Country needs Vietnamese backpackers: popular speaker

Editor’s Note: Dr. Alan Phan, a Vietnamese-American millionaire who has spent four decades doing business in the United States and China, is a familiar name in the Vietnamese press and at local and international conferences. Dr. Phan is the author of nine Vietnamese- and English-language books on emerging markets. He also serves as a contributor at such local publications as Vietnam Financial Review, Saigon Times, andVietnamNet. He currently chairs Viasa, a fund based in Hong Kong. Tuoitrenews secured Dr. Phan’s approval before it translated his Vietnamese article “Đất Nước Cần… Ta Ba Lô” (“The country needs Vietnamese backpackers”), published on May 18 on his website.

The country needs Vietnamese backpackers

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.” (Moby Dick, by Herman Melville)

Gotta get out of heaven

On transcontinental trips the number of Australian tourists is quite big, considering Australia’s small population: 23 million people. I found the reason for this when I was a postgraduate student in Australia in 2002. I discovered a paradise Mother Nature created and man has treasured in Tweed Heads and Coolangatta, where Southern Cross University is located. Pure and blue seas, an atmosphere free from dust, warm climate, harmonious landscapes and architecture, a small rich-poor gap despite the high standard of living. However, every week I waited eagerly for Friday to fly back to Hong Kong because it was indescribably boring in the Australian paradise.

Maybe that is the reason why Australian people – regardless of whether they are old or young;  adults or children; men, women, or homosexuals – like traveling around the world whenever they have time; or to find a job, a wife or a husband in another country. They are willing to sail the big seas to seek a different feeling, broad knowledge, and new experiences for their life or career. With this mindset, it can be said that Australians score very well on the IQ, EQ, and AQ scales.

By comparison, I think that innovations in the IT-based economy of 23 million Australian people must prevail over what 1.2 billion Chinese people have collected. Simply by taking a look at the number of Chinese students at Australian universities, we can envisage some absurdity of “the wisdom of crowds.” If Chinese people are proud of their 5,000 years of history, what would they say when they realize that 200 years ago the founders of Australia were dangerous criminals whom British people banished to a remote, totally uninhabitable island?

This gives us a little hope that, as these villains managed to create a civilized world for their descendants, then the apes in other forests around the world can also make a breakthrough, like what was miraculously done in the film “Planet of the Apes.”

Lessons from Western backpackers

Now back to Saigon. I always look at Western backpackers with admiration and nostalgia whenever I pass by Pham Ngu Lao and De Tham Streets. They mirror the image of Alan in the 1960s, when he shouldered a heavy backpack full of cheap clothes and other belongings, carried no more than 50 dollars in his pocket, and wandered around Europe without planning what to eat and where to sleep during the day. He would comfort himself with statements like “just improvise” and “God gave birth to Alan so he would give him bread.”

These aimless, sometimes silly, adventures certainly caused disturbing and unpleasant surprises, as Murphy once said, “If anything can go wrong, it will, and always at the most unexpected time.” I still cannot forget one time when I managed to court two babes in Barcelona, thinking we three would have a sweet night together. But I ended up being tightly tied to a wooden chair at midnight in a shabby hotel. The two ideal “lovers” had got away with my clothes and money. Or the day the old bus I was traveling in plunged down a pit near Quito (Ecuador). I was lucky enough to sustain only minor injuries.

Nevertheless, these journeys are treasures when they are looked at from the future. They help broaden our mind, boost our confidence, and provide us with a better understanding of man’s karma and nihility.

I am not sure if university degrees or such journeys have played a more important part in my life as a human being.

A generation of Vietnamese backpackers

During a recent seminar at a university, I was surprised that very few of the students present held a passport or had been to a foreign country. I believe that more than half the students there had more money than most of the Western backpackers in Saigon. Their most serious shortcomings are “wishes” and “courage.” The money they often spend on chit-chat and gossip in coffee shops and drinking places may be more than the daily expenses they would incur in Thailand or Myanmar. Flying to some countries in Southeast Asia may be cheaper than the airfares for trips to Hanoi or Da Nang City. Being a cook or cleaner aboard a ship can bring you a free voyage to Europe, Australia or America. Most young Vietnamese are smart and creative, so they will find hundreds of ways to become a backpacker if they search for them online.      

Twenty years ago, I hardly found any travelers from China, Vietnam or the Soviet Union. Passports were the favor and privilege of bigwigs’ children only. Now, these socialist citizens’ imprint can be found everywhere. However, most of these tourists fall into two types: those indulging themselves in spending sprees and showing off their designer clothes and fashionable accessories to locals, and timid old people going on cheap tours in large numbers tending to do a poo at their will. Very few of them prove to be backpackers who look for new knowledge and experience in the world.

Demands of a knowledge economy

Experiencing the real world sometimes makes you feel bitter and humiliated, but it will wake up the Vietnamese inside you: from the proud spirit to the nasty habits. I still think that the only way to express patriotism and actively contribute to the future of the country is exhibiting self-improvement every day. We need reform, but let’s reform our inner self first.   

Every long journey begins with small steps. Promise yourself that you will obtain a passport tomorrow and think of ways to visit Cambodia, Laos, or Thailand next month. That simply is it.

Put out to the open seas, take a look, listen, and think. One day, you will know what to do with a new you.

Listen to Eleanor Roosevelt whispering, “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”