From Vietnam to United States--and Back Again

In a city of open sewers and streets alive with rats and strutting chickens, 80-year-old Buu Dang has the trappings of a life her neighbors can only dream of: toenail polish, sparkling earrings, eyeglasses, air-conditioning, a VCR.

She lives like a queen--on about $6,000 a year.

That kind of living, more and more Vietnamese Americans have discovered, is possible in a country they once fled in desperation.

Like thousands of others in Nha Trang--the closest thing this region of south Vietnam has to a resort town--Dang and her husband knew they had to get out when Communist troops overran the village en route to Saigon. They escaped by boat three years later, then spent 17 years in Santa Ana as part of Orange County’s thriving Vietnamese community.

Four years ago, they came back to spend their last years in relative comfort--and so that Dang’s husband, 85-year-old Quy Au, can be buried next to his father and grandfather when he dies.

Opposition to the Communist government of Vietnam is stronger than ever among Vietnamese Americans, and a new poll conducted for The Times shows a rise in the number of Vietnamese in Orange County who would stay in the United States even if that government fell.

But community activists on both sides of the Pacific believe that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Vietnamse Americans will return to their homeland this year. And though it’s difficult to put a number on it--like many others, Dang and Au are in Vietnam unofficially and are not citizens--the number is clearly on the rise, they say.

Those returning include a new group of international snowbirds-- people who spend half the year in Vietnam and half in the United States--and a growing number of businessmen who raised enough money in the United States to flourish once they return to Vietnam.

Dang admits the homecoming was difficult.

“At first when we left Vietnam, I really missed it. But then I got used to” life in the United States, Dang said in her home as a housekeeper served her tea. “Now that we’re back, it’s very lonely.”

Like many Vietnamese who have returned to their homeland, however, Dang found that living well is a lot easier in Vietnam. The couple’s three children send them money regularly--about $500 a month, almost 20 times Vietnam’s average household income.

In Santa Ana, they lived largely off the proceeds from food, such as charbroiled pork, that Dang sold from her home. In Vietnam, they lead a relatively luxurious life. She recently got 40 outfits tailored, for example. Each cost the equivalent of $2.

“I didn’t realize it until I got back, but a dollar goes a long way here,” she said. “We’re old now, so it’s hard to make money and live in the States. But here it’s easy to live. There is plenty of money. It’s enough for us to do whatever we want.”

Long a nonentity in the world market by choice and because of communism, Vietnam pledged to open its doors to Western businesses in the early 1990s. The United States took steps to normalize relations with Vietnam, ushering in a new era in trade and diplomacy. It sparked something of a renaissance, everything from the renovation of Hanoi’s Metropole Hotel to the introduction of the Internet. Vietnam was deemed the latest of Asia’s economic “tigers.”

Convinced the government’s pledge to open Vietnam to the world market was sincere, Clifford Chance--one of the world’s leading business law firms--decided to open offices in Hanoi and then Ho Chi Minh City in 1994 and 1995.

For a time, the new national strategy seemed to be paying off. Vietnam offered a cheap, highly educated work force, and Western companies arrived in droves. Coca-Cola Co., for example, asked Clifford Chance to develop bottling and distribution ventures with local firms in Vietnam.

“It was seen as a place of opportunity,” John East, the firm’s regional managing partner for Asia, said from his Hong Kong office.

It wouldn’t last. Western companies were stymied by red tape and complained that they were being taxed repeatedly and haphazardly. Economic growth, which had run at a hot 9%, fell to 4% by 1998, according to the World Bank. Foreign investment plummeted. By January, Clifford Chance decided to close its Vietnam operations.

“In the end, we found it a place that isn’t dynamic and isn’t growing,” East said. “We were better off placing the resources that we had in more vibrant places in Asia.”

Still, the seed had been planted, and Vietnamese emigres had begun returning in significant numbers.

“I came back because I was curious,” said Alain Tan, who left Vietnam in 1971 and spent the next 18 years living in California, from San Francisco to Santa Monica. In the United States, Tan worked for hotels and helped run his family’s restaurants. Eventually, he saved up $50,000--enough to launch his business in Vietnam. Ten years ago, he began visiting, and now he has moved back for good.

At first, he couldn’t afford decor for the walls of his restaurants, so he painted artwork himself. Today, Tan oversees a $1.2-million empire that includes seven restaurants. His latest venture, selling fast-food pho in Ho Chi Minh City, has created quite a buzz. “No formaldehyde!” he reminds visitors with a friendly smile; part of Tan’s sales pitch is that his version of the traditional beef noodle soup uses none of the additives found in street-side fare and is prepared to Western health standards.

Like many of the young executives who return to Vietnam, Tan says his motivation was largely to reclaim his heritage.

“We had a comfortable life in the United States. But it was boring,” he said. “I wanted to find out what I was all about. I was missing the chance to find my destiny.”

In the meantime, he has rediscovered what Vietnam is all about. And he has determined that the West’s expectations that it will change on a U.S. timetable are misguided. Vietnam is Vietnam--slow, plodding, proud and nationalistic-- and will decide for itself how it should evolve, he said. “You can’t change Vietnam. You accept it.”

That wasn’t easy at first for 47-year-old Isabelle Nguyen, who returned two years ago--smack in the middle of the Asian economic crisis. Nguyen had spent 20 years in Irvine and Westwood after escaping Vietnam in 1975, and feared she had made a big mistake when she returned to open Pho Xua, a restaurant serving traditional Vietnamese cuisine in Ho Chi Minh City.

After struggling, however, Pho Xua has made a comeback. On one recent night, Nguyen had to scurry back to the restaurant, where 125 people were arriving for a banquet.

“It was empty and hopeless at first, but I think I made the right decision. I see the business getting better every day,” she said. “I loved the U.S. But I always consider it my second country. I never forgot that I was Vietnamese first. This is my country.”