Dialogue with documentary filmmaker Mr. Hua: What happened to those Chinese who went to Vietnam to pan for gold?
Vietnam's e-commerce consumption still has a long way to go to form a particularly hot track and a strong domestic demand market. (Visual China/Photo)
On May 23, 2023, the documentary "Going to the Sea" filmed by Hua Zong (screen name) in Vietnam was launched. During the months of filming in Vietnam, Hua always recorded the entrepreneurial stories of several Chinese in Vietnam. Among them, some have families of more than 100 million and hope to leave their names in the history of Vietnam's development, while others are struggling on the verge of perseverance and abandonment.
In the past ten years, Mr. Hua has been active on social platforms, reading watches, writing contemporaneous guides, exposing world luxury clubs, and debunking the hygiene chaos of five-star hotels. During the epidemic in 2020, Mr. Hua filmed the documentary "Mask Hunter" and appeared for the first time as a documentary director.
Three years later, Mr. Hua once again recorded Chinese businessmen in his hometown. In recent years, the drastic changes in the pattern of globalization have accelerated industrial changes, and the growth rate and trend of Vietnam's economic development with more than 90 million people have gradually attracted the attention of the international community, including China.
"Hello me hello everyone, but it's too bland"
Southern Weekend: How did you come up with the idea of interviewing Chinese who started a business in Vietnam?
Mr. Hua: In 2022, I will prepare to do a column of "Flowers Always See the World", and Vietnam is the first stop. But for some reason, the project stopped, and by then people had already arrived in Vietnam and were more frustrated.
I happened to be drinking coffee by a lake in Hanoi and found out that Hanoi was going to host an international marathon, and the sponsor was a Chinese sports brand, so I contacted them to interview them about their overseas trip to Vietnam. After filming for a while, this brand decided to terminate my follow-up and interview because of the crisis of public opinion among friends.
At that time, people were quite desperate. When I was about to give up, I happened to have dinner with a Chinese businessman friend in Vietnam, and someone introduced me to the first protagonist of the story, Wang Weiya. He is the owner of a securities company, and I want to take pictures of entrepreneurs who go overseas.
Tu and Hao (one of the protagonists) are Wang Weiya's investment objects, and after filming Wang Weiya, he went to shoot Tu and Hao. In the process of filming Tu and Howe, we went from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh, and Wang Weiya wanted to promote Tu and Hao to cooperate with another protagonist, Uncle Lai, so he finally filmed Uncle Lai's story.
Southern Weekend: Why did they go to Vietnam to start a business?
Mr. Hua: Mr. Wang (Wang Weiya) went to Vietnam to set up a securities company, because he suffered a setback in China's stock market at that time, so he decided to go overseas to Vietnam to try his luck.
Several entrepreneurs who have successfully started businesses in Vietnam in the film have also experienced various setbacks and tribulations in their early years, and many of them are serial entrepreneurs. It's just that they came early, captured the dividends of Vietnam's development, turned ashore, and became bigwigs. It's a bit like when Chinese broke into the Kanto and took the West Exit.
Southern Weekend: What were the difficulties in filming "Out to Sea"?
Mr. Hua: Because it is a documentary, you need to find a story, which is more difficult. The story is brilliant when the protagonist encounters something in the film. For example, Uncle Li's anchor was said to be a fake because he brought goods, and I have a story when he had an accident. There is also Tu and Hao, he wants to finance and borrow money, eat closed-door soup everywhere, this is a story. So making a documentary is very cruel, hello me hello everyone, but it is too bland.
Southern Weekend: What's your favorite shot?
Mr. Hua: After Tu and Hao borrowed money from Mr. Chen (Wang Weiya's partner), his sense of relief touched me very much, and you can tell that he is joyful from the heart. If he couldn't borrow money and pay his salary, the company would be finished, and he would have hit the brakes no matter how big his dream was.
Then I went to Uncle Li's residence and saw the painkillers he put at the end of the bed. He alone has to bear a lot of pressure, because he is the boss of the company, and when such a big thing happens in the company, he has to be responsible for the company and support his family. Uncle Li is a middle-aged man with a relatively low-key and restrained personality, and will not release pressure to others.
Before he used the computer to remotely tutor his son's homework, he was actually in a very bad state, and the company's mess made him very haggard. But as soon as the video turned on, facing his own child, he immediately became radiant, because he did not want to pass on his pressure to his loved ones, and that moment was very heartfelt for me. I was a few years older than him and could feel his difficulty.
"They are the epitome of Chinese pursuit of success"
Southern Weekend: Why can Tu and Hao borrow money?
Mr. Hua: After the meeting, Lao Wang didn't want to continue to give Tu and Hao this money. Mr. Chen asked me, what do you think of Tu and Hao? I told him that Tu and Hao were like a low-end version of Song Jiang, who didn't look like a successful boss, but he had a group of brothers around him, and then I told the story of A Zhen (Tu and Hao's partner) whose father sold dragon fruit to support her entrepreneurship.
At that time, Mr. Chen did not react. Later, Tu and Hao came to Mr. Chen's office, thinking that he would persuade Mr. Chen again, and at that time he was about to give up, because for more than a month, grinding every day, there was no result.
When I arrived at the office, Mr. Chen gave him a bag of money, and I didn't even have time to shoot the scene where the money was given, because I didn't know that Mr. Chen would lend money to Tu Hehao. Later, when I filmed, Tu and Hao had already received a bag of money. I was surprised because I knew that President Chen was not optimistic about Tu and Hao's business. He is an old quack, an investor, has gone bankrupt several times, and has high requirements for return on investment.
But Mr. Chen was still moved by Ah Zhen's story and decided to lend a sum of money to Tu Hehao privately to help him tide over this difficulty. The inner temperature of the old rivers and lakes is one of the most touching places in the film.
Southern Weekend: Apart from the work connection, what do the three protagonists have in common?
Mr. Hua: They're like a metaphor. Tu and Hao are the way everyone is at the beginning, and they all exude the light of strength. At Uncle Li's age, this fire in your heart may be in a state of storm under the pressure of reality, in order to protect this fire, you will keep weaving a shell for yourself, and when the woven shell is thick enough, you will become an old king. Wang Weiya is an old jianghu, and he can become the old king today because he has been beaten too much and has not yet fallen. His shell still has tinder inside.
In a sense, they are three generations of entrepreneurs, Tu and Hao are the youngest, Uncle Li is middle-aged, and Lao Wang is the oldest. In fact, they are the epitome of Chinese's quest for success. At the beginning, I was unscrupulous, very lively and cute, and when I got to the middle, I was under pressure alone. Later, just like the old monk, he hid his most precious things.
Southern Weekend: What's the difference between "Going to Sea" and "Mask Hunter", which was filmed three years ago?
Mr. Hua: At that time, "Mask Hunter" was at a special time node and a special industry, so it had to have a strong curiosity.
Of the three protagonists in the film "Going to Sea", two are doing MCN, and the other is engaged in the field of securities investment. In China, these two plates are already mature.
In the past two years, everyone has been saying that Vietnam is growing fast, and it is logical that everything should be done to earn money. The reality is that the coronavirus pandemic has had a great impact on Vietnam's economy and has not fully recovered until now. For example, the large shopping malls in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, if the working day passes, it is really a door. When I went a few years ago, there were a lot of people in the mall. After several years of the pandemic, people's income and consumption also need a recovery process.
In addition, although Vietnam's economic growth is fast, the per capita GDP is not high (about 4110 US dollars in 2022), the number of middle class is not large, and limited domestic demand is a constraint on the development of e-commerce and other industries.
For example, Vietnam's e-commerce goods are mainly cash on delivery, electronic payment is not particularly popular, and credit card penetration rate is not high. In Vietnam, e-commerce products with a unit price of less than 100 yuan sell better, and things that exceed 100 yuan take some effort. Under such circumstances, Vietnam's e-commerce consumption still has a long way to go to form a particularly hot track, as well as a strong domestic demand market. Although the growth rate is very fast, whether they can earn "big money" or not, many people have no bottom in their hearts.
The three protagonists in "Going to Sea", Wang Weiya, Uncle Li, Tu and Hao. (Photo courtesy of interviewee)
"In the field of economic development, Vietnam is a partial student"
Southern Weekend: How do young Vietnamese choose to work?
Mr. Hua: Young people in Vietnam will pick and choose, whether the job is close to home, whether the salary offered by the employer is high, whether the working environment is good or not, and whether they can learn something.
During this interview, I talked to many ordinary Vietnamese people, who are very sensitive to the environment of the times in which Vietnam is living today, and realize that Vietnam is in a good period of development. Through social media, they can see the situation in Asian countries such as China, South Korea and Japan, and they will also think about the future of part-time work.
Traditional shoe and clothing factories are not easy to learn. If you are a general worker, if you work for three years or a general worker, only a few people may become skilled workers. Some technology companies have invested in Vietnam on a large scale, laid out many factories and industries, and will send Vietnamese employees to the headquarters for training. In this case, a company with a higher technology content will be more attractive to young people.
Southern Weekend: Do you agree with Vietnam's "time machine" theory mentioned in the documentary?
Mr. Hua: Many Chinese in Vietnam believe in the "time machine" theory, which means that the road that China's economic development has taken, Vietnam will walk again. Actually, it's neither right nor right. It is correct because in the process of Vietnam's economic development, it is indeed going through a development process from 0 to 1 and then from 1 to 2.
It is wrong to say that it is because today's Vietnam is not in the same environment as China two or three decades ago. It has been 17 years since Vietnam joined the WTO, and the mobile Internet has long been popularized, and the access to information and resources is in step with today's world trend. Many areas have the so-called "latecomer advantage".
Southern Weekend: What do Vietnamese locals think of the "time machine" theory?
Mr. Hua : During my stay in Vietnam, I had exchanges with some officials of the Vietnamese government department, as well as teachers and students from elite schools such as the Foreign Affairs Academy. They realized that Vietnam was in a period of opportunity.
In the past, Vietnam attracted investment, and industrial parks only needed foreign investment to come in. Many officials have visited overseas, including China, and some investment officials have studied abroad, and they will see which of the companies they want to settle in is larger and will pay more attention to medium- and long-term development opportunities.
When foreign-funded enterprises come to invest, they also have to negotiate, and they need to be told what benefits they can bring in addition to taxes. But to be specific, this is not the case everywhere in Vietnam.
Southern Weekend: What are the thorny issues facing Vietnamese manufacturing companies in your observations?
Mr. Hua : In the field of economic development, Vietnam is a partial student, and it is very dependent on foreign customers' orders to keep up with upstream raw materials. If the global economy slows or the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, Vietnam's exports could shrink and many factories would run low.
I have photographed companies producing lubricants and chemical reagents in Vietnam, the factories are not large, but they have a relatively high market share in Vietnam. The owner of a lubricant production company said that since May 2022, the operating rate has been insufficient, and many customers have encountered operational difficulties, which has affected his business. Today the business is relatively hot, and tomorrow they may fall into the ice hole, and they will be more worried about this piece.
Southern Weekend: How did your understanding of Vietnam change before and after the filming of the documentary?
Mr. Hua: The more Vietnamese people you come into contact with, the more comprehensive and in-depth your understanding of the country will be.
If you think of a Vietnamese person as a concrete person, he has two sides. On the one hand, they are kind and peaceful; On the other hand, they are very stubborn and strong, with extremely sensitive national self-esteem.
Southern Weekend reporter Wu Chao