows, you know, it's just tough to like, not very intentional about getting the word out there.
• 58:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now I think you can do it too, you know, you can read, exert some of your last book and just spend three to five minutes on, you know, so you read 90 seconds per clip and you do that three or five times and just load it up.
• 59:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: from psychon you can do it from psychon right from your last book or any thoughts that you might have you could just record 90 seconds and just do a lot of it and just keep uploading it because the algorithm will start to work with you.
• 59:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's so interesting.
• 59:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's so interesting.
• 59:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm not hearing your team I guess.
• 59:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 59:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for coming on.
• 59:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are there any other questions that that I did not cover?
• 59:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so.
• 59:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so.
• 59:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: What would you, like, I guess what would you, what would be your advice?
• 59:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, three things that you would tell somebody who was about to travel to Vietnam for the first time.
• 59:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Who cares what you would say?
• 59:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, no, what a great question.
• 1:00:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: What a great question.
• 1:00:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would first off, this first answer is all encompassing.
• 1:00:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I would write down all the things that I think Vietnam is, right?
• 1:00:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd write everything.
• 1:00:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd just spend weeks writing what I think it would be.
• 1:00:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then when I get back, I would write down all the things that the new thoughts that I had because I think that side by side comparison and contrast is so fascinating
• 1:00:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: or belief.
• 1:00:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Second thing I would probably do is have some goals that you want to do.
• 1:00:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some concrete intentions, you know, visit an orphanage, visit.
• 1:00:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: a place where blind people may cap crafts and I would line up maybe it does into those including you know food spots and stuff like that.
• 1:00:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would definitely make a list of things so that when you get there, you can actually have very heavy load of intention to look for the places that that you wrote down.
• 1:01:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the third thing to do is to really experience cultural things like going to a rap concert, like a 2030-thousand rap concert in the city, go see an opera in Vietnam, go see real dancing, you know, like live dance performances in Vietnam.
• 1:01:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would really, yeah, encourage these cultural things Hanoi.
• 1:01:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think has a new upper house.
• 1:01:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's so many things to do culturally in Vietnam.
• 1:01:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think making a list of those things are some more.
• 1:01:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those are the three things I would.
• 1:01:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then always write about it when you get home.
• 1:01:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you don't forget what that first trip felt like.
• 1:01:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:01:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:01:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:01:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.
• 1:01:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
• 1:01:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's great in a place.
• 1:02:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:02:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, awesome.
• 1:02:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 1:02:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me on the great talking to you as always.
• 1:02:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Kind of.
• 1:02:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and I hope to see you soon.
• 1:02:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Talk about your book when you finish it.
• 1:02:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, if I'm in Los Angeles, I'll shoot you a drop of your line.
• 1:02:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's get together.
• 1:02:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Please would love that.
• 1:02:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, awesome.
• 1:02:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 1:02:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, ticker.
• 1:02:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, ticker.
• 1:02:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.
• 1:02:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 1:02:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, full.
• 1:02:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynn.
• 1:02:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynn, Catherine Wynn, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
• 1:02:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.