E45: The delicate art of doing business in Vietnam - with fine dining chef patron Quang Dung
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Vietnamese don't like to speak up their mind. So you have to really create an environment and a time and place and really push it out of them. We'll be the one to ask them, do you have anything to say? If they say no, that's not the end because they will almost always say no. And if they say no and you say, okay, very good, since you don't have anything to say, then everything's perfect. It's not. I am so, you're so, so.

Welcome to You Don't Know Vietnam, the show that demystifies Vietnam for global audiences by talking to the creatives, trendsetters and business owners who are taking on the market. Forget what you thought you knew about Vietnam. Guess what? It's no longer that, as you're about to find out. I'm Ian Paynton, co-founder of We Create Content, a content agency that builds audiences for global brands in Vietnam.

We make global brands relevant among Vietnamese consumers with always-on, hyper-local content. On this episode of You Don't Know Vietnam, I'm talking to Quang Dung, the chef patron of Chapter Dining & Grill and Tails Saigon, two restaurants that are helping to raise the bar and push the boundaries in Vietnam's rapidly changing F&B scene.

While Chapter in Hanoi takes its guests on a journey through Vietnam's northern mountains with an epic tasting menu and drinks pairing, Tales Saigon is Vietnam's first plant-based and zero-waste restaurant which only opened its doors a few weeks ago. Today, Sung tells me why now is the most exciting time ever for Vietnam's hospitality sector.

He shares the difference between building business trust in Vietnam cities compared to building trust with his foragers in the countryside. He gives tips for global audiences looking to come to Vietnam to do business, shares what he thinks the biggest mistake is that foreigners make, and drops massive insight bombs on how he manages and retains talent in his finer dining establishments.

Zung Oi. What up, fam? Wake it to be here. What up, fam, indeed. It's so nice to have you. Thanks for joining me on You Don't Know Vietnam. You know what? I've been observing your activities over the last few years, and I thought, who's a good person to speak to about...

Vietnam's culinary scene as it stands right now in 2025 what's going on it seems like quite an exciting time for Vietnam I think it's the most exciting time ever for F&B for restaurante and hotelier in Vietnam anything to do with service and hospitality with Michelin coming over and like the 50 best

giving us a lot of spotlights for. So everybody knows about Vietnamese food, but what about Vietnamese restaurants? Because Vietnamese food for many people is just street food, it's pho, it's bun cha, it's

and spring rolls and for many that's it but what about the restaurant scenes in Vietnam because even myself when I came back to Vietnam about 12 years ago I thought to myself okay restaurants in Vietnam what does it mean before I left it's just street food and some time fancy hot pot that's it

For the last 12 years, the culinary scene of Vietnam has been improving rapidly without any signs of slowing down. What do you think are the magical ingredients that are coming together to make this happen right now? Magical ingredients? Well, the magical ingredient...

I guess there's no one ingredient in a dish. So in order to create a wonderful dish, obviously you can't use too much, but there are many ingredients that involve in the cooking process. And the same goes for the factors which drives the F&B scenes in Vietnam right now. It's not just one factor. I guess it's A, economical growth. B is the economy.

information era with social media, with new platform for chefs and for restauranteurs to learn about restaurants, to learn about new techniques and also new ways of chefs who got to study abroad in certain culinary schools or in institutions like the CIA or Le Conde Bleu and they have been working

in certain restaurants like like Norma or the 50 best restaurant of the world and then they came back learning looks and applying that to the Vietnamese scenery. Not everything can be applied unfortunately. I try it myself. I try to use many techniques. I try to learn the same philosophy of English chefs like Gordon Ramsay, Jason Atherton, Marcus Waring and apply it back.

to my cooking say 10 years ago when I first opened my restaurant, Gastro's Gastropub. But it doesn't apply because sometimes the Vietnamese customer can have a different point of view and different taste compared to the average Englishman. Yeah, because I remember when I ate at your first restaurant, Gastropub, I was eating burgers and pub grub.

And then for my 10th year anniversary recently, I ate a chapter. And what a completely different culinary experience that was. I absolutely loved it, by the way. Thank you. It was such an experience. Can you still see some of the English influence, British influence in my kitchen? I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. It definitely taken...

My favorite cuisine, i.e. Northern Vietnamese cuisine. And it had a completely fresh spin on it. It certainly elevated it. And I particularly enjoyed the journey that I was taking on through Northern Vietnam, whether it was venison,

from ning bing or pigeon from futor and the stories around it as well like at what point was it you went i'm gonna not make fish and chips not make burgers and i'm gonna celebrate vietnamese heritage but with a completely contemporary spin with chapter well chapter is in my first restaurant obviously and it's not it's not even my second restaurants during my uh

17 years of cooking, I accumulated a certain amount of knowledges and a certain amount of repertoire. And coming back to Vietnam, I've

At first, I opened Castro as to express and as to show off my British cookery because I learned cooking in England and in Scotland. However, within the years, I've been traveling to every part of Vietnam and I've learned a lot from Vietnamese chefs from my traveling. But I still kept my culture.

What can I say? My trainings and the philosophies of English Chef by using local ingredients. For us, what is really sustainable is using the ingredient within the region. For me, if I open a restaurant in Hanoi, then it would be the north of Vietnam. And I was born in the north of Vietnam. I was raised in the north of Vietnam. So...

by nature, it's a restaurant that reflects the whole region of North Vietnam. But not until I opened chapter that I discovered that the North of Vietnam is...

so diverse in terms of ingredients, in terms of culture, because we have so many different ethnics that's been living in that region for a certain amount of time. And every different ethnic have a different way of preparing food and preserving food. That's more importantly, and sourcing the ingredient.

My forager, for example, they come from every different ethnic. We have the Hmong, we have the Zao, we have Thai and we have Nung. And they source their ingredient differently. They grow their ingredient differently. And not until our charity trips did we really learn about their culture. We really learned about what's going on inside their kitchens.

I think people sometimes think of Vietnamese people as one, right? But you're right. There's so many...

ethnic groups and they've got so many different customs and traditions and cuisines they live completely differently i think there's 52 different ethnics in vietnam and then that's just to show you how diverse we are everybody thought that i'm from the king people like the k-i-n-h not k-i-n-g so the king is i think the most the dominant race in vietnam but we have

51 other raisins. They're all wonderful. All of them are different, but, you know, all of them share the same, I don't know, the same love for Vietnam, I guess. Do the groups that you work with who are sourcing and foraging for you, do they ever look at your dish and go, what the fuck is this guy doing? Yeah, you're like,

Well, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. It's just to work with them, right? They never care. They never care what I do. All they care about is, do you drink with me? Come and drink. Stay in my house. And how long do you stay? I want you to stay forever. And they say, oh, mate, I can't. I'll stay one night. They have the roof and four walls built.

And the kitchen, and whilst many thought it was a kitchen, it's a hut. It's a place where you put the charcoal and wood and the burn and warm up the house. And everybody just sit around the hut and, you know, and they just warm themselves up. And there's no particular room. It's just one floor and you sleep on the floor and you drink on the floor. You do everything yourself.

on the floor and it's good fun. It's good fun and you learn a lot through staying with the locals. But mainly they just care about drinking. I'm sorry to say that to all my forager but you guys just all you guys do is drink and that's it.

So they never care about my food. Have they ever tasted your food? We cook, we do sous vide braise, Vietnamese style, but sous vide braise with carrots. So it's a beef and carrot dish, essentially. And then we do like sous vide, out of the egg, and we brought it to the mountains and together we eat with the locals. I think they enjoy that.

As much as a drinking. There is something special, isn't there, about Vietnamese hospitality? Oh, yes. That open door, come in, stay with me, chat for as long as you want, eat, drink, drink.

in the northern mountains and just generally in Vietnam. Apart from people from the big cities of Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, then the rest of Vietnam are quite, I don't know, they are quite naive. They trust people.

Very quickly, man. It's like, I don't know, I can't really see them. And I talk to them once and then instant trust right there. And that's how we build a relationship with our foragers and with our farmers. We trust each other very easily and by no means that we can break that trust.

that easily as well but it's just show you how friendly the vietnamese people are and and of course when you say about hospitality then yes it's truly it's hospitality open my door welcome you to my house all that sort of things

Trust takes longer though, doesn't it? Normally in business and in Vietnam and in the cities, I feel like trust is something you build over long periods of time, which is quite different to the mountains. Well, Vietnamese are smart and they are witty and they are shifty and won't come to business. Obviously, trust is something that comes easily. But when you earn their trust, then trust

It's like back to the mountains again, man. You ask them anything, they do it for you. Sometimes it's not about right or wrong. It's just about do I like you or not? That sort of a situation. I like you. I am prepared to go the extra mile. But if I don't like you, then just the basics of things. Give me the money. I'll give you the goods.

So it takes a little bit longer, but it can be just as strong once it's built. Yeah, I mean, it's just that you do whatever you say, right? If you tell them that you are going to take care of this,

it does mean that you're going to have to take care of that. If you tell them that I'm going to pay you a certain amount of money, then it does mean that you have to pay them a certain amount of money. And if you don't do that, they will not tell you directly, but they will just stop working. A bit like Japanese. I think that's really insightful because

Things are often implied as well, aren't they, in business in Vietnam? It might not be a direct yes or a direct no. You have to read between the lines a little bit. And sticking to your word to build trust, an interesting one. Because I found, and I hope I'm not being unfair here, but when I got to Vietnam to do business, I found that things were much more fluid. So what was agreed was

might end up evolving and slightly change or the contract's not quite adhered to and you expect one thing and get another. So I actually found that people wouldn't necessarily keep their word. And I found that difficult. Yeah, well, yeah, it's the same for me when I first came back to Vietnam. Vietnamese, well, like the Vietnamese businessmen, small businessmen are afraid of saying no.

They are really afraid of saying no and they are really afraid of, I don't know, hurting your feelings. And everybody say, oh, we are brothers. Oh, I am, but we are brothers, of course. And sometimes they say, oh, we are brothers. Don't worry about that. Mate, I'm not your brother.

Sometimes I just wish they'd say, okay, we are not brothers, we are just business partners. And there are certain things you have to worry about. Sometimes they never tell you what's on their mind. So I've learned a lot doing business in Vietnam. One of those things is how to read facial expressions and body language.

eye contact and if you come to Vietnam, prepare, be prepared and learn those skills before really working in Vietnam because especially Hanoi, especially the north of Vietnam because people from the north of Vietnam, they're very polite. They will never tell you what's on their mind and you always have to read their body language and their expression

but not the content. So it's all about the context. It's all about the expression. It's all about the tones of the Vietnamese. And it's even more difficult when they speak English, which is not their mother tongue, isn't it? I mean, it's easier, a bit easier for me, right? No, for sure. Yeah, it is particularly difficult. And I think

It's quite easy to come to Vietnam and sort of be told, yes, yes, yes. There's loads of opportunities. There's loads to do. There's doors opening everywhere. There are, right? There are. But you just have to understand that there are lots of open doors. It's just that you need the key. Yeah. Or some of them are going to slam in your face unexpectedly. Quickly. Yeah. Because I found when I first got here, I was...

very excited about all the things that could be done, all of these positive conversations I was having with people over iced tea and keep talking about collaboration and talking more about collaboration and building this web of personal contact for it to not really ever go anywhere or at the end to say, oh yeah, but now that we're mates,

I need it like this. And I was like, yeah, but that's not what we've been talking about for the last eight months or something. And I feel like I wasted a lot of time and energy trying to get through doors that maybe now with a bit more experience, I would be able to identify that door probably isn't one for me to walk through. Well, prepare to invest a lot of time when you come to Vietnam, isn't it? Like to actually understanding Vietnam.

which person is reliable and which person isn't. You know, sometimes one can be reliable to another, but not reliable to yourself. So again, delicate art. A delicate art indeed. And I think it's one that you can only really master being here on the ground, going through it and maybe getting burned a few times, maybe having a few bad experiences. Does it help if you have a Vietnamese spouse or, you know?

Soulmate or? Yeah, certainly. I've got a network of really trusted Vietnamese friends, colleagues, business partners, not a spouse. We've seen so many businessmen coming to Vietnam and getting married and also businesswomen coming to Vietnam and getting married. Oh, by the way, guys, to the world, Vietnamese as, well, Vietnamese as say your spouse or husband or wife. Ideal.

Many people come to Vietnam to do business, ended up staying here because they got married to a Vietnamese. And I've seen no complaint whatsoever. Yeah. It would certainly make everything a hell of a lot easier, right? Yes. What other tips would you give for business people that are coming to Vietnam to want to do business, do you think? I think come here first. Just travel around. Just really...

see the opportunities. Sometimes there are things that haven't been done because no one dared to do it first. I opened the first plant-based restaurants in Vietnam just recently opened a month ago and no one dared to open the plant-based restaurant before me. So I saw it as an opportunity. However, to educate the market is

It takes a lot of time and a lot of, I don't know, money and also effort. And you have to persevere to really make your point. For example, Pizza 4P, they didn't do well in their first year. Look at them now, right? So be patient, really be patient with us, with the Vietnamese, because...

We can learn things, but it takes a certain amount of time for an idea to stick. It takes a certain amount of time for Vietnamese to really accept this kind of concept, this kind of values, this kind of philosophy. But when it's there forever. How do you think you win buy-in?

from Vietnamese teams, what's the best way to get them on board and believe in a concept or an idea that you believe in, do you think? Drink it, man. Drink it, drink it.

Now, well, apart from the drinking, then it's, again, business is a delicate art. And of course, if any businessman would understand building trust within the organization and of course, for myself, I focus in employees' experience. So we have a system called EXM, Employee Experience Management, and it's been working. The result is,

I guess my company's staff turnover is...

I can say it's a lot lower than the average F&B industry. People stay in my company, in my restaurants, in the outlets for years, for three, four years. So tell me more about EXM, the Employee Experience Management, because that sounds like something that's really valuable and would stop a lot of turnover, churn, hiring, losing people, having to retrain. What is EXM then? Well, I've just learned it.

Before I opened chapter, which means four years ago, after me, everybody talked about CRM or CXM, the customer's experience. But in my point of view, a business has four types of customers. Your end user, your investor, your supplier, and press, the KOLs, and finally customers.

your employee. So treat your employee like your customer. Just give them a good experience. I do mean good experience. It's not about, it's not about, okay, let's go out and let's drink and I'll give you a lot of money. It's not about that. I don't pay my staff any more than my competitors paying them.

Or let's say I'll pay only 10% more. It isn't the driving factor to attract my employee and to keep them staying. Everybody knows that the cost of training a new employee and recruiting a new employee is much higher than the cost of keeping them. I'll say three times higher in chapter.

we have a system that we created for the the DNA system actually there's two aspects it's tangible and intangible so tangible aspect environment equipment salary because all of that you can

touch you can smell so the staff at my restaurant have their own dressing room with big mirrors and very big lockers that I rarely see in a restaurant even in a big restaurant with a lot of space they don't build lockers they don't build dressing room they don't build a good shower they don't build a good sort of restroom and

And we use the same tiles in the guest restroom as in the employee restroom. Amenities, same. Lighting, same. We have two fitting rooms and everybody can come now. Before service time, we change and then look themselves in the mirror and take care of their appearance. We have a canteen overlooking the rooftop garden. Everybody says it's the best room. It's the best area ever.

in the building. It should be used for private dining room for special guests. Then I tell people my special guests are my son. So I built the canteen right next to the garden. So what about the intangible?

So the intangible is corporate culture, right? It's leadership style, it's trainings, it's about all the activities that you can do for your team. For example, let's say every year we have two company trips and we just have fun. And the fun part, the eating out part is as important as the

the working part. And also it's this corporate culture. So we say that we want our staff to be honest, to be brutally honest about their work and what they like and what they don't like.

during the week. So we have a kitchen meeting every week. And that's when they can speak their mind. I mean, they can speak their mind any time. But, you know, if you create an environment, you create a certain time for them to speak up their mind. Because

as I mentioned before, VMAs don't like to speak up their mind. So you have to really create an environment and a time and place and really push it out of them and then we'll be the one to ask them, do you have anything to say? If they say no, that's not the end. Because they will almost always say no. And if they say no and you say, okay, very good, since you don't have anything to say, then

everything's perfect. It's not. You have to speak to them, you have to talk to them a bit more. So our meeting's a bit longer than normal. We don't want to prolong it, but it can't be done under 90 minutes because it's the first half. Okay, here's the plan for the coming weekend and here's a reflection for the previous week that set a mood and set a tone for...

for the staff to think about what they've been doing and what difficulty they've been facing, what brick wall they've been hitting. And that's the initials for our managers, for our head chefs to actually pivot on so that we can get insight from our staff.

So again, the word is insight. It's very important in marketing, isn't it? Insight. But everybody's thought about customer insight. How about employee insight? Treat them like a customer. And every week we'll have kitchen meeting, just the kitchen, front of house meeting, just the front of house, and office meeting, just the office, within their own department on Monday and on Tuesday.

We have manager meeting where I will attend.

I will not attend the kitchen meeting or I will not attend the, because I want them to speak their mind. And with the chef patron right next to you, it's a bit intimidating to actually speak up, isn't it? So I will not attend those meetings and during the manager meeting, the BOM meeting, then my head chef, my sous chef, my manager, assistant manager, my HR, my accountant, my marketing director,

can speak up on behalf of the staff. And sometimes we picked up really good insight from those meetings. No matter which week it is, we always have three questions. A, an update on our employee, what they need, what's their feedback. So the feedback employee. B is the feedback of every other department employee.

So say kitchen, do you have a feedback for the front of house, the office, accounting, marketing, right? And every other department will have feedback for the kitchen and so on.

And third thing is the feedback from our customer. And usually good feedback, appreciated, but not mentioned because it's not about the good feedback. It's about the, well, we never say complaint. In chapter, we call it highlights. So do we have any highlights? Which means it's the feedback from the customer which we can learn and reflect on. But again, feedback.

First feedback is always employees' feedback. When I say it's DNA, it goes like this. If you grow the intangible, you have to grow the tangible. There's no point growing the intangible without the tangible. Got it. That makes complete sense. And there's a hell of a lot there. So to summarize, your tips for global brands or businesses coming to Vietnam is to...

travel around, get out, eat. Eat as much as possible. Yeah, spot the opportunities that are available. Prepare to spend time educating a little bit. Yes. And come equipped with some perseverance and some patience, especially if you're trying to win buy-in on a new concept or a new idea. It's about building trust with stakeholders, also with employees. So look after your staff well.

as if they're your customer, actually, which I think is a really strong position to take and a really good philosophy. And that means really spending time with them to understand what's truly on their mind. And if they say nothing's on my mind, they are lying. Don't believe them. They are lying. Find a way to unearth more insight from your staff because that's really important. Very good summary, isn't it?

I guess there's one more thing, one mistake that I think I've done in the past and from all of my expat friends who came to Vietnam. I think everybody made the same mistake of complaining how difficult Vietnamese is and how different Vietnamese is. Of complaining that we don't care about health and safety, of complaining that we don't work the way

you guys work or the way the Western work. And I don't think that's the mindset. I had to say mindset when I came back to Vietnam. I learned lots in England and I can't wait to come back to Vietnam and to apply what I learned and what I have to say and what I have to give Vietnam. But before giving, I have to learn the Vietnamese way as well. I have to learn

the culture and the philosophy and when I learned the Vietnamese way I thought okay wow sometime I thought okay the English way is the only way it's my way or the highway my there's many ways and every way it will lead to Hanoi everywhere else leads to Rome but again that really

Stop complaining. Stop complaining that Vietnamese don't seem the same, don't work the same. Because when we come to England and we open Vietnamese restaurant, we have the same complaint that English don't appreciate the Vietnamese value. The same way that Westerners come to Vietnam and complain that Vietnamese don't appreciate the Western value. So I guess it's not about the Vietnamese way or the Western way.

It's just the ignorance, the ignorance of the Vietnamese and the ignorance of the Westerner. And I think only by truly understanding each other do we really eliminate the ignorance. I think it's fair to say that Vietnamese food has been having a moment globally and it's definitely having a moment domestically. What's your vision for how Vietnam exports this new contemporary style of Vietnamese cuisine to the world? Do you think that's even possible?

Well, it's been going on, actually. I've seen restaurants in the US. I've seen restaurants in Australia. And recently, one of my chef friends is trying to open a Vietnamese restaurant.

high-end restaurants in Japan. So I guess there are opportunities because right now people are looking at Vietnamese food as a healthier option. There are, I don't know, like the rice paper bar where you use the Vietnamese rice paper and wrap it

that you can think of. Well, this has been going on in Vietnam forever, but the world is catching up. There are travelers who come to Vietnam and will try our cuisines and apply, say, a certain technique or a certain ingredient into their businesses. And it's been a very good module. I guess that the Vietnamese way of traveling

of consuming food or sourcing ingredients has been a really healthy way as you can see I always say there's no fat because all we eat is vegetables and really good and healthy food and isn't

I don't know, plan-based at the future of cooking, because I've seen for the last five years that many top restaurants have been converted into plan-based restaurants. So I guess, well, since it's the future, and well, Vietnamese cuisine is always there, the Vietnamese way of eating and the Vietnamese way of life, which have been exporting to other countries.

I'm glad you mentioned plant-based because I wanted to ask you about Tales in Saigon. Oh, yeah. Your newest restaurant. It's quite new. What's the response been so far? Are you finding that there is a market for higher-end, plant-based, zero-waste restaurants? In terms of sustainability, the word has been appearing a lot more often.

in the recent years. For me, I would pursue plan-based cuisine. I see plan-based cuisine as a way to achieve sustainability. So that's why I opened a plan-based and zero waste restaurant. It's too soon to say now because we don't have enough statistics to actually evaluate if the market is there. One thing for sure, the market is new. We have to educate our customer on what is plan-based.

Because everybody thought plant-based is vegetarian and vegan. It's not. But we do 100% plant-based, which vegans enjoy.

Right. But by saying Plan Bay is vegan, it's not the same thing. And we have to educate our customer on that. And in terms of having a market or not, well, we are trying to open up a new market here. It's not just about high end. The Plan Bay community in Vietnam hasn't quite reached their peak yet.

And we are trying to be a driving factor to make sure that it happens, to make sure that plant-based eating or plant-based cooking is here to stay. And do you think the Vietnamese care enough about sustainability? Well...

The government is definitely trying to educate everyone about that. Everybody says that sustainability in business is a myth. Well, at least everybody I've been talking to. No one believes that if you open a sustainable restaurant, we're all equal to making a lot of money. And I think, yeah, I'm trying to prove them wrong, actually. I'm trying to show everyone that, yeah, you can be sustainable.

you can be zero waste without damaging the environment. Well, with a minimal damage to the environment. Yeah, well, it's very new and of course everybody say that I'm very brave or stupid, whatever it is. I firmly believe that

sustainability is going to be the basic in the future. And, you know, I'm teaching my boys, my eight-year-old boys on sustainability as well, on like how to protect the environment as well. And I don't do this for myself. I do this for my son.

I do this for the future generation. I really believe this is the future. It's just that we are maybe a bit ahead of time, but we'll make sure that we are still here when the time comes. What's the hardest thing, would you say, about what you're trying to do at Chapter and at Tales currently? Well, the hardest thing is still to manage the expectation of the guest. They come expecting an

a meal and we give them an experience and we give them more values than just food. And sometimes our customers don't care about those values. They just want to have a quick dinner or they just want to have to come

to tell people that they've been there. Whatever it is, the key word is expectation. And like when you brand your restaurant online, when you advertise your restaurant online, and then when your customer come, sometimes we want them to expect a certain sort of experience. And sometimes customers don't care about our zero waste value. And

It's a bloody difficult thing to do, mate, to ask any restaurant. Can you cook without any waste? That is a bloody difficult thing to do. It's not impossible. It's just bloody difficult. And it put a lot of constraint in our repertoire and our cooking because we have to cook with everything. So we can't throw away. So we have to think of a way to use a carrot top, for example, the leaf of the carrot. So...

No one cooked with carrot top before, even though it's delicious. So we had to create a recipe for that. And we have a lot of carrot top. What do we do? The trimmings or the skin of the beetroot. Normally, if you cook, you peel the skin away. You can't throw away the skins. What do you do? All that sort of thing. And you have to incorporate that in your menu, which makes menu engineering 10 times more difficult than the average restaurant.

Well, I appreciate how bold and brave you're being. You haven't chosen the easy route, but fortune favours the brave, as they say. MUSIC

I'd like to end these episodes by asking you, what are you most excited about for Vietnam's future? I'm most excited for my industry, to be honest, for restauranteurs and for chefs. We now have more canvas to express ourselves and to express our talent. And the world has been gradually kinder to food artists or restauranteurs or chefs.

So they are more open to try new ideas. Even Vietnamese are now more open to try new ideas, to try new food and to really look at cooking as a form of art. And of course, the future of Vietnam is in the hands of the young people. And I've got a lot of opportunity to really talk to the young people, to the younger generations, the students of Vietnam's.

I've been teaching a few classes on marketing, on business, on leadership and on culinary in different universities. And I have to say, Vietnamese young generations are thriving and they are so much better than us.

in every way. They are more resilient, they are smarter, they react quicker, they are more flexible. The future of Vietnam is in the hands of the future generation of Vietnam. And I can't help but be really excited for the future. You can't help but feel proud of the younger generation. And I hope my son will turn out to be just like them or, you know, maybe a bit better than them.

You've been listening to You Don't Know Vietnam. I'm Ian Paynton from We Create Content. I'd like to thank DJ Jace from The Beat Saigon for their epic soundtrack and a massive thank you to you for making it all the way to the end.