Spring Returns to Tan An--Vietnam's Chinese Rebuild

"The aroma of caramel wafts into the room. A scent of roasted peanuts, the smell of stew, barbecued meat, herbal medicine, jasmine, dust, incense, charcoal . . . . "

Such were the memories of Marguerite Duras, who was born and grew up in Vietnam under French colonial rule. In her novel L'amant, she recalls the elegance of Tan An, the Chinatown of Saigon (today Ho Chi Minh City) located in the west of the city's sixth district.

Tan An has had a certain style of old which has still not disappeared today, although it frequently fled the area in the intervening period. Today, however, the long winter has come to an end and spring has arrived. The area is brimming with vitality.

In the An Duong commercial market located in the business center of Tan An, the faces of the three Shih sisters are symbolic of the warm breezes now melting the winter ice. "These years life is much better," smile the sisters, who jointly manage a general grocery store. They built themselves a new house three years ago, and moved into the new commercial market the year before last. With business booming, it is only natural that they should be beaming.

The vendors of Tan An make for a lively street scene.

As spring follows winter:

The five-storey building containing the commercial market was erected the year before last and houses more than 2,000 enterprises. More than 80 percent of these businesses belong to ethnic Chinese, who share the busy spirit of the Shih sisters as they set about enjoying the sweet fruits of their hard work. The initiator of the market, Chen Chun-tsai, is even more representative of the reestablishment of the Chinese economy in Vietnam.

Presently managing director of the An Duong market, five years ago Chen was still living on foreign exchange posted to him by his wife who had fled to the United States. Four years ago, when the government allowed private enterprises to start up, he immediately banded together with some friends to open a bank. They used the bank's capital to build the US$5 million An Duong market, the biggest commercial market in Vietnam. Within a few prosperous years, Chen's range of business had extended to building, trade, foodstuffs, timber, handicrafts and various factories. The size of his investments are no less than those of his counterparts from Taiwan.

Surprised at the fruits of Vietnam's economic growth, foreign correspondents who have come here before rarely omit a visit to the Binhtien Imex Corporation in the sixth district. This company, started up by Vietnamese-Chinese businessman Vuu Khai Thanh, has shown exponential growth in the volume of its sales over the past four years. It reached a turnover of US$8 million last year and has a staff of more than 1,200. Being one of Vietnam's leading private enterprises, the company is frequently singled out by the government for visits.

Gifted at doing business, the overseas Chinese have become the vanguard of Vietam's economic recovery.

Rebuilding from the rubble:

The reliance of the overseas Chinese on entrepreneurial skills and their ability to work hard without complaint has meant they have frequently come to play leading roles in the economic life of their host countries. This time around, however, the reestablishment of the prosperity of the overseas Chinese in Vietnam is a process riddled with pitfalls and hardships.

Due to Vietnam's sharing common borders with mainland China's Kwangsi and Yunnan provinces, and the fact that Vietnam was a Chinese suzerainty for a thousand years, the customs of the two countries are similar. The migration of Chinese people to Vietnam also has a long history. Even after Vietnam had thrown off Chinese domination and won independence, there continued to be Chinese blood in the ruling dynastic houses, such as that of the Li lineage established in the eleventh century and that of Chen, some two hundred years later.

The turmoil in China at the end of the Ching dynasty led to large numbers of Chinese migrating to Vietnam. Statistics reveal that, in the period from World War One to 1975, some two million Chinese migrated to Vietnam. Most of these people settled in large cities, such as Saigon, Hanoi and Haiphong. They also tended to go into trading, services and light industries.

In 1974, before reunification, the R.O.C. embassy in Vietnam carried out a survey which discovered that ethnic Chinese made up a quarter of the population of Saigon, and that around half the businesses in the city were in their hands. Industries producing the daily necessities of life, and the new industries that arose at the end of World War Two, seemed to have come under the control of the Chinese at an early date.

"Because these businesses were all comparatively tough, the Vietnamese did not like to do them. They allowed us Chinese, who are not afraid of hardship, to do them," says Chen Chun-tsai, who owned six factories before reunification.

In 1956, the president of South Vietnam decided that the Chinese occupied too much of an important position in business and industry, and decreed that they should be banned from the trades of fish trading, groceries, firewood, gasoline, pawnbroking, textiles, scrap metals, rice and wheat, non-staple grains, land and water transport, and management industries. In the end, however, lack of interest on the part of the Vietnamese meant that these trades soon had to be reopened to the Chinese.

Signs in both Chinese and Vietnamese script soon let you know when you have arrived in Tan An.

Cradle-to-grave care for compatriots:

Ethnic Chinese in Vietnam are most numerous in Saigon, where they are concentrated in Tan An. This makes Tan An not just the focus of business activity but also a place where traditional Chinese culture has been preserved.

The close yet clearly separate coexistence of Vietnamese and Chinese is most obvious along the Tran Hung Dao Road that follows the Saigon river where it crosses this section of the city. The road is named after the Chinese hero Tran Hung-dao, who led the Vietnamese in resistance against the invading Mongol armies of the Yuan dynasty in the fourteenth century. To the east of the road is the Vietnamese political and economic center (now the first and third districts), while to the west is Tan An (the fifth and sixth districts).

Although the roads in both areas are similarly jammed with tricycles, motorcycles and pedestrians, and both boast the same shuttered windows and railed balconies of French colonial architecture, there is no need for signs to separate the two areas. From the Chinese shop boards, the businesses and the different intonation of the speech of the residents, the pedestrian can instantly tell when she has arrived within the bounds of Tan An.

Most of the Chinese in Vietnam originated from the coastal provinces of Canton and Fukien and soon set about organizing mutual aid societies to help fellow immigrants from their own areas. Immigrants identifying with Canton, Fukien, Chaochow, Hainan and the Hakka people made up the largest of these organizations.

"These five groups formed their own guilds, established schools, temples, hospitals and even funeral parlors--providing a cradle-to-grave service for their members," recalls Chen Cheng-yu, general secretary of the Committee for Overseas Chinese Returned from Vietnam. The five groups also jointly established schools, hospitals and other public facilities to look after the needs of Chinese originating from provinces other than their own.

With the traditional Chinese emphasis on the value of education, the academic atmosphere was pervasive throughout the community, with more than a hundred schools in Tan An before reunification. "At that time, all the organizations were enthusiastic about creating a flourishing education, so they quietly put a lot of effort into competing to expand their school buildings and renew their teaching materials," says Ma Ying-chieh, a former school principal. With the help of money from wealthy businessmen and temples, even poor people could attend evening schools. The close proximity of Tan An's schools and temples is one of the particular characteristics of the area.

With the economy on the mend life is improving. The once rare sight of smiling faces can now be seen among the Chinese of Vietnam, who have passed through so much suffering.

Boat people:

This flourishing scene did not last long. When the Communists reunited the country in 1975 and began to promote communism and nationalize the country's industry and commerce, the Chinese were the first to come under attack. The 1978 territorial clashes with mainland China also influenced their position. "At that time, anyone who was licensed to do business had their name put on a list and was sent down to one of the 'new economic zones' in the countryside to do farming," says Miss Tsai, who is currently working in the travel business. Just because her father was engaged in foreign trade, her home was confisticated at midnight and the family sent down.

Those Chinese who had been involved in various ways in politics before the civil war were even more unfortunate. "No matter whether they had relationships with Taiwan or mainland China, it was very hard for any of them to escape reform-through-labor," says Ma Ying-chieh, who was himself sent down for five years for being a member of the Kuomintang. The head of a hospital, in the prime of his life and holding a medical doctorate from France, by the time Ma reemerged from his ordeal his fingers were so damaged that he could no longer wield a scalpel. Many Chinese who had studied in Taiwan met similar fates.

The Chinese schools were also nationalized and forbade the teaching of Chinese, which was now replaced by Vietnamese. "The Vietnamese government even refused to let us attend university or have any opportunity to receive a higher education," says Miss Tsai, who had just graduated from high school at that time and still worries about not being able to complete a university education.

Around 1980, although the Vietnamese government had relaxed its policies and was allowing the Chinese to return to the cities, it was still holding to the Soviet model of industrial development. The emphasis on centralized control and planning of production, and the all-out development of heavy industry this entailed, led to a drastic fall in production and general shortages.

"Half the people in Ho Chi Minh City were unemployed," recalls railway tour guide Huynh Kim Thuy. In those days the daily meal consisted of sweet-potatoes and rice. With people going hungry and the difficulties mounting, the Chinese began to think that the only solution was to get out of the country.

According to unofficial statistics, between 1978 and 1982 nearly 500,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam. Some of them crossed the border and went to mainland China. Others took boats to the countries of Southeast Asia and created the problem of the world-renowned "boat people."

"The boat fare for one person was 300g of gold and an 18-meter vessel would take at least two or three hundred people," says Hsu Chin-shui, whose father was in the tea trade. Although the conditions were terrible, he tried to escape three times but failed every time and was finally sent for reform-through-labor.

With most of the Chinese in Vietnam having crossed the seas from the Chinese provinces of Canton and Fukien, the goddess Matsu who protects seafarers has become an important object of worship.

No resources for factories:

From nothing to something, then back again to nothing; how could the Chinese in Vietnam get back on the crest of the wave when the tide of economic liberalization finally arrived?

Apart from calling on the help of overseas Chinese businessmen in Southeast Asia and relatives abroad, in the end it was only reliance on their own abilities that had enabled the Chinese in Vietnam to weather their long winter.

In 1982, domestic production had fallen to unacceptably low levels and the government had to change its economic strategy to one of developing agriculture and light industry, while emphasizing exporting for foreign exchange. Individual entrepreneurs were allowed to organize factories along the lines of cooperative production, and some family-style small businesses were also freed from restrictions, providing the Chinese with a lifeline.

Yet Vietnam's bamboo curtain was thick, and the long period of war and suspended production meant that resources were scarce. "The nationalized industries were given priority over resources, so it was very hard for private cooperatives to procure satisfactory supplies. All you could do was find substitutes by working on and improving what was turned out by the nationalized enterprises, or by picking up leftovers and buying scrap. You just had to depend on your own groping about for skills," says Lo Ky Nguon, president of the Tran Hung Dao branch of the Viet-Hoa Bank. It was in this way that he managed to support two plastics factories and establish a base for later development.

Vuu Khai Thanh, initiator of what was then the Binhtien Imex Cooperative Society, relied on hard work and struggle, and the advantages of distributing low-priced goods with insignificant labor costs to Southeast Asia. In 1989, he received the first license to be issued by the government permitting a private enterprise to engage in direct foreign trade. It was only this that landed him the opportunity to leave the country for an observation tour and go to Taiwan to find technological and management partners, thus speeding up the expansion of the business.

Although the teaching of Chinese had been forbidden, "many people sneaked off to Chinese teachers for private classes," reveals one person who now works as a translator for a Taiwanese company. The large number of overseas Chinese businessmen coming to the country in recent years has provided opportunities at which such students have leapt. Obtaining high-salaried posts, such as translators, guides and secretaries, they are now busily improving their lifestyles and accumulating professional capital.

Chinese medicine is a centuries old trade for the overseas Chinese.

Reviving Chinese education:

The renewal of the economic role of the Chinese in Vietnam has meant that their status in the country is rapidly being recovered. One example of this is the unprecedented wave of enthusiasm for learning Chinese that is now sweeping Ho Chi Minh City. Practical considerations led the government to reopen the Chinese schools the year before last and there are now 56 licensed Chinese language teaching centers in the city, in addition to some 70 private culture centers providing language tuition.

"Classrooms fit for only 30 or 40 students often have to hold as many as 60 or 70 people," says school principal Wang Pei-chuan. There is no lack of children of Vietnamese officials among his students.

In addition to language classes, the restrictions on Chinese entering university were lifted in 1987. Entrance grades were raised, however, making it comparatively difficult for Chinese students to gain entrance.

The Chinese in Vietnam find sweet rewards in their hard work. Yet, as well as finally being able to take firm steps forward after having had their fill of war and chaos, they cannot avoid harboring a good deal of anxiety. The two generations of Chinese have their own particular concerns.

The worries of the older generation are not unusual: how to pass on the baton of the business? Chen Ai-tsai says that, for more than ten years, the youngsters have not had the experience of practical on-site training. "It is very hard for them to be like the Chinese were before, developing in all directions and laying down a big business network."

While the older people are concerned about the glory of former days, the younger are looking towards broader horizons and want to go overseas to study. "Go all out making money, and go abroad when the opportunity comes," sums up the feelings of the young Vietnamese-Chinese about their long-closed society and uncertain future.

After the young ones have left, will they ever return? "That depends on how Vietnam develops in the future!" is the answer.

Is it having been subjected to just too much distress in the past that stops the Chinese in Vietnam settling down and makes them go on drifting?

[Picture Caption]

p.120

Chinese-Vietnamese Vuu Khai Thanh and his wife have worked together to create Vietnam's largest private enterprise.

p.122

The vendors of Tan An make for a lively street scene.

p.122

Gifted at doing business, the overseas Chinese have become the vanguard of Vietam's economic recovery.

p.122

Signs in both Chinese and Vietnamese script soon let you know when you have arrived in Tan An.

p.123

With the economy on the mend life is improving. The once rare sight of smiling faces can now be seen among the Chinese of Vietnam, who have passed through so much suffering.

p.124

With most of the Chinese in Vietnam having crossed the seas from the Chinese provinces of Canton and Fukien, the goddess Matsu who protects seafarers has become an important object of worship.

p.125

Chinese medicine is a centuries old trade for the overseas Chinese.

p.125

Having travelled so far from your home town, you can only ask the Buddha for protection, wealth and many descendants.

p.126

Chinese-language education has revived along with the economy, although members of the younger generation seem to have other ideas about the future.

Having travelled so far from your home town, you can only ask the Buddha for protection, wealth and many descendants.

Chinese-language education has revived along with the economy, although members of the younger generation seem to have other ideas about the future.