In Vietnam, finding the comforts of home
HO CHI MINH CITY - Beyond the iron front gates of Viet Kieu Village, shiny sport-utility vehicles glide down cul-de-sacs. Mini-mansions with orange-tiled California-style roofs loom over clipped lawns. Above the swimming pool framed by palm trees, big white letters proclaim in English, "Welcome."
But the people sipping cocktails at the riverfront and piloting their imported cars down the streets of this development are not the German and Korean businessmen who inhabit similar compounds in this city, once called Saigon.
They are Vietnamese Americans. Nearly 30 years ago, they were the refugees who fled South Vietnam vowing never to return while communism held sway. Now, successful careers in the United States have made them wealthy by Vietnamese standards -- and more than welcomed by the government that once would have imprisoned them.
"We never thought we would come back," said Quy "Larry" Vo, 65, a former South Vietnamese air force officer who moved two years ago from Southern California to this plush new neighborhood, the first subdivision of at least four projects in Ho Chi Minh City marketed to ex-refugees. "We want to live quietly. We just miss our country."
In a small but growing reverse exodus, Vietnamese Americans -- known here as Viet Kieu, or overseas Vietnamese -- are retiring to their native country, reestablishing bonds with families left behind and settling into a familiar culture. Best of all, they can do it while surrounded by the comforts of the American suburbs to which they grew accustomed during their exile.
Laws passed two years ago allow the former refugees to own real estate -- and, naturally, pay taxes.
Vo escaped on April 30, 1975, after the North Vietnamese rolled their tanks into Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi Minh City. Today he and his wife Ngoc, called "Linda," spend their days jogging around their neighborhood, meeting other residents at the riverfront and taking out their SUV -- with American flag pillows decorating the seats -- to visit her mother and other relatives.
Walking through his spacious home, the tanned Vo showed off his stainless steel kitchen appliances, master bath suite with Jacuzzi and steam shower, and polished pink floors. "Granite, not marble," said Vo, a retired marketing manager for Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. "Better and cheaper than in the U.S."
While the retirement of immigrants to their mother countries is not unusual, the Vietnamese experience is particularly poignant. The hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who fled the communists made up the largest refugee resettlement in U.S. history. Today, Vietnamese Americans number about 1.1 million, with more than 40,000 in the Washington region. Anti-communist feelings still run high in Little Saigons across the country, and community groups often stage protests when a cultural group from Hanoi tours the United States.
But the passage of time has worn down some of the Vietnamese Americans' anti-communist fervor and heightened their nostalgia. Besides, retiring in Vietnam is cheap.
Four-bedroom villas cost about $100,000. Even on a monthly pension and Social Security of $1,000, the seniors can easily pay for a chauffeur, a maid and restaurant meals. Inexpensive airfares and phone cards make it easy for them to keep in touch with grandchildren and doctors in the United States.
Tien Hoang, a Vietnamese American developer from Fairfax County, said he loves his mother country but there's no way he -- or any other ex-refugee he knows -- could stay here if they had to live like most locals. They need the things that only money can buy: a flush toilet, air conditioning and, most of all, space and privacy.
Hoang, who is working with local Vietnamese contractors to build a subdivision, said that even in the better neighborhoods, things aren't as orderly as he will make them in his project, to be called Green City.
"The guy next door put his garbage bags in front of my house," said Hoang, 48, shaking his head. "People can open up a karaoke bar in their house if they want. You don't see that in the U.S. Things have to be regulated."
Stepping out of his Mercedes SUV, Hoang walked across the muddy field that is being cleared for 500 houses and duplexes scheduled to be completed next year. He is already making plans to build a small strip mall, which he is thinking of naming either Little California or Little Fairfax. Half of the homes have already been sold through a sales office in Falls Church.
"It's like Reston was back then," Hoang said, gesturing across the property. "It's a new area ready for development."
Vietnamese Americans began returning in the early 1990s, a few years after communist leaders started a process of economic liberalization. The United States lifted its embargo against Vietnam in 1994. But back then, the former refugees -- who came only to visit relatives, not to live -- weren't exactly welcomed. Many were harassed at the airport, unless they slipped a $10 bribe to the officers stamping their passports. The phrase "Viet Kieu" became a common slur for people who were fat and spoiled.
Economic reforms changed everything. In East Asia, only China has a faster-growing economy. Communist leaders now say that the ex-refugees are among Vietnam's greatest assets. The government has made it easier for them to share their money with relatives: Remittances are no longer subject to income tax. Last year, those relatives received a record $2 billion.
In recent years, overseas Vietnamese have been granted some of the privileges of nationals. They pay discounted local prices, rather than inflated foreigner fees, for air and train travel. In business investments, they receive preferential treatment, such as quicker approval for permits.
"People want to forget things; you can't do anything about the past," said Nguyen Tuan Son, an editor at a state-owned legal newspaper. But Son, a Communist Party member, is careful to distinguish between the types of Vietnamese Americans that he and his compatriots want to see in Vietnam.
"Those people who are here because this is their homeland, we cannot blame them. We welcome them," he said. "We don't want Viet Kieu who want to fight the war all over again."
Neither Vietnam nor the U.S. Embassy tracks the number of retirees, who simply keep renewing their three-month visas. Records show only 35 housing permits in Ho Chi Minh City issued to overseas Vietnamese, but even the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington says that number is unreliable. An embassy spokesman said it's widely known that the former refugees shuttle money to relatives who then buy the homes in the relatives' names.
And in the United States, many Vietnamese Americans don't tell anyone other than family and close friends that they have property in the old country. Several declined to be interviewed for this article.
That may be because much of the Vietnamese American community still fiercely opposes the communist government. This year, for instance, community groups began a campaign in more than 20 U.S. cities for local governments to recognize the flag of the former South Vietnam, rather than the red communist banner. The proposal came so close to being passed in the Virginia legislature that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell stepped in to stop the efforts.
Tung "Tony" Nguyen, 56, a retired auditor for the California state government, said refugee politics was part of the reason he moved to Vietnam this summer. Nguyen, a South Vietnamese army veteran who lost his right hand in a grenade attack during the war, said that at his age, he just wants some peace.
The Vietnamese Americans "need to forgive, forget," said Nguyen, lounging in his Viet Kieu Village condo. "For me, I want to think about the future. Vietnam is now totally different than 10 years ago, than 20 years ago."
Some of his new neighbors -- the ones who never left Vietnam -- agree.
Down the dirt road outside Viet Kieu Village, Nguyen Thi Hue said she's not really jealous of her neighbors, whom she rarely sees.
Hue, 38, a widow with two children, makes $5 a day selling drinks of sugar cane juice and $60 a month renting out shacks on her property to families who have just moved to the city to work in the new foreign-owned factories. But her humble income is enough to provide her with a three-room house with tile floors, where the color TV is constantly blaring.
"Things have gotten better here," she said. "There's no reason to leave."
She, like many locals, says that Vietnamese Americans, for all their wealth, made a tremendous sacrifice: They left behind their families and homeland.
Inside the tall concrete walls of Viet Kieu Village, Larry and Linda Vo have discovered that they are no longer sure which country is their homeland.
In their house, enlarged black-and-white photographs of the couple as youths in Vietnam are displayed on an easel. But hanging on several walls are framed silhouettes of Romans, a reminder of Larry Vo's Caesar's Palace days.
Besides thinking about her grandchildren in Southern California, Linda Vo reminisces constantly about bagels and lox. KFC and Baskin-Robbins have stores in Ho Chi Minh City, but so far, no Bruegger's Bagels.
"Here, we remember America," she said with a sigh. "There, we remember Vietnam. We have two countries."
With a chuckle, she said that she could think of only one solution: "Maybe someday, we will lose our memory and it won't matter."
By Phuong Ly - The Washington Post - October 12, 2003.
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