JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Yesterday’s post was all about the inconspicuous entrance and passageway leading to L’Usine. L’Usine means factory in French, and L’Usine here is an old factory loft space in downtown Saigon that could be in NY’s Soho or the Marais in Paris. It is an ultra hip restaurant, gallery, fashion outlet and gathering place.

As I said yesterday you’d never find the place if you didn’t have insider information. You enter a covered alley off the main shopping street and pass through a dark passageway lined with stalls selling traditional Vietnamese paintings of women in conical hats. At the end of the stalls you turn right into a motorbike parking passage that leads to a stairway where the only clue to something more is a sign with a finger pointing up the stairs. The entrance to L’Usine itself is off a tile hallway on the second floor and is open to the outside with a view of the galvanized tin roofs that cover the inner courtyard. There are many secret spaces like this in Saigon. You often catch a glimpse of some wonderful French colonial villa or garden court through an open gate or door on a dingy street.

L’Usine’s space is huge, with the restaurant at the front and the interior space divided by a couple of walls but no separate rooms. The ceilings are high and floor is a distressed dark wood that is probably the original factory floor. L’Usine’s offerings are eclectic – art, fashion, food, design, furniture, and antiques but all in the very good taste of its owner.

Tib Hoang is a Vietnamese-Canadian born in Vietnam but raised in Montreal. She started returning here 15 years ago but didn’t make the permanent move back until two years ago when she married a Vietnamese who works for IDG, the venture capital firm. She is lovely and good taste obviously runs in the family. Her parents own one of the best Vietnamese restaurants in town, where President Clinton and his successor, who shall not be named, both dined. That restaurant, named after her, I presume, is called TIB.

The lunch crowd at L’Usine is as eclectic as the gallery – artists, ex-pats, US consular officers, venture capitalists, Africans, Europeans, Americans and a lot of upwardly mobile Viet Kieu. There are a few small tables, but the majority of the seating is around a large communal table where food competes with laptops for space. Another thing that sets L’Usine apart is the unfailingly good service, always with a smile and whether it’s male or female a good looking face to go with it. And, I forgot, the food is the best lunch fare we’ve tasted since we got here. Individual Quiche Lorraine, baguette sandwiches, fresh fruit smoothies, and cupcakes that are all to die for.

Tonight there is an art opening at L’Usine. I previewed it today. It’s wide ranging, mixed medium, in both style and content, but very contemporary. The artist is a Vietnamese American woman, Tammy Nguyen, who trained at Cooper Union and came to Vietnam two years ago on a Fulbright. It’s the first cutting edge, high quality art I’ve seen since we came to Vietnam 14 months ago – and we’ve been looking.

Try L’Usine if you come to Saigon. The inconspicuous entrance, with no sign, is at 151 Dong Khoi Street.

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This is the interior passageway and motorbike parking garage inside a once grand French colonial building. Like most of the old buildings in Saigon the facade hides a vast and mysterious interior. The entrance to this one is an inconspicuous opening off of Dong Khoi, a street where luxury brands like Gucci and Versace share the spotlight with beggars, shoe shine boys, souvenir shops and street vendors selling fresh coconuts.

This picture was taken from the top of the stairs leading to a special place. You would never find it on your own. It’s like a 1920’s speakeasy. There is no street signage and only a discolored wall painting in the stairwell with the name, L’Usine, and a painted finger in 1920’s lithographic style pointing up the stairs. This is the ultimate in secret, hip, exclusive, insider stuff. Tomorrow I’ll show you more.

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I’m the picture of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder these days. I can’t get out of a taxi without going through the ritual of looking back at the seat and then jamming my hand in my left trouser pocket to make sure my “replacement” iPhone is not in the cab but securely in my pocket. Since I ride in 4 – 6 taxis a day this panic avoidance mechanism is consuming a lot of nervous energy. Still, having been without this lifeline to the larger world for almost 3 weeks I am determined not to let it happen that little device slip away again if I can help it.

The picture above was taken with my new phone. Proof positive that I have it and it works, but the story that goes with it is what this new life in Saigon is all about.

Last week I got a call from a colleague asking if I could deliver some flowers for a couple of birthdays. Flower deliveries are not a normal part of my job description, but these were special deliveries.

East Meets West has a program to support people with disabilities and the two people receiving birthday flowers are two Vietnamese pop stars who are acting as Goodwill Ambassadors for the disabled network support program. I imagined grabbing some flowers at the market and hustling them over to the birthday boys’ homes and handing the over. Nooooooooooooo! Birthdays are a big deal in Vietnam, and pop star birthdays are HUGE.

So, here’s the deal on birthday #1 – on Tuesday afternoon the office got a message telling us to be at an address near the city center. Kasim, the rock star, had bought his mother a “tearoom” as a birthday present and there was going to be a party there to celebrate. When we arrived the street in front of the tearoom was awash with huge flower sprays saying Happy Birthday. Inside, the crowd of trendy 30 somethings was murmuring in anticipation. That was 7:30pm. At 11:30 we discreetly made our way out to the taxi and a well deserved beddy-bye. In those 4 hours we heard singer after singer pour their hearts out in turgid ballads of unrequited love in a language I don’t understand – but there was no mistaking the message. Kasim, himself, was gracious and let everyone know we were there and doing good things for the Vietnamese people.

Then, on Friday, we packed up again to attend Dam Vinh Hung’s birthday bash. DVH is a mellow, pop icon, who is enormously personable with an easy manner – kind of short haired Michael Bolton. For DVH’s party, in a much larger hall, we stopped on the way to pick up 6 blind kids from an orphanage. These kids had met him earlier and they are part of the disabled group that he is helping us raise money for. We arrived with the kids and were seated front and center. Here, the stage was like the street at Kasim’s party – totally covered in flower sprays wishing him a happy birthday. There were probably 1000 mostly middle aged women in the auditorium and he welcomed and then put on a show for them. In the middle of the show he asked one of the blind kids to come up on stage to sing a song with him. It was a magical moment. The kid grabbed the mike and belted out the opening bars and then DVH with a huge smile joined in. It was truly fun. After the song was finished he introduced all of us and told the crowd about the great work East Meets West does with the disabled. Now that is a Goodwill Ambassador.

Neither of these birthdays was on my calendar when the week began, but they were highlights of it. In the process I learned that Kasim, on a recent tour of the Ukraine, raised $200,000 for the program. It’s good to have friends like Kasim and DVH.

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A little more than a year ago a friend wrote to tell me that he thought I had found the secret to retirement – a really great new job. I think he’s right, although there are moments when stress, conflict, or just plain fatigue makes me want to pack it all in and veg on some tropical beach with a no-brain thriller.

We’ve been back in Vietnam for two weeks now, and there has been plenty of stress, jet-lag, conflict and fatigue. We’ve been busy reestablishing relationships, going to meetings, attending to a 4 day staff retreat in central Vietnam, and spending a couple of days with the President of the foundation reviewing local operations and looking at budgets. These two weeks have been unusually busy but there is an exciting buzz to being back and some remarkably good things to look back on.

We have a small office in Saigon. When I arrived a year ago there were three of us, and our mission was to explore the fundraising potential here in the business center of Vietnam. We’re still around, but we have added four more staff in the last six months. They are working on clean water projects for villages in the Mekong delta funded by a large Australian government grant. Two of the four on the water team were in place before I went to the US in June – the project leader, a Vietnamese woman, named Binh, with lots of experience in this area and Gary, an Australian engineer on loan for a year from Engineers Without Borders. While I was away Binh hired two more engineers, both young and both with Master’s degrees from universities in Thailand. An is a handsome, confident, kid with excellent English and interpersonal skills and Ha Chau is a shyly beautiful equally talented young woman.

Since our work doesn’t really intersect and because we work in a tall narrow Vietnamese house with four levels, we don’t have a lot of interaction in the office. The trip to Quy Nhon and the three days at the staff retreat gave me a chance to get to know them.

I am so impressed with the quiet grace and generosity of the Vietnamese people. There is a tradition here that mandates that a new friend or guest be given special treatment at mealtime. I’ve experienced this twice. The first time I didn’t really understand it. This time it was explained to me.

Almost all Vietnamese meals are communal. The food comes in bowls or platters and everyone shares. As we sat down for our first meal together, An and Ha Chau sat beside me and as the food and beer arrived they served me first. I accepted this as a normal courtesy and didn’t pay much attention until I noticed that each time I took a sip of beer or bite of something from my bowl of rice the glass or the bowl were instantly replenished. And each time a new dish arrived and a new dipping sauce appeared they served me and then explained what it was and how to eat it. Eventually, I understood that as long as I kept eating or drinking my glass and bowl would be filled. This is a lovely tradition and it continued throughout the three days. Each time we ate together and something new appeared I was served first and given a little tutorial about it. They paid me great respect and in turn it gave me a warm appreciation for them and their tradition.

I’m not a big fan of team building retreats, but I learned a lot at this one. Not only did I get to know these two young colleagues who work in my office, but I also learned that the Vietnamese are different from Americans in other ways. They love group activities and hi-jinks. Like children they enthusiastically embrace the games and exercises. Maybe I thought I was too cool for these things, but they wouldn’t let me miss out. On the second night of the retreat there was a EMW Idol or EMW’s Got Talent kind of show with a series of funny skits and some very talented singing and dancing by staff members. My office brought costumes and performed a looney skit that had me dressed up as a traditional Mandarin. A few beers helped me get over being cool, and once our skit was over I gave in to the simple pleasure of watching their pleasure.

This experience demonstrates once again that even with significant differences, there are also remarkable similarities. We are learning from each other and working together to help the poor and disadvantaged people of Vietnam. This job is a great gift for me.

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