The Secrets Of Why Vietnamese Immigrants Succeed

Every once in a while I look at something many Vietnamese people would consider mundane and feel the overwhelming need to wax poetic about it. Sometimes this might be the simple pleasures of going to the barber shop and sometimes it might be something I admire about the Vietnamese culture.

Today, I was walking around with my son. We were walking among the many shops in our area and it occurred to me how many new businesses there are. This isn’t unusual in Vietnam, because starting a business is normal in a developing country. For many in Vietnam employment isn’t found by submitting resumes, but by going out and making their own business.

This self reliant spirit is admirable. Vietnamese don’t look at the world the way people from the West do. Vietnamese often look around and think to themselves, “This street needs another coffee shop”. To someone from a Western country, this seems irrational in a market that already seems overrun with coffee shops, but the spirit of trying something new is strong. “Why not give it a shot?”

This Vietnamese entrepreneur didn’t go to business school and do a careful demographic analysis of the area to determine that for a population of X, you need Y servings of coffee, leaving enough capacity left to support a new business. No, nothing like that. They likely thought, “What can I do to earn money? I know how to make coffee. That’s what I’ll do.”

The realization hits a couple months later that the business plan was flawed and the coffee shop closes. Here is where the admiration kicks in. At least they tried! …and they keep trying over and over again. Eventually, they stumble across a new business that finally works.

The goal of a Vietnamese business isn’t necessarily to make money. There are a few factors that don’t seem to make sense to Western eyes if you don’t understand the motives.

Why would you start a business where you don’t make money? The answer is a little lower on the Maslow hierarchy than Westerners are familiar with. It is about basic survival.

What are the first needs? …Food and shelter. If a person can rent a shophouse, they have the shelter need met because they can live in the top floors of the building. That means they only need to cover the food needs of the family. That might be less than ₫250,000 (about $10 USD) per day. The other spouse can go to work and easily earn that amount even if they can only find a minimum wage job.

What are some other needs?

·         There is childcare. If you have a business at home, someone can watch the kids while working.

·         There is the need for a purpose. If a person is bringing in some resources for the family, they do their part to insure the survival of the family.

·         Maybe they already enjoy drinking coffee every morning. Opening a coffee shop might be a great way to cut some existing costs.

·         Maybe they just want a new central place for their friends to join them.

The truth is, I don’t really know. I just sit at the coffee shop wondering how it is that the shop can stay open with only a few customers around. These customers plant themselves there all day long and don’t spend much money. Why take the risk of renting a building and opening a business with a high failure rate? The truth might be sadder than I realize, there is no choice. They need to earn money somehow.

This brings up the superpower of the immigrant. When someone immigrates to a Western country, the first thing they do is open a business. Their English is less than adequate to get a job, so they must create their own job. The person who was born in that country thinks to themselves, ‘why would I want to open a business in that location with a low success rate’, but the immigrant perseveres.

Year after year, the immigrant barely gets by, but they have something grander in mind. Their children are learning the local language with the local accent and the family will likely spend every penny they have to send that child to school in hopes that the child’s life will be better. …and it often is.

The child will live a better life and will take care of the parents. The parents lives will improve in 20 or 30 years after their child can start helping the family. Everyone has a role, and the role of the child is to take over as the income generating part of the family. The parents will move into a subordinate role, by helping with cooking, cleaning and childcare. By the third generation, the children will be fully Western. The grandparents will look at their Western grandchildren with love knowing that their sacrifice gave their offspring the lives which the grandparents always desired for themselves, but many were never able to achieve.

I get a little emotional as I think about some immigrant families I have known who have made this sacrifice, as I think about the love they have for their children and grandchildren and I look at them with admiration. It reminds me of my own father’s sacrifice for his children.

A few days ago was Fathers Day. Most people give dad a phone call and say the special words “Happy Father’s Day” and don’t give it much thought for the rest of the year. These men sacrifice their lives, many going to work in a job they don’t like for the betterment of their families.

My own father barely saw his children he was supporting with long hours working in his back-breaking warehouse job. He wasn’t an immigrant, but we were poor. His only relief would come on Sunday when he would catch up on some naps and maybe take the family to his mother’s house for a day with the extended family. After 25 years of hard working, a severe heart attack pushed my dad into retirement. He was finally able to get some much needed rest and start enjoying his last few years before he passed away about a decade ago.

My own Herculean sacrifice is dwarfed by the sacrifice of my forefathers because I am only forced by my son to watch the same episode of ‘Peppa the Pig’ for the 80 millionth time. There is no back-breaking labor. There is only the overearnestness of my son wanting to spend more time with his father.

To all of the immigrants who work so hard to give better lives to their children, you have my admiration. To all of these fathers who sacrifice their lives for their children, I give a hearty and tardy “Happy Father’s Day”.