Time for a blog change
Posted: March 18, 2012 Filed under: Blogs and Bloggers | Tags: adverts, blog, Hanoi, money, seo, travel 3 Comments »
I never liked the old blog look so time will tell if I grow to love this new one – one thing’s for sure, it’s a little cleaner. Feedback welcome.
I was lucky enough to last week meet SEO Expert David Carralon who seemed impressed when I told him I came out top (or thereabouts depending which version of Google you use) when you type in “Hanoi blog”. Had I ever thought of accepting advertising? Well no, not seriously. But I might.
I’ve also recently bought the domain ourman (dot) in. Originally the idea was to get all my blogs together in one place. But having been reminded of the Google juice I’d be leaving behind, perhaps I’ll just put all the other blogs there and carry on as I am with this one.
The only thing I’ve ever secretly hoped for, with this blog, was that one day I might be able to persuade an airline to give me tickets to fly to and from the UK a couple of times a year with the missus. In return I could offer them a decent plug and some ever-present on-site branding. No such luck so far. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking.
But having started this blog in 2004 it represents a sizeable time investment. To date it has led to me getting jobs and winning work. Maybe I can make it work for me just a little more.
Pic is of Westlake in less damp, grey and mildewy times.
Like this:
Vietnam’s culture of being not too successful
Posted: January 17, 2011 Filed under: change, Hanoi, Reflections | Tags: ambition, cars, copyright, corruption, crime, money, success, vietnam, wealth 5 Comments »Probably the first Vietnamese person I ever had a proper conversation with was a cafe owner in Nha Trang.
He’d previously spent time in Canada but had missed his home country and returned with enough money to set up his own place.
He told me he wanted to work hard and make it a success.
“But not too successful,” he added.
He elaborated that he didn’t want to be noticed. Neither by government nor mafia.
I’ve heard that phrase so many times since.
Working in public relations I often talked with potential clients about what we could do for them. They’d become animated as we looked at the possibilities and the potential benefits.
And then without fail there was the moment when they checked themselves and reasoned that they didn’t want to become too famous.
And it’s not just Vietnamese. One foreign friend running a fabulous expat service knows that the sky is the limit if he can market it instead to the Vietnamese.
But he also reasons that this might bring unwanted attention. Or his service could be shutdown or cheaply copied.
If this attitude is as widespread as it would appear then you can only begin to imagine the effect it is having on entrepreneurial Vietnam. Everyone wanting to make enough to feed their families but not too much so they become target of a shakedown from criminals, the corrupt or copiers.
But what of those Rolls Royce drivers that block whole Old Quarter roads and flout their wealth so obviously?
You’d have to guess that they aren’t just rich. They are also well-connected and subsequently very well protected.
Perhaps it still takes a brave person to be conspicuously rich in Vietnam.
I can understand the poverty in Hanoi – it’s the wealth I don’t get
Posted: August 29, 2010 Filed under: change, expats, Hanoi, Reflections | Tags: change, expats, Hanoi, money, vietnam, wealth 20 Comments »While I wondered aloud on Facebook where to head for our Hoi An honeymoon a friend made a suggestion.
The place she mentioned was literally 20 times more than my budget.
When I hinted that this was a little out of my price range, she persisted. The suggestion being that a honeymoon was a time to “splash out”.
The truth is, at 20 times less, I already was paying more than usual.
I don’t write this to illustrate how poor I am. I’m not. Not even by expat standards. Not if the classified ads on the New Hanoian site are anything to go by – half drunk bottle of whiskies for sale. Old mosquito nets, one spoon etc.
But I am slowly becoming aware of people being able to afford the kind of prices that normally have me thinking…just who pays that?
In many cases it leaves you making mental calculations as to just how much people must earn. Either it’s invariably more than I imagine or people are benefitting from other income streams.
For the Vietnamese, differences are even more extreme. Rolls Royce, Hummers and Aston Martins are all to be seen on Hanoi roads. And yet to me most businesses here appear, at least outwardly, to be failing.
Empty restaurants filled only by their own over-staffing. Empty shops strewn with sleeping shop assistants. Tourist stalls where thick dust on half the stock is a tell tale sign of literally nothing being sold.
Not to mention those Old Quarter shops selling only knitwear which don’t consider diversifying through Hanoi’s forty degree summer.
I can understand poverty here. It’s the wealth I don’t get.
People are paying $1,000 a night for hotel rooms and they’re staying for a week. People I thought of as contemporaries by age, background and, so I thought, earnings are springing for long-haul business class airline seats.
If I can just about understand how they’ve made enough money to afford nice holidays – I can’t understand how they’re wealthy enough to take so much time off from earning it.
Meanwhile many expat families regularly seem to Sunday brunch at five star hotels at $35 a head – champagne included.
People visit chocolate buffets.
I’m way beyond being sensitive over displays of wealth in a developing country and yet…a chocolate buffet almost seems like you’re rubbing it.
I shall eat till I am sick…and I shall eat only chocolate.
None of this is a complaint. The creation of wealth is how this country will grow and more people will be rescued from the most hideous poverty.
But I find myself increasingly unable to understand wealth here.
Blogging away the nighttime blues
Posted: March 10, 2010 Filed under: Reflections, work | Tags: Hanoi, jobs, money 5 Comments »Such is my recently charmed life that it’s been a long time since I’ve been unable to sleep due to a headful of problems.
This week, however, seems like one of those little spells where I just can’t catch a break.
In the old days I used to obliterate such late night concerns with cigarettes and whisky. But I quit one and the other now gives me heartburn and blogging actually seems more effective.
Anyway, before Tet it looked like a job offer was on the table. Since then that has slowly unraveled going from full-time to part-time to bits and pieces of freelance to maybe some work in the future.
All of which makes my recent decision to quit my daytime editing post seem a bit daft now. But then again when your hours are cut, despite absolute promises that they won’t be, and the work permit you were promised doesn’t materalise…
…and when you’re pretty much told “you know where the door is” when you complain. Well, there’s little you can do but call their bluff and leave.
Today there was more email chatter regarding potential job offers in my inbox but, though hopeful, they are still best filed under “jam tomorrow”.
On Sunday, me and the missus-to-be move into a more expensive place. I just spent $200 on a sofa. Second hand, when new would have been nicer. But the outlay still hurt.
Worst of all, and the main reason for this fug. Is that my flat back home has gone from nice-little-earner to horrific-money-pit. The thousands of pounds spent on fighting an outbreak of dry rot before Christmas is now deemed not enough and thousands more are required to get it into a state whereby it is marketable and able to start bringing in money again.
At the same time details of a Vietnamese wedding are slowly making themselves known to me . Even allowing for my girlfriend fighting my corner there will be no getting away with a “quiet do”. Not when you’re faced with the twin demons of family loss-of-face and the ever-present expectations of tradition.
In my bank account in the UK there are still some dwindling savings and a double-quick finding of work would make all the worries instantly evaporate.
But as it stands I *am* awake and I *am* worried.
In truth, this is not Vietnam-worried. In fact, take me out of this context and put me in the UK and my outgoings would be much greater and my fears much worse. Actually I have a feeling that this bout of anxiety is probably just how grown-ups (Dads, husbands etc) feel most of the time. It’s just a new thing for me.
But – either the money pit apartment or a job – I feel like I’m due some good news tomorrow.
Something has to give.
Note: To be truthful I had all but the last couple of paragraphs written of the above when Skype beeped into life and I have been summoned to HCMC tomorrow to see a man about a job.
Here’s hoping something just gave.
Hanging around in Hanoi
Posted: November 1, 2009 Filed under: expats, Hanoi, Reflections | Tags: expat, Hanoi, job, life, money, working 4 Comments »
If you’ve been bored enough to follow my Twitter feed you might have noticed that earlier this week I went into work and resigned.
I don’t want to go into too many details about why but in short it was about employment conditions that made it increasingly difficult to live here both legally and financially.
I resigned with a heavy heart, because the job suits me just fine. It wasn’t meant as some kind of bargainning bluff. In fact, if I had thought for a second that I’d be talked into staying, then I probably would never have tweeted it.
But, after brief negotiations, I am now delighted to be staying in my post. I even found myself turning down extra hours so I could continue to work four days a week and have Monday free to pursue other activities.
I have used my freetime for freelancing to date and I have written some short pieces for local magazines but in doing so it was a reminder that at $30 – $50 a go you’d have to be writing a lot before you’d be making a living. By my reckoning you’d have to write one every day. It’s not the writing that’s difficult – it’s finding the opportunities.
Far better to have a day job and write for fun when the mood takes you.
Anyway – I have also promised to do a talk on social media for a local environmental NGO. I’m also meeting another NGO tomorrow. My take on it is this – I am happy to provide freebies for people doing good work. If more of my time is needed then we can look at covering some costs.
In the meantime, the phrase “bubbling over with chuffedness” made an appearance from me on Twitter this week and that’s pretty much how I feel.
Over emotional guff coming but… at one point last week I found myself scooting home on a perfect Hanoi morning and suddenly realised there were tears streaming down my cheeks. Pure happiness. Hanoi continues to move me.
Even when editing from home I’ve got into the habit of breaking up chunks of work with loud music – gleefully bedroom-dancing in lieu of more traditional screen breaks.
This all seems like a design for a very good life. For the first time ever I find myself not thinking about the future. I’m not counting days till a holiday. I am not planning “what next” while completing an overseas post. I am not even wishing for the weekend.
Meanwhile, after a slow start my social life is growing. I am making new friends and getting out a bit more. But I feel very patient about all of that. If all goes to plan then I will be here a very long time. There’s no hurry to do anything.
And now I am searching for a suitably punchy way to end this blog post.
Nothing’s coming.
So I’m wondering if being happy and non cranky makes for good blogging.
Hey, don’t unsubscribe just yet…
Life can’t always be this good.
