Back in Phan Rang

May 06, 2017

So, quite a lot has happened lately. I finished my class, had some fun, returned to Phan Rang and became business partners with Conrad! So now I am Managing Director of Starsoft QA in Phan Rang, and Conrad is CTO of FlareBright Ltd. More on this below.

I had a good 5 weeks in Saigon living mostly like a monk and studying hard, apart from the occasional 0500 drinking finish with Conrad. This paid off with getting 92% in my exam (Elementary Vietnamese Level 1!) and coming second in class. Really chuffed with this as it was a real struggle on times. I found if I did a couple of hours extra study every day then I could keep up, but if I didn't do that then it was a real struggle. My classmates were really good and I made some new friends, which is a great feeling.

Class Team! Clockwise from back left: Ingyu, Minjong, Simon, Captain Hong, Mune, Teacher An and me

So now I have basic Vietnamese, so I can order stuff and ask for a room etc, but speaking is ... very .... hesitant .... and listening/understanding is really tough. But it feels great to get in a taxi and say 'I'm going to Hotel This on That street' and they go 'ok' and just drive off. The last taxi I had gave me some reading tuition on the route, pointing to signs in the cab for me to read out to him.

Saigon

River in Saigon

They are such friendly people here it's crazy, especially back in Phan Rang (where I arrived yesterday on the train). The guard came into my 4 person cabin yesterday 10 minutes before my stop to make sure I knew it was coming, and stayed for a little chat whilst totally ignoring the backpackers in the same cabin. I think this stuff happens because I dress very smartly here which they have a lot of respect for, they're not so into backpackers.

Today I had to fix a puncture in the hotel garage (or 'vehicle house' in Vietnamese) and immediately had a couple of staff helping me, they laid down cardboard for me to work on, gave me water, put a fan on next to me, and eventually just fixed it all for me Vietnamese style so I bought them some beers. This was great language practice too (nobody here speaks English) and for the first time I was being called 'little brother' or 'big brother'. There's no real word for you or me here, everything is done by using family relationships. They actually have a word for 'your mother's father's little brother', and many more. If you call someone the wrong relation, like calling someone older than you 'little brother' then it's a big insult, so it adds to the difficulty of speaking a lot!

Workwise it feels good to partner up with Conrad, we've kind of been circling it for a few months and after many chats over Long Island Ice Tea's on a rooftop in Saigon we realised it just made sense and we should go for it. It feels good to be working in a team again, I ground to a halt working solo last year but this has fired me up again. Starsoft has an engineering team in Phan Rang and existing customers so there is a lot to do.

Decision Time! Let's go for it!

Wondering has he made the right decision hmm....

Too late now pal!

It won't make much difference to travel, I'm going to be spending a lot of time in both countries (back in UK end June to end July). It does mean I have to learn a lot more Vietnamese, but after last month I can see it's feasible now and just needs me to apply myself.