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Well, finally, after trying for nearly 10 months, I got my work permit.  I can now legally work in Vietnam for the Horizon International Bilingual School for the next 3 years in various capacities relating to IT. My work permit can be extended three times possibly up to 9 more years for a total of 12 years.

My school is now working on getting me my 3 year temporary resident card.

Yes, it was a bit difficult to get my work permit.  I originally started with my company, SLG Vscapeone.  Due to problems related to my ex-business partner, the documents filled out for the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (DoLISA) were incorrectly filled out.  One document listed me as General Director, the other as Assistant Manager.  Yes, this was purposely done and many know I was forced to leave Vietnam for 4 days to fix my visa in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, last March.  Now everything is good to go and I hope many Expats do not have to experience the headache I went through.

So here is my recap on how “Americans” can get their work permits.  There are still many who need to obtain them before the July deadline at which point Vietnam will start to deport those foreigners who do not hold work permits.

Rule #1, DO NOT USE AN AGENT to get your work permit.  They are worthless and not worth the time and money you will spend with them.  I used my ex-business partner’s friend who, for nearly 5 months, did nothing to help me obtain my work permit though I had to pay him.  When Horizon resubmitted the forms, we had to start from scratch (minus the police report and health check).  My lawyer filled out my job experience form.  Skip the agent, ask your employers or very close friend to help you.  You have to do most of the work anyway.

Here we go: Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday I had a meeting with my Japanese friend at the Somerset’s Highland’s Coffee shop.  As I was parking my motorbike in the parking lot, a middle age Expat woman was blocking the path between the motorbikes with her motorbike.   As I came in, I had to lean my motorbike to the right against the wall to let her pass me.  I did not have to since she was blocking me, I just did it to be courteous to her.

What happened next shocked me, she glared at me and started shaking her head.  She was then rude to the parking attendant who was smiling at the both of us.

Even worse, I knew she thought I was Vietnamese.  I was wearing my full face mask, glasses and helmet at the time.  Yeah, I do get confused for being Vietnamese while I am in my full motorbike garb.  Black hair , Asian height, yeah I must be Vietnamese to her.  It was that look that she gave that appalled me but I knew she did not like this half-breed-Japanese-blood-Asian-looking-must-be-Vietnamese taking her space.

She kept shaking her head.  If I had not been leaning my motorbike to allow her to pass, I probably would have smacked her.  Before I could say anything to the woman, she sped by rather fast.  The parking attendant did try to stop her when he saw me saying something to her but she was too fast for him.

I hope this is an isolated case but even some Expats are blogging about Western behavior towards the Vietnamese in Saigon.  Expats need to respect the Vietnamese while they live and work in Vietnam.   I mean, honestly, it’s their country, not yours…

I just want to put a word of warning about H.Nam Mobile, a popular mobile phone shop in Saigon.  I went there last weekend with my friend who purchased their Nokia E71 mobile phone 10 months ago.  The phone stopped working a couple days before, it kept turning off and finally would not recharge.  A battery.  My friend just wanted it to be repaired.

At the store, my friend gave the phone to Mr. Nam, the owner of H.Nam Mobile.  The phone came with a one-year warranty from H.Nam Mobile.  He took one look at the phone and then handed it back to my friend.  He said that there was a nick on the phone which told him that the phone was dropped.  He then handed my friend the warranty information card that stated if the phone was dropped, the warranty was not voided.

Hmm, who would buy a $500 US Nokia phone knowing that after one drop, it will stop working.  Not likely and Nokia phones are quite durable.  Still, Mr. Nam refused to repair the phone with the warranty saying it was dropped.  My friend also admitted it was dropped a couple months ago but that the problem just started recently.

Since Mr. Nam seemed adamant, I asked my friend to tell him to instead repair the phone with the Nokia warranty.

Well, it seems that Mr. Nam never included the original Nokia warranty’s with the phone.   It was never in the box, most likely removed.  I later took a look at the phone and saw something interesting.

With most electronics, there is alway a ‘Made in Country’ or ‘Assembled in  Country’ attached to the products.  Nokia places them both on the battery and inside the phone.  With this phone, it was present on the battery but not inside the phone.  Even more suspicious, I noticed that the tape that covers the screws inside the phone were sliced.  H.Nam Mobile put their own company tape over them.  Did they replace the original parts?

In short, this phone was either a fake black market phone from China or H.Nam Mobile removed some of the original parts.  My friend will take their phone to the Nokia Authorized Center to repair the phone.  Mr. Nam does not seem to care though.   That is customer service for you.  If it was me, I would repair the $500 US phone in hope that the customer can refer their friends to me.

The reverse will happen though…

(Mr. Nam – Owner of H.Nam Mobile)

(Mr. Nam – Owner of H.Nam Mobile not being cooperative)

(Front of H.Nam Mobile at 89 Trang Quang Khai street in District 1)

I will show pictures of the phone in a later posting.  I am curious to see what Nokia will say about the phone.

Look at the picture below and see if there is anything strange.  Note, we have not ate any of the clams, we just took them out of the soup.

(Over 1/2 of the clams are missing)

My friend then asked me to check the soup.  Guess what, there were no clams in the soup.

(Soup bowl empty of the clams, where are they?)

Finally the supervisor was called over to explain what had happened.  He really could not answer.  He just apologized, took the food, and gave us a full refund on this dish.

(Longmonaco Supervisor explaining about the missing clams)

At first, the waiter tried to explain that the clams were in the bowl.  This made my Vietnamese friend mad.  The waiter brought the supervisor who tried to explain the same thing.  Each time they were asked to check the bowl.

After they left, my friend explain to me that this happens quite often with restaurants in Saigon.  The waiters and cooks know that customers will be so busy eating and chatting that they will not notice the missing clams.  Normally with a meal, you may see one or two missing clams but not over 1/2 of them!!!

So what happened to the clams?  Well, it turns out that the shells were taken from already eaten clams from previous hotpots or other clam dishes.  The cook just throws the empty shells into a batch of cooking clams.  We returned the dish because of this.  Not very hygenic way to eat a meal

Chris Harvey, otherwise known as charvey in the Saigon Expat blogging world, posted a new clip of the day morning ritual at VietnamWorks known as the “chicken dance.”  It is quite interesting to watch and a great inspiration for those Western Expat managers needing a way to boost the moral of their Vietnamese staff.