Landon Schmitt (1980 - 2009)

“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”

- Jack Kerouac

Landon Schmitt, my first contact in Vietnam, was separated from me by three degrees -- one of his Brown classmates went to boarding school with one of my college mates. Landon had moved here as a Fulbright scholar after graduation and never left. His career here in Vietnam was one to marvel, and I had contacted him about work while planning my move.

Once we finally met, we became fast friends, and he taught me many things: how to strawpedo a bottled beer; dance like an idiot and make it look like Michael Jackson; but most importantly, he made me believe in the fact that we, the next generation of leaders, can make a difference by not yielding to trends and fads.

Unfortunately (and I use this word in the gravest of senses), Landon is no longer with us. He passed away on June 4th. The details of his death, suicide, are just too depressing to dissect. The void that has been created in his absence will never be filled.

I don't think anyone will argue with me when I say that he was one of the most intelligent, witty and charming individuals. He had amazing presence and reminds me of Dean Moriarty, the character in Kerouac's grand opus; the one that inspires his spiel on "the mad ones mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"

One of the stories about Landon that will remain with me is of his confrontation with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. When she gave a keynote speech at the APEC conference in 2006 held in Hanoi, Landon got the last question of the day. The question that he posed shows not only his charisma, winning over the crowd of 4,000+ by making a joke about Vietnam's staple product (rice), but his brilliance and nerve.

Landon, you will be forever missed.

QUESTION: Welcome, Dr. Rice. My name is Landon Schmitt. I'm from McLean, Virginia, but I live here in Hanoi and I work here. I know you've had a very warm reception here because we love rice so much. (Laughter.) As you may know, Vietnam is the second larger exporter of rice in the world. As a student of international relations and history, as I know you are also, I can't help but draw comparisons between our recent misadventures in Iraq and the tragedy of the Vietnam War some 30 years ago. How can we resolve this quagmire?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think I would first of all question the word "quagmire." This is difficult going in Iraq. Whenever you start on a path that tries to undo a tragic history of a people that were ruled by a tyrant for decades, a tyrant who left 300,000 people in mass graves, who attacked his neighbors twice, used weapons of mass destruction against his neighbors and against his own people, is finally by the way being held to account for those crimes by the Iraqi people themselves, and by the way was in a state of war, continuous war, with the United States for a period of 12 years, it's not easy to undo it.

And the Iraqi people are struggling, but they're struggling in a new environment where they have a chance with new democratic institutions that they themselves created when 12.5 million of them voted last year. We're talking about a people that are struggling, we believe, toward a better future.

Now, change is really hard and historic change is especially hard. But whenever you think, well, you know, we should just give up on change of this magnitude, or perhaps the Iraqis just can't do it, you know, maybe it's just not somehow in their DNA to be able to get a democratic outcome and a democratic future, whenever you look at their day-to-day struggles against terrorists and against violent extremists who would try and undo their very small seeds of democracy, I would ask you to think back on how many times in human history what seemed impossible one day seemed several years later to have been inevitable.

Let me just give you a few examples. I spent last summer reading the biographies of America's founding fathers. By all rights, the United States of America should never have come into being. George Washington lost more than a third of his army to smallpox. We were fighting the greatest empire in history. And yet somehow, stumbling along and managing day by day, the United States of America did come into being. We in the United States then survived a civil war that was catastrophic for our country, but we came out on the other side. In my lifetime, I was born, as Mike said, in Birmingham, Alabama -- in my lifetime, I went to segregated schools, I couldn't stay in a hotel until we got to Washington, D.C., I couldn't go to a restaurant, I barely ever saw a white person. And yet I stand here as Secretary of State of the United States some 40 years later. (Applause.)

Towards the end of World War II, when the great men who inhabited the building that I now inhabit, Marshall and Kennan and Nitze and others, what did they face very day after World War II? In 1946, large communist victories in Italy and in France. In 1947, a civil war in Greece and civil conflict in Turkey. In 1948, the Berlin crisis which permanently divided Germany. In 1948, the coup in Czechoslovakia that ended the last free society in Eastern Europe. In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded a nuclear weapon five years ahead of schedule, the Chinese communists won the civil war. And in 1950, the Korean War broke out.

And yet, when you look at Europe and Asia, you look at a Europe where no one can imagine war between France and Germany ever again, and where we have overcome the division of Europe with the collapse, the peaceful collapse, of a country with 30,000 nuclear weapons, 5 million men under arms, that stretched 12 time zones, and it collapsed in favor of freedom without (inaudible).

Think about Japan, prostrate at the end of World War II. Now, the vibrant, second most important economy in the world. Think, too, about Korea, South Korea. After years of military dictatorship, finally a vibrant democracy. And think also about where we're standing. Thirty years ago, what American would have thought that you would be standing in Vietnam at a conference of the Asia Pacific Economic Council talking about free markets and open trade and the need to better integrate our economies. Who would have thought it? (Applause.)

So I don't mean to diminish the difficulties that we have in Iraq and that the Iraqi people have in Iraq. They've got a tough road. There are people so violent and so ruthless that I can't even imagine how they can be thought to be human. But you know, the Iraqis, they do make good decisions, like Vietnam has made good decisions. If they'll take tough decisions, if they will face up to their differences and realize that they only have one future and that's a future together, they don't have a future if they try and stay apart; if they do that, and if we support them and if we remain committed to them, and if we realize that the stakes in Iraq are literally the stakes for a different kind of Middle East that can form the center of a more peaceful world, they've got a chance and we'll have a better chance.

And I'll just make you following wager. At some point in time, if we do our work well, and if they do their work well, and if we are as committed to them as we were to that long list that I just went through over all of those years, some Secretary of State will stand someplace in the world and say, "How could it ever have been thought that the Iraqi people weren't capable of democracy? How could anyone have ever questioned that freedom and liberty would reign in the Middle East?" Because after all, the desire to be free, the desire to live a better life, the desire to live in prosperity, is a universal desire. And that's why throughout history, things that one day seemed impossible, several years later seem to have been inevitable.

Here Comes the Rain, Little Darlin'

I awoke this morning to the lovely pitter-patter of raindrops. The rainy season is upon us here in Vietnam. How calm and soothing that is. There I sat thinking, "What a pleasant way to start a week, under the veil of rain clouds."

It was particularly loud this morning. I thought perhaps a window was open. The sound was so clear it was as if it were in my room, as though water were splashing the tile floors outside my door.

When I opened the door to the hallway, I realized that it was quite literally raining in my house. There was a flood of water coming down the central atrium which goes from the ground floor to the top. It was falling like a waterfall through the open space from the fourth floor and cascading down the stairs.

I yelled. Not like a girl but more like an old man who had fallen and couldn't get up. My roommate, who was probably also enjoying the lovely sounds of rain, was rudely awoken. I headed for the roof and found myself in knee deep water once outside. There had to be a drain hole. "Where is the drain hole," I thought. I couldn't find it. I was like a lost puppy in my wet briefs.

The water was coming into the house even faster now that I'd opened the door. My roommate, with his broken leg and cast, was scampering along the stairs, pulling out buckets and ice coolers trying to catch it. "Maybe you can throw the water off the roof," he said.

I grabbed a large pail. I'd bail us out of this sinking ship.

By that point, it was almost useless. We were going under and fast. But at this moment of absolute despair, dripping wet and shivering, thinking, ‘this may be the worst way to start a week,’ I found the drain hole covered with leaves and debris that had collected over the dry season. I unplugged the entire trap. The sharp sound of suction was immediate and loud. Never has the sound of draining water been so comforting. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was rotating counterclockwise.

Ultimately, the damage to the house wasn’t so bad. Just water. Everywhere. Thankfully the Vietnamese are infatuated with ceramic tile flooring, a matter of necessity I suppose. As we checked the wreckage, shuffling through ankle deep water, my roommate tried to look for a possible life lesson that we could take from this experience.

"Find the source," he offered.

Well, God is the source, and he’s trying to FML.

PS: It's been awhile since my last post, and I hope this tale of humor redeems me. I promise to try and keep up...

Emerging Market Resilience - The Year Ahead

A piece I penned for the company newsletter was recently republished by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi for their own newsletter. While its a little beyond the scope of my normal musings, I thought it'd be a good way to start off a New Year of infrequent blogging...

In 2009, the theory of decoupling will get another proverbial “nail in the coffin,” as emerging market economies are expected to slow as a direct result of weakening demand in the developed world. The East and West are inextricably linked, and the global financial crisis that began in the U.S. and spread to Europe has demonstrated that no country, however far removed, is isolated from the primary markets of industrialized nations.

Already, export-driven Asian economies are experiencing substantial reductions in their turnover: Taiwan’s exports decreased 42% in 2008 compared to the year prior, and South Korea is reporting a 17% reduction. China’s scenario is also similar, as is Singapore’s, which experienced a 12.5% decline in its annualized GDP in the last quarter of 2008, the country’s largest decline in GDP on record.

Such circumstances call to mind the question, “Is this the end of the emerging market boom?”

On the back of the global financial crisis, it is expected that no economy will expand, in the near-term, at rates recorded in years prior. Over the five years leading into 2007, emerging economies grew by a yearly average of more than 7% — for the same period, Vietnam posted an average GDP growth rate of 7.8% and a solid 8.5% in 2007 alone. For 2008 as a whole, the growth rate of emerging economies was still above 6%, as reported by The Economist, with Vietnam registering a 6.2% increase in its GDP.

As the G7 nations ready themselves for an expected 2% contraction of their combined economies in 2009, emerging markets will be forced into similar realities, with growth forecasted to average out at possibly less than 4%, as estimated by private sector analysts. The shock to the system for many emerging markets will be felt three-fold: 1) consumer demand will wane in developed countries, particularly the U.S., slowing growth for export-dependent countries with large manufacturing bases; 2) the global financial malaise has made access to cheap capital difficult, negatively affecting capital inflows in the form of foreign direct investment; and 3) commodity prices in 2008 have shrunken from their record highs in 2008 and will thus be unable to bolster economic growth in emerging markets whose GDP base is reliant on commodities-exports.

With the collapse of these three emerging market growth fundamentals, the year ahead will inevitably be difficult for developing countries. Purchase orders at factories will slow, if not cease entirely. Portfolio investments in equities markets will also become rare, and in Vietnam’s case, almost unfeasible for mainstream foreign investors with the absence of any stock with a market cap over US$1 billion. FDI projects under implementation will be delayed, or cancelled altogether. Newly registered and implemented FDI will decline, perhaps significantly, and even remittances will suffer as the earnings of those living abroad will dwindle, rendering individuals incapable of sending money home.

In the year ahead, the most important factor determining an emerging market’s recovery from a recession in the West will be whether its exposure to debt will hinder its ability to manage a budget deficit and stimulate its own economy. As external capital inflows become scarce, or worse dry up, in emerging markets, countries with high savings and modest debt will recover quicker from the downturn in 2009. For those whose balance sheets are laden with debt, the global financial crisis will force them to seek financial assistance from the international community – over the last six-months, several Central and East European countries as well as Pakistan have gone hat-in-hand to the IMF asking for assistance in overcoming their balance of payment challenges and fulfilling their debt-service payments.

As the world rebounds from an economic downturn in 2009, the prospect for a V-shape recovery of GDP growth rates is possible only in countries with low debt-to-savings ratios, giving them the capacity to sustain fiscal deficits and inject capital into their own economies.

The base case economic growth outlook for Vietnam, provided by The Economist Intelligence Unit, forecasts that GDP growth will shrink to 3.2% in 2009 and then rebound back to 4.1% in 2010 — analysts from HSBC are forecasting 5.4% and 6.6% growth rates in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

Vietnam’s economic outlook for 2009, while substantially lower compared to years past, is relatively positive because of the country’s low level of debt and adequate foreign exchange reserves. Taking advantage of its light balance sheet, the Government’s fiscal policies in the year ahead will focus on implementing a homegrown stimulus program to bolster domestic consumption and increasing the nation’s industrial capacity, in order to capitalize on its inherent strategic advantages as a low-cost labor base and commodities-rich nation with ample natural resources and compelling demographics.

Like other export-driven emerging markets, Vietnam will be forced to confront depressed consumption in the West, low commodity prices and shrinking levels of foreign direct investment, but a balance of payment crisis is not in the cards. While export growth will moderate, if not contract, due to diminishing demand and weaker commodity prices in 2009, the trade deficit is anticipated shrink as import growth contracts.

Yet, Vietnam’s resilience as an emerging market will tested by the effectiveness of its fiscal policies. As announced by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Government intends to implement a US$6 billion stimulus package, aimed at large-scale infrastructure projects, export-oriented sectors and vulnerable socio-demographic segments, namely low-income wage earners.

With ample foreign reserves (US$22 billion) and modest external debt, only 30% of the GDP, the Government is hoping to sustain a fiscal deficit in order to maintain modest economic growth in the year ahead.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

I'm not much for crowds; I get claustrophobic when I can't see what's around. But Asian crowds aren't so bad because everyone's so small. And last night (Christmas Eve), the streets were filled.

From the Opera House to the Ben Thanh Market, a critical mass of people, some walking but most on motorbikes, congregated to celebrate. While the outer lanes of traffic slowly lurched along with riders waving the red flag of Vietnam, the central lane down Le Loi was jammed with groups of people loitering around the odd drum circle (by drum, I mean any thing not tied down: bucket, water cooler, pots and pans, etc.).

But were all these people really that excited about the Fat Guy shimmying down their palm tree? Were they hoping to get their names on the naughty list? Were they out buying milk and cookies? Had they forgotten that Buddhists don't worship idols?

Hell no.

They were celebrating Vietnam's 2-1 victory over Thailand in the first round of the AFF Suzuki Cup Finals. This was a sweet win for Vietnam, pitted as the underdogs, and now the boys will bring it home to play the final in Hanoi on December 28th.

I Got Mail!

My first and probably only Christmas card of the season came in the post today. I was pretty surprised to get it. 

First off, let me admit that I'm a snail mail whore. Ever since a friend gave me a wax seal engraved with my initials, I've been addicted to sending personal notes. And don't get me started about the paper; I'm obsessive about my stationary, preferring a handmade stock out of Italy (I forget the name) that is as smooth as silk to the touch. I even ripped a page out of Karl Rove's book, adorning vintage stamps to my envelopes.  

But not only was it great to get a physical Xmas card in a foreign country and in a time when the status quo is the flashy e-card, I was more impressed by the fact that it was from a creative agency based in Australia, whose services I chose not to use. 

Accepting rejection is an art. And trust me, there'll be a time when I say yes to these guys.  

Radio Silence

Please excuse me for my radio silence. I've been a little preoccupied, not that you care. Plus, I'm on constant beach-time here in the tropics.

Ode to The Times

Back in May, I contributed an item to a freelancer with The New York Times' T Magazine. The story brief, as described to me by my contact, was a roundup on the frivolities of the world's wealthy-set. He pointed to someone buying a vanity plate in the UAE at auction for US$14 million and was curious to know what Vietnam's nouveau riche were spending their money on. While the coffers of the oil soaked sheiks are incomparable, I had heard, and later substantiated, that people were spending major coin on phone numbers with sequential digits, repeated numbers, or lots of 8s, considered a lucky number. The term in Vietnamese is "so dep," beautiful number. And an online forum, which I have now lost the link to, was selling so dep numbers for around US$2,500 -- I bought my not so beautiful number for US$10, if I remember correctly.

I was informed today by the Times' research dept that they pulled the piece. The fact checker, who I had exchanged some cordial emails with, expressed a tinge of frustration for the way things work. No one likes to see their work on the cutting room floor.

For whatever reasons they chose not to run the story, perhaps my friend over in Times Square should simply appreciate that at least they don't jail journalists where we're from. (Oh, wait. Let me rephrase that: we constitutionally support freedom of the press because jail journalists we have.) At present, two Vietnamese journalists are being held on charges for "abusing democracy and freedom" associated with their investigative reporting on officials in the Transportation Department who used state funds -- some of which came from the World Bank and Japanese governmental aid -- to gamble on European soccer matches. (I wonder if they won?)

But anyway, I have to tip my hat to the old hometown read, The New York Times. In particular, I have become quite enamored by their interactive, multimedia presentations. Check out their color coded, spatial graph of America's CPI, and even more pertinent, their comparison of our current stock market crash to the bear markets that have preceded it.

The fact of the matter is that reading a paper here is like reading press releases; rarely do you read stories that actually dig into a situation or provide an original perspective. And in terms of their visual display of data, let's just say it's sub par in comparison.

The New Look of Saigon

While America is going through one the greatest housing slumps it has ever witnessed, with housing prices down 15% across the states and one out of every three Americans living in a home that is worth less than their mortgage, Vietnam is experiencing a building boom. Sure, inflation has gotten us down a bit -- headline inflation peaked in August at 28.3% -- but developers are still going at it.

FDI continues to pour into the country, reaching a record high of US$57 billion as of September. And a lion share of that, roughly 40%, is committed towards real estate development across all sectors: office, retail, residential and tourism.

In the September issue of Travel + Leisure, Peter Lindberg dug up some personal stories of Saigon's new blood, both native and fresh off the boat (including yours truly), that are feeding the city with a new vibrancy. Albeit, what's also happening is a complete remodeling of the built environment. In ten years to come, the city that was once revered for its charming French colonial vibe will be a bustling metropolis, resembling a shadow of its former self.

For those who have fond memories of Saigon, the article may bring a tear to your eye. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Albeit, one of the neighborhoods that he singles out is Phu My Hung, where I first moved to back in the spring. (Personal update: I now live in a little villa in the heart of District 1.) Peter's claim is that the PMH development is a Singaporization of Vietnam. For those who have never been to DinsneySpore, the general consensus is that the city (country) is too sterile for its own good.

And this is pretty much my take on PMH. From the Google earth shot above, the area looks like any planned community in the States with its neatly organized streets and rows of villas. It's what you would expect of suburb. However, it has taken a lot to get this squeaky clean community to where it is now. And as told in a recent Forbes article, the story is riddled with backstabbing, suicide and bribery.

The Occidental Perspective

One of the more common principles that distinguishes western and eastern cultures is how the different societies regard the individual. Westerners are programmed to express their individuality, whereas Asians are reared to approach themselves through a collective mentality.

A Chinese artist living in Germany created a series of visual images to juxtapose the western and occidental view points. Below are some of the choice ones that I've witnessed firsthand.

Cutting the Line

Customer service agents here in Vietnam have their work cut out for them. Rather than queuing in an orderly fashion and waiting your turn, the general tactic is to crash the desk and fight the crowd. From boarding airlines to paying your electric bill, it's a free-for-all mentality.
Friend request

While the advent of online social networking has created a bird's nest out of our Rolodexes, we westerners typically have linear relationships developed through individual connections. But here in Asia, people are so interconnected through the familial network that things end up evolving into an incestuous circle of social and professional contacts. Watch out. That girl just might be the bosses daughter.
Hello Garconne

One thing the French didn't leave behind is their restaurant etiquette. To get a waiter's/waitress' attention here in Vietnam, you just yell "em oi" ("em" is the personal pronoun to refer to someone younger than you; "em" is replaced with the appropriate pronoun for whomever you are addressing). It's a jolting experience your first time out, and I still hate doing it. However, if you want that second round, you gotta use your lungs.
SPF

Pale skin as a sign of nobility and wealth died after the advent of the bikini -- what good is a little body floss if you're gonna stay indoors? Most westerners not only find bronzed skin to be more appealing but a good tan often signifies that you've been out on the yacht or toiling away at the beach, living the good life in other words. However, Asians love their Victorian complexion and often bring their parasols to the shore.

On Location: Saigon

My first byline just ran on Refinery29, a trend setting web publication based in NY and LA. While I'm not trying to moonlight as a journo, I have to admit that it was a pleasure writing a roundup on my new hometown — and even more enjoyable when it gets published in your old hometown.

The pre-edited intro is below, but for the full story, take the jump.....

From Indochina to Indochic, Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1 holds on to its colonial charm — for now.

There’s a palpable energy in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City (HCM City). The city formerly known as Saigon is the epicenter of Vietnam’s capitalist heartbeat, and since the enactment of economic reforms in the late 1980s, the country has been slowly transforming from rags to riches, with Saigon as its poster child for economic prosperity.

Trading in the cyclo in exchange for a future funded by foreign investors, Saigon is in the midst of a renovation, shedding its French colonial past with the welcoming of high-rises into the local vernacular. While the government has shifted its urbanization schemes to the development of satellite communities on the perimeter of the city, Saigon’s main appeal will always be the vibrant, history-laden streets of District 1. Designed by the French during their occupation (1885-1946), District 1 runs along the banks of the Saigon River and is characterized by wide boulevards that radiate from roundabouts with monumental obelisks. At night, these streets come alive with young Saigonese cruising aimlessly on their motorbikes, which have replaced bicycles as the preferred mode of transportation. Passing the time in parks and cafes, their conversations are foreign to older generations — the youth talk of business and amorous affairs, rather than war and heartache.

Lately, the city’s charming history is being mixed with innovations in architecture, fashion and entertainment. Visitors to HCM City will find a city under construction, a civilization being reborn. And as Saigon’s bright and shiny future casts a shadow on its colonial heritage, let’s hope the romance of its past remains.

The Dunes

I spent the birthday weekend in Mui Ne with the Gastronomer and Astronomer, who have some choice picks of the trip and me in a trucker hat -- they're still ahead of the trend in 'Nam. We went budget and stayed at at US$30 a night joint called Sunshine Resorts, which sits right on the beach. And besides a brief game of golf in between dips in the sea, the only thing we did was a mini-jaunt to see the Sand Dunes just north of the hotel strip. 

There are two sets of dunes near Mui Ne. The White and the Red. We chose to go to the latter in that they are the closer ones, only 10-minutes from the center of the hotel district. The white ones are slightly farther out, perhaps 50-minutes by car. Before you even get out of the car at the Red Dunes, you're met with a handful of kids, who are clamoring to escort you into the dunes and help you slide down them. The next thing you know, you're walking up the sandy slopes to the constant chatter of kids, who are so enthusiastic about getting your coin, you're never afforded an opportunity to enjoy the scenery -- which is stunning. 

The kids range from 5- to 13-years-old and most all of them have a relatively good handle on the english language. Their strategy is to team up on you, guide you into the dunes, prepare a sledding path and then convince you to go as many times cause they charge you per turn. We made one mistake: we failed to establish a price before sliding down the slopes but were first told that we could pay whatever we want. 

Now game theory tells us that these kids are going to be out of luck if they play by the "pay what you want" rules and even more so when you're only traveling with a couple of thousand Dong stuffed in your swim trunks. When it came time to settle up, we were 1) not willing to pay what they wanted (more than US$10) and 2) unable to pay because we didn't have the money on us in the first place. 

Things got ugly quickly, and our pack of waste-high guides starting picking on the one who was most vocal: The Gastronomer, who was being a pushy Asian broad that day. Rationalizing with kids just doesn't work, and in the end, we went running for the car. 

But as I look back at a great weekend bookended by a terrible experience, I see an opportunity here: someone should go in and organize these little rugrats to actually learn the tourism trade. They'd be damn good at it. Why? Well for starters, they speak English, which is absolutely necessary in the hospitality business, but more importantly, they're g-getters, who know how to turn a buck. 

Someone tell HR to get out there and talk with my girl Linh. She's gonna be a billionaire (Vietnamese Dong of course). 

Always Trust What You Read in the Paper

Before making the jump to Saigon, I told most anyone who would listen that one of my goals was to work with the public sector in its charge to administer the tourism industry. Shortly after I arrived, the opportunity to do just that landed in my lap. A colleague in the hotel industry offered me a seat on the Tourism Working Group (TWG) of the Vietnam Business Forum (VBF). The VBF was established by the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank. There are other working groups each representing a different sector (Capital Markets, Manufacturing, Infrastructure, etc.), and each group has its own ministerial counterparts; the TWG works with the Ministry of Culture, Sports & Tourism and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.

Side note -- Beyond learning Vietnamese, I had three goals to accomplish when I landed: 1) Sign on with a top-tier real estate development firm (check), 2) consult with the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (check) and 3) open up a swank cocktail lounge a la Milk and Honey (still looking).

The VBF meets biannually and provides an opportunity for each working group to present their position on issues affecting their respective industries. One of the critical challenges Vietnam's tourism industry faces is the lack of infrastructure in terms of hotel accommodations, transportation and education, and the TWG used its time at the forum earlier this month to speak about the lack of hard and soft infrastructure.

The local news picked up on the infrastructure story -- see the above article which sources the TWG's position paper quite heavily. In fact, the article is a cut and paste operation, copying entire passages of our policy recommendations. I think the only original copy here is the verb tense change. We can look at this two ways. On one hand, it's great that we're generating ink for the issues and the press is telling the story we want and using our language to do so. On the other, this gives readers no assurance of editorial integrity. I'm of course thrilled to get published under someone else's byline but have to pull out that age-old cliche that 'you can't trust what you read.'