Parallel Paths : Vietnamese Immigrants Share Heritage, High-Tech Hopes

The two men were strangers in Vietnam.

By coincidence, Nguyen Viet and Ho Thanh Viet both escaped from Saigon on the day it fell, April 30, 1975. Along with thousands of other South Vietnamese, they fled the Communist takeover aboard U.S. Navy ships.

Though they filtered through different refugee camps, both men eventually made their way to the United States, where each sought to carve out a new existence in an unfamiliar land by learning to program computers.

Now Nguyen and Ho, who go by the nicknames Victor and John, operate rival companies in Orange County that publish Vietnamese-language software. Nguyen’s company is named VN Labs, after his initials, while Ho’s firm is dubbed VNI, an abbreviation for Vietnam International.

For both men, computer programming started as a hobby. They later sought ways to help their home country, which is still recovering from decades of warfare. The software, they believe, can make the language live on in exile.

“This is not a business 100%,” Ho explained. “It is a service.”

But with the normalization of U.S. trade relations with Vietnam on the horizon, the Orange County men--and other Vietnamese software publishers--share some hope that one day such software might grease the wheels of modernization in their native land.

“There is a big potential for the software to modernize the Vietnamese system and bring up literacy rates in Vietnam,” said Do Yen, publisher of Nguoi Viet, a Vietnamese-language daily newspaper in Westminster with a circulation of 12,000.

Vietnamese use a system of writing known as Quoc ngu , a Roman alphabet with a variety of tone and accent marks. Introduced by European missionaries in the 17th Century, it has largely replaced writing that was based on Chinese ideograms.

Do said his newspaper uses both VN Labs and VNI software, saving his staff from the painstaking typesetting process.

Before the programs were available, employees would print a master copy with Roman characters of the text and then add by hand the tone marks and accents of the language’s 134 distinct characters. It was a business ripe for computerization.

Nguyen went through an immigrant’s odyssey before he could tackle the problem. He was raised in the city of Da Lat in South Vietnam and joined the country’s navy in the midst of the war. He received some naval training in Rhode Island in 1970 and eventually was one of several commanders of a patrol boat fleet in the Mekong Delta.

As the war ended in southern defeat, Nguyen and two sisters escaped and were transported to refugee camps in Guam and Pennsylvania. They eventually moved to Torrance. He spoke English when he arrived, but he had no money. His first job was pumping gas at a service station.

Nguyen later worked as an electronics technician, earning money for school. After receiving an engineering degree from Loyola Marymount University in 1979, he worked for various aerospace companies and did computer programming on the side.

While working as an engineer at Teledyne, Nguyen was shown an astrology program written by a friend in Vietnamese. But without the accents and tone marks, he said, it had lost its original meaning.

“I started work on a program. I didn’t think it could be a business at first, so I kept my job,” Nguyen said.

In 1983, he created a software program that alters a standard IBM computer keyboard so that a combination of keys can produce on-screen Vietnamese tone marks and accents.

Technically, the program uses a function of the MS-DOS operating system known as “terminate and stay resident” (TSR). The TSR hovers in the computer’s active memory so that a user can, with a keystroke, toggle back and forth between English and Vietnamese.

Since it operates in the background, the TSR-based program can be used to adapt any English-language, DOS-based software--from word processors to spreadsheets--to another language. Thus, the software can make bilingual programs out of WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, dBase and a host of other programs.

By 1987, Nguyen was able to quit his regular job and work full time at VN Labs. In 1990, he launched a version of his software for Windows 3.0, the popular graphics-based system that has become a new standard in the publishing industry.

Ho, 37, took a little longer to get established in his new country. In 1975, he and 4,000 other refugees traveled by sea from Saigon to a camp in the Philippines. From there, he went to Guam, Camp Pendleton and San Diego, finally settling in Westminster. He was 18 and spoke no English.

His family did not make it out of Vietnam. One brother was killed during the war. Nine other siblings live in the city of Nha Trang, near the former Cam Ranh Bay naval base. Ho’s efforts to bring them to the United States have failed. His parents have died.

“In my dream, I hope one day I’m successful in this business and can bring them (his brothers and sisters) here,” he said.

Ho studied electrical engineering at Cal State Fullerton and received a degree in 1985. He worked at various computer companies and in his spare time mulled the idea of a Vietnamese-language computer.

VNI software, which was officially launched in 1987, mimics the TSR-based model. Ho began working at the business full time in 1988, after his high-tech employer moved its headquarters to Chatsworth.

The similarity between the names, programs and marketing styles of VN Labs and VNI have led to some confusion among customers. The companies have jockeyed for the same clients, particularly among publishers of Vietnamese-language newspapers and books.

But distinct strategies have allowed each company to become successful.

Nguyen’s firm has branched out. The company’s Diplomat Software series now includes 36 foreign languages. Several more languages are in the works, Nguyen said.

Newport Beach-based VN Labs markets the software to diplomats and government agencies--including the State Department and the Pentagon--and advertises in mainstream personal computer magazines.

Nguyen believes the Vietnamese-language market is too small to focus upon exclusively, and he thinks that VN Labs’ Russian-language program, written by a Russian immigrant, will generate even more sales.

“Every computer that we send to Russia will have Diplomat Software,” said customer Victor Ivashin, a manager with Andrew VSAT, a microwave technology company in Fremont. “That’s because Russians can type on it in their own language.”

Ho, 37, has focused his energies. While he is developing software packages in additional languages, Ho concentrates on selling his software in the Vietnamese community of Little Saigon, where his six-person company is based.

“We love the mother language here,” Ho said. “It is rich and better, and we want the people in our community to have a chance to learn computers.”

Ho is preparing to launch his own Windows version of VNI’s Vietnamese-language software. He is writing a program that will make it simpler to program karaoke, or sing-along, machines to play songs in a variety of languages.

Previously, it could take eight hours to program one song on a karaoke machine so that the words (in several languages) scroll across the screen to the beat of recorded music. Ho said his program cuts that time to 20 minutes.

Nguyen sold about 10,000 Diplomat Software programs last year, adding up to several hundred thousand dollars in sales. A typical package sells for about $145.

Ho said he has never made much money selling software, only a living. He estimates that he has sold 4,000 programs at prices ranging from $35 to $195 since VNI’s inception.

The privately held companies do not disclose sales or profits.

“Victor (Nguyen) had the software first, but he has spent a lot of time away from our community, marketing worldwide,” said Kim Long, editor of Saigon Today, a weekly newspaper in Anaheim. “VNI has focused on doing business in Little Saigon. That was smart.”

Long, who uses VN Labs software, said the program reduces by 90% the time and manpower it takes to produce a newspaper.

Do estimates there are 300 Vietnamese-language newspapers worldwide, many of which use either VN Labs or VNI software.

Nguyen believes that a broader product offering and constantly updated technology can give him an edge. He is also considering opening an office in Little Saigon to improve his marketing there.

Ho said the two companies can coexist in their own niches.

Eventually, both Ho and Nguyen would like to sell software in Vietnam, which has a population of 70 million. But they are concerned about political issues there and the country’s antiquated technology base. Few average citizens have the money to buy computers, Nguyen said.

“If the embargo lifts, investors will go in, and then our products could be sold there. It will be difficult to go back there,” Ho said. “There is no law to protect copyrights--and human rights.”

* From Hobby to Growing Business Two strangers born and raised in Vietnam who immigrated to the United States after the Communist takeover of their native country each turned his computer programming hobby into a prosperous business. Nguyen Viet Company: VN Labs Headquarters: Newport Beach Founded: 1987 Nature of business: Publishes Diplomat Software series of foreign-language programs in Vietnamese and 35 other languages Born: Hanoi, North Vietnam; raised in Da Lat, South Vietnam Age: 42 Immigrated to United States: 1975 Military background: Served in South Vietnamese navy from 1969 to 1975 Education: Bachelor’s degree in engineering from Loyola Marymount University in 1979 and master’s degree in engineering in 1985 Marital status: Single Ho Thanh Viet Company: VNI Headquarters: Westminster Founded: 1988 Nature of business: Publishes Vietnamese-language software; also produces software to program foreign-language text into karaoke, or sing-along, machines Born: Nha Trang, South Vietnam Age: 37 Immigrated to United States: 1975 Military background: None Education: Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Cal State Fullerton in 1985 Marital status: Married, one child * Vietnamese Market Vietnamese are the fastest-growing ethnic group in Orange County. Their population has increased 271% since the 1980 census because of a surge of immigrants since the end of the Vietnam War. 40% Live in California Almost 40% of all Vietnamese immigrants in the United States live in California. About 25% of California’s Vietnamese population lives in Orange County. Orange County: 70,572 Los Angeles: 61,361 San Diego: 20,561 California: 276,759 United States: 700,000 O.C. Cities With Largest Vietnamese Populations Garden Grove: 15,001 Santa Ana: 14,878 Westminster: 11,376 Anaheim: 4,569 Huntington Beach: 3,543 Thriving Businesses Nearly 8,000 Vietnamese businesses in Southern California were responsible for more than $400 million in sales in 1987, the latest year for which figures are available. Businesses Number of busniesses, by county Los Angeles: 3,489 Orange: 3,074 San Diego: 837 Riverside/San Bernardino: 263 Ventura: 75 Sales In millions of dollars, by county Los Angeles: $215.4 Orange: $156.8 San Diego: $33.9 Riverside/San Bernardino: $11.5 Ventura: $2.0 The Language Designing a computer program that could convert the 26-letter-alphabet English language into the more complex Vietnamese writing system was no easy feat. Some facts about the Vietnamese language: * It consists mostly of Chinese words, with some Thai, Khmer and Cham words. * Writing was originally based on Chinese ideograms, but 17th-Century European missionaries devised a system of writing Vietnamese letters called Quoc ngu (pronounced Kwok nu ). * The written language uses the same Roman alphabet that the English language uses, with the exception of the letters F, Z and J. * With the addition of accents and tonal markings, there are actually more than 130 letters. Tonal markings can change the meaning of a word. For instance, the word ma has six different meanings depending on which marking is used. Level tone (unmarked): Ma means Ghost Rising tone: Ma means Mother Falling tone: Ma means But, yet Falling rising tone: Ma means Rice seedling Low rising tone: Ma means Grave, tomb Low constricted tone: Ma means Horse Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce, Collier’s Encyclopedia, Viet-Anh Vietnamese-English Dictionary ; Researched by DALLAS M. JACKSON / Los Angeles Times