We can now cross Vietnam off the list of where you can’t find a Starbucks. In February, Starbucks opened its first store in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam just became number 62 in terms of countries Starbucks is operating in and number 12 in terms of Starbucks’ operation in the Asia Pacific region. By some [...]

With Change.org’s petition to remove Professor Brinkley from Stanford at just 2,434 people away from 7,500 signatures (recently passing the needed 5,000 signatures), I thought I’d write a post about Brinkley, his words, and the public response to his heinous article. Full disclosure: I’ve also signed the petition. If you haven’t read it already, here’s the [...]

A guest post from Dr. Le Thanh Hai (Polish Academy of Sciences), Ms. Dinh Thy Bach Ly Nhan (SOAS and Birkbeck College, University of London) Along with Tet comes an ever growing crowd of overseas Vietnamese on inbound flights to Vietnam. It’s an appropriate time to celebrate the Vietnamese spirit, rooted deeply in Vietnamese diaspora. While [...]

Editor’s Note: This article has been translated and published in the BBC-Vietnamese.  Huy Duc has described his book as “a true history of Vietnam,” of which has earned praises for being an “honest book” with fresh insights that no scholars interested in the reunification era Vietnam can ignore. Before assessing Huy Duc’s The Winning Side, let [...]

In every national Census since 1880, immigrants by a considerable margin have been more likely to start their own businesses than their native-born peers.  This certainly has been a key factor not only to the success of the U.S. economy but also to the expansion of immigrant communities.  Indeed, as Asian immigrants have become the [...]

Editor’s Note: This article has been translated and published in the BBC-Vietnamese. While I was in Vietnam last June, I read a BBC article on why Ho Chi Minh’s legacy still lives on in Vietnam. Like a typical academic, I made a mental note to respond to the article’s conclusion: “ For Vietnamese, whatever their [...]

Internet in Vietnam, specifically the news sites and facebook, have been abuzz with a new law that was recently put forth onto the streets of Hanoi. If you are driving a motorbike that is not under your exact name, than you will be fined 1million VND (~$50) and up to 10million VND (~$500). For millions [...]

Vietnam has been a buzzworthy frontier market, neither developed nor emerging but whose stability and integrity have significantly improved over the years. So much so that Vietnam has become one of the most exciting and promising of the 45 so-called frontier markets in the world. By definition, Vietnam’s frontier market is characterized as both high [...]

One of the latest reports from WeAreSocial.netreveals a maturing Vietnamese Internet population. With an increasingly urban population most likely exceeding 90 million people this year and an Internet penetration level reaching 34%, there are well over 30 million Vietnamese people online. These numbers aren’t alien to Southeast Asia, with Filipino netizens exceeding 36 million, Indonesian [...]

Vietnam faces a crisis of trust. Companies are complicated by it, families are dramatized by it and intelligent individuals are held back by it. The thing is, the crisis isn’t just limited to the nation of Vietnam. It’s Vietnamese all across the world. Don’t blame modern day Vietnam, this stuff might have ancient origins and [...]