Author: saigonsays

Hello This blog began as a journal of my family's time living in Saigon, Vietnam, but is now more of a repository of thoughts about work, family, and the incredible and often hilarious moments confronting ex-pats living in this weird and wonderful city. I am originally from London (for anyone from London, I'm actually from Amersham, but this tends to mean not a lot to the vast majority of people I work with and meet in Asia). In January 2013 I started a new writing project, following some changes in my life - www.definitelymaybe.me - and I welcome you to join in the discussion over there, too. I am probably drinking a coffee as you are reading this. 'Cheers' for stopping by (I am lifting my cup as we speak) and enjoy today.

The Future of CSR?

On By saigonsaysIn International DevelopmentLeave a comment
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Hong Kong’s imposing skyline just before the typhoon

The sight of Hong Kong’s vast oblong buildings, stood proud and squashed in front of a backdrop of dark green mountains and low lying clouds, never ceases to take my breath away.

That McDonalds and Starbucks franchises exist in great numbers, alongside century old tea houses, underneath these imposing corporate towers, makes the city one of the ultimate “East Meets West” urban epicentres.

There is a constant shuffling of life to be found at street level in Hong Kong, a happy human beat of old and young, rich and poor, foreigner, tourist, and the local shoe-shiner, all jostling through their everyday tasks, zigzagging between narrow alley and subway, the Kowloon trams and the famous Star Ferry.

I have been in town this week to speak at the annual CSR Asia Summit, holed up, as these things always are, in varying degrees of 4 or 5 star hotel finery, glacial air conditioning and windowless rooms. Continue reading “The Future of CSR?” →

The Anti-Bucket List Post

On By saigonsaysIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Weeks and months have evaporated into the vaults of history since I last visited my own blog site. The two month period since book-marked in the memory bank with fond recollections of holidaying back in the UK with my kids, and then re-engaging in Saigon life following our return.

I’ll be on the road again soon, no doubt inspired into literary action once more by long stretches at airport terminals, cramped airline meals, exchanging mundane commentary with fellow passengers, or jostling down the streets of Bangkok, inhaling the familiar fragrances and stark realities that I have come to associate with urban Asia.

Even when the work emails were switched off on holiday this summer, what was constant was the addictive white noise of the Twitter machine, militantly keeping up its fervent pulse. And I indulged regularly enough in entertaining it. The World Cup semi final demolition of Brazil, at the hands of Germany, was relayed to my bedside early in the morning via a short – and at the time gob-smacking – tweet. On July 17th, it was twitter once more alerting me as I touched down in Dubai, en-route to London, of the Malaysia Airlines tragedy. Scottish independence, air-strikes in the Middle East, ebola out-breaks, celebrity break-ups, Robin Williams’ suicide, or, how late my old co-worker’s commuter trains might have been on any given Monday morning: twitter supplies them all. Continue reading “The Anti-Bucket List Post” →

This Is Water

On By saigonsaysIn Humankind, Well-BeingLeave a comment
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Last week I was working in Kathmandu. This is a picture I took whilst there. I think it means ‘Water’ in Nepali. If not, it’s still a pretty picture.

It’s the last day of June, a typically pleasant month, heralding in for many of us an array of sporting events and the prospect of summer holidays, before moving us into the second half of the year – as it will do in a matter of a few hour’s time…

In the US, the July 4th celebrations are almost ready. For Muslims the world over, Ramadan began yesterday. The existential crises unfolding in various parts of the Middle East and Africa clog the headlines, in spite of a planet obsessed this month with tales from the World Cup in Brazil (or, for some of those British readers amongst you who have long given up on the football, the ups and downs of following Andy Murray in the tennis at Wimbledon). Continue reading “This Is Water” →

Birthday Times

On By saigonsaysIn HumankindLeave a comment

The 27th remains a reasonably significant day of the month for my family. In April, the date marks my birthday, in November, my Dad’s, and in May, my Dad’s Dad: Grandpa, or ‘Pa’ as he was known.

Today, Pa would have been ninety nine years old.

After me, my younger brother’s due date as a baby was also the 27th, of January, however he stayed in for some extra days of peace and quiet, emerging on 1st February.

Not content with being born on what had become a special date, the story goes that I began life immediately setting my parents’ nerves on end, the umbilical cord attaching itself, python-like, around my neck during delivery. No sooner had I gulped my first mouthfuls of hospital air, than I was rushed to an emergency ward for “checks”. Continue reading “Birthday Times” →

Lending: the new giving?

On By saigonsaysIn Communications, PoliticsLeave a comment
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Vietnamese hill tribe handicrafts

I live in Saigon, Vietnam, and it’s hotting up once more as we approach the muggiest time of the year.

Luckily, for me, this week I have been in Hanoi and luckier still, yesterday spent the day visiting local hill tribe communities about 180 kms north west of the capital.

Not only did the mercury drop down lower for the day, as we snaked our bus round the mountains through wispy clouds and potholed roads, but we were privileged to meet incredibly talented individuals, tucked away as they are from the life of urban Hanoians, and cut off from the collective consciousness of the world outside Vietnam.

The objective of the visit was as part of an expansion of an initiative in the UK that CARE International have built over the past four years, called Lendwithcare.

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Local hill tribe community
Continue reading “Lending: the new giving?” →

It’s Inclusion, stupid

On By saigonsaysIn Equality, Humankind, Well-BeingLeave a comment

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As so to Singapore, fleetingly, to speak yesterday at Diageo’s inaugural “Women in Hospitality and Tourism in Asia” Conference.

As an $80bn turnover corporation, Diageo were not satisfied with only launching a daytime event, comprising of a range of speeches and panel sessions looking at the women’s empowerment agenda within their own industry, no, they also pulled together the first ever women’s empowerment “Journalist Awards” the very same evening.

Hats off to them for a well organised – and at times, genuinely inspiring – watershed day for a company such as theirs, the largest alcohol beverage company in the world, who have spent the past 18 months recasting their aspirations in society around “empowering women through learning.”

CARE have been supporting these efforts, through skills training and micro-finance initiatives in Nepal and Sri Lanka, and we are also discussing how to use our own experiences over the past 10 years in Cambodia, where we have successfully lobbied the government and the private sector to implement a more responsible Code of Conduct for brewers and drinks companies who distribute their products at a local level, largely employing women as beer sellers. Continue reading “It’s Inclusion, stupid” →

ANTs and the Fun Theory

On By saigonsaysIn Humankind, Well-Being1 Comment
photo credit www.kendrickwan.com
photo credit http://www.kendrickwan.com

Why is it that many of us default to spending an inordinate amount of our time worrying?

Do you find yourself, as I do more often than not, merely seconds into your waking day each morning, thinking instantly about those things past, present or future which make you feel anxious?

On a typical work day (when, I should add, my kids are not staying at my house, in which case my day would inevitably start with berating them for jumping on me at 5:30am, and then pointing out, yet again, that the darkness outside signals “night-time” before going to even greater lengths to stress upon them that “everybody” else in Saigon is still asleep) the first few blinks of the eyes all too often stimulate for me a certain set of thoughts. Continue reading “ANTs and the Fun Theory” →

The Inequalities of Capitalism

On By saigonsaysIn EqualityLeave a comment
cartoon credited to www.keepthemiddleclassalive.com
cartoon credited to http://www.keepthemiddleclassalive.com

“The growth of equality demands something more than economic growth, even though it presupposes it.  It demands first of all a transcendent vision of the person.”

One of those great quotes that you wish you’d said. But who uttered these words? Martin Luther King Jr, remembered this week on the federal holiday that marks his memory each year? Jeffrey Sachs, revered globally for his economics and humanitarian work?

No, it was the Pope. Yesterday, in Davos, where he addressed many of the world’s corporate elite at their annual meeting, with a narrative designed to make the room redden with a collective blush. The tenor of his point being that “modern business activity,” for all its virtues, often has led to “a widespread social exclusion.” Continue reading “The Inequalities of Capitalism” →

The Illusion of Choice

On By saigonsaysIn Humankind, Well-Being1 Comment
These 10 Corporations Control Almost Everything You Buy
These 10 Corporations Control Almost Everything You Buy

It’s worth clicking on the info-graphic above to see the finer detail it contains, although the over-arching sentiment makes its own headlines.

It would be perfectly reasonable to take a look at the graphic, shrug your shoulders, with a “yeah, so what?” and perhaps avoid taking any type of hypocritical stand point by bemoaning the enormous footprint, influence and Orwellian doom-mongering speculation that might come from accepting that the world’s corporate elite monopolise so much, given you yourself may well spend your hard earned cash buying, using and consuming the products that these companies market and sell.  On that charge, I am also guilty on many counts. Continue reading “The Illusion of Choice” →

Yolanda

On By saigonsaysIn HumankindLeave a comment
Survivors of the super Typhoon Haiyan, wait for a C-130 military plane at T
Image courtesy of Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty images

You don’t need me to point out where this photo was taken, nor what messages sit behind the faces within it.

I only have admiration for those people who are on hand in the Philippines at the moment, helping, and only great sadness and hope for those whose lives have been altered forever.

For any long standing visitors to my blogs, it will hopefully have been made obvious by now that I have involved my organisation, CARE International, and the developmental issues we address around the world mainly as a platform from which to couch ideas and thoughts – mainly, in other words, as a lens through which I can write.

The world has collectively reacted to the images created by the Haiyan (Yolanda) typhoon, and we have all shared our thoughts with loved ones, friends, colleagues, people sat next to us on the bus.

Pointless as it typically is to try and immediately draw any conclusions as to what events like these ‘mean’, or what they reinforce to us all as fellow citizens on the planet, the one thing that remains tangible and easy for many of us to do, is support the work of those agencies who are, today, right now, saving lives.

It is not my intention to use this space again to promote CARE or the work of the other DEC (Disaster Emergency Committee) members, but today, and right now, that is what I am doing.

Here is a link through which you can lend your support:

http://www.careinternational.org.uk/news-and-press/latest-news-features/2459-typhoon-haiyan-this-will-haunt-me-for-a-long-time-