Nguyen Ahn TuanThis is a featured page





Interviewee Profile

Name:Nguyen Ahn Tuan (aka "Tuan")
Blog: anh-tuan.blogspot.com
Email: nguyenat86@yahoo.com

Transcript

Siran Zhan: Hi Tuan, thank you for joining us today for the interview. Would you like to interview yourself in just a couple of sentences?

Nguyen Ahn Tuan: Alright, okay. My name is Tuan, I’m a year 4 student and I’ve been in Singapore for about 8 years so far. And this interview is about blogging, digital media. I’ve been blogging for like about 6 years now. It used to be more often, but now because of SMU workload I’ve got my priorities right. So blogs have come to the second place.

Siran: So you started blogging 6 years ago, so when you first started, what did you use to blog about?

Tuan: Okay, the phases of blogging kind of changed a lot for me. So the first time I started blogging it was about my first girlfriend. She didn’t even know about it. So I was just writing on the blog and I was thinking that maybe on our anniversary I would show her the blog but in the end we didn’t even reach our anniversary so I kind of aborted the blog after that.

Siran: So for awhile there was a period of hibernation, and I resumed blogging I think right after my A levels. It was quite a fun time because I was staying with this group of people who were friends. We had our own apartment and we would go to work part time, and go back home, and have these crazy things together. So I blogged about that and I kind of stopped for awhile when I entered SMU because at that time the friends that I was staying with was everywhere. So I stopped and I resumed again, and this time it kept up for a really long time, it went on for about 3 years or something. I realized that the SMU environment wasn’t really as cool as I thought. So I started writing about it to really show... I don’t really know what motivated me to blog about it, whether I was really in hate with SMU, or I had nothing better to do. But I first started blogging about SMU, what I did, how often I went out with my friends. And then eventually, it kind of transformed into some kind of opinion writing instead of personal life. In the past I used to write about what drink I had at Zouk, what girl I thought was hot. But now I talk about why Obama shouldn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, why Iraq was a good choice instead of a bad choice. Yea things like that.

Siran: So you moved on to more serious topics nowadays?

Tuan: Yea I guess so. I guess I not only grew old, but grew up as well, and topics kind of changed over time.

Siran: Right, right, that’s interesting. So what about your peers back in Vietnam? What do they generally blog about? Do they mostly use digital media tools to blog about personal life or what else is there, according to your knowledge?

Tuan: Alright, I don’t really visit people’s blogs. I don’t really visit other Vietnamese blogs that often but those few that I have been to; I think 99% of the time it’s on personal life. They would just talk about anything: what they wear to go to bed, how they hated the morning sickness of going to lectures, things like that. But if you want to know more about the blogging trends about Vietnamese youth in general. I’d say there’s kind of a divide; I don’t know whether I should call it a digital divide. The people I associate with, they tend to be more IT savvy, so the frequency, the medium that they have access to, is much wider than the rest of the country. There was this point of time when nobody in Vietnam actually knew what Blogspot was about, it was banned in Vietnam at that time actually. The only blog medium that they knew was this Yahoo thing; Yahoo was the number 1 in Vietnam. So I suppose I got to disclaim that whatever that I say may only apply to a certain section of the youth, and not just in general.

Siran: How popular do you think social media is with the Vietnamese youth nowadays compared to traditional media such as the TV, video, or print.

Tuan: Okay, for those who know what blog is, it’s a really fascinating thing. It can turn you into a celebrity overnight. So there’s this really ridiculous incident of a nobody girl, and she had some scandalous shots with this photograph and she posted it on her blog and now she’s dubbed Vietnam’s most endowed girl. So it’s like… of course not everyone knows about that instance, only those that actually blog, or even care about blogs. My cousins, they don’t really blog, so when I talk to them about these kinds of things they know nothing about that. So of course there’s always a divide thing, but I don’t know whether it’s a digital divide?

Siran: So if I heard you right, you’re saying that there are a lot more things you can do with social media nowadays, in terms of self-expression? I mean without value judgment, good or bad. Or reaching out to people or even establishing yourself, your personal brand.

Tuan: Sure. Okay yea I think so. That’s right.

Siran: Okay, that’s very interesting. Okay, but like many other Asian countries, the Vietnamese government also tightly controls the media in Vietnam. So in your opinion, how much more freedom of expression did the Vietnamese actually gain from digital media in the recent years?

Tuan: Well, in this year alone, there were 3 bloggers, 1 journalist, and they were under arrest for blogging about politics. There was this newspaper editor as well; he was given a warning for publishing something on politics. So I suppose the only area you should never touch on is politics. Other than that if you want to talk about commerce, gossip, How I Met Your Mother, anything, it’s fine. Just that if you touch on how communism is bad, how China is bullying Vietnam and Vietnam is doing nothing about it, they will really come to your house and handcuff you, then they will just bring you to somewhere that your family doesn’t know about, for weeks. Okay, I don’t know whether this is going to get out to like [laughter] the government of Vietnam. But yea that’s my honest opinion about the situation in Vietnam right now.

Siran: Right, I appreciate you being so honest about this. I know it’s quite a sensitive issue to talk about.

Siran: How is the Vietnamese trying to deal with the government’s new control measures? How are they trying to work around that?

Tuan: For this particular topic, I don’t really know what they are really doing to avoid arrest or overcome these measures that the government is implementing. I don’t really know what these measures are actually. I only know that if you are a prominent blogger or journalist, likely they’ll come to your home.

I wrote a piece about how these people were being arrested. Human Rights Watch is blaming the Vietnamese government for what they are doing. Personally I would tell these people (bloggers) to be more responsible for their words, because as bloggers, you might not know what the politicians have in mind, what the constraints are. If you know, you might be held liable for your content, so you should be more responsible for that. If you can’t fight the system, you’ve got to live with that. You can bring your message across in more than one way; it’s not a matter of what you say, but just how you say it.

Siran: Right. So you’re saying that it’s not always necessary to fight the system head-on. You have to be more tactful about it.

Tuan: Yeah. Besides politics, another thing I think the government may have strict control over in the future would be “exhibitionism”. You know there’re more and more girls, and guys in some weird ways, really, it’s just getting very pervasive. I do check out a few them because I keep on hearing about them and I don’t know what they are about. So I just go Google Images and search and they will come out. So far there hasn’t been a headline case of that person being caught yet. There may be in the future, I think. They just cracked down a huge porn site; they might do something to the blog sphere as well in the future.

Siran: Right, this is something I assume that challenges the traditional Vietnamese social values, touches on morality issues. What do you think the future will look like with regard to government control under the influence of international interference, such as human rights activist groups and foreign governments? Do you think it’s going to improve or persist?

Tuan: The ban on Blogspot I mentioned just now was 4 or 5 years ago. Last year when I went back home, I could access my Blogspot page again. But I suppose that gradually they (the government) will realize that there was no way they can really stop it. They’ve just got to accept that this is the reality of life. They should devise better was to control it rather than just banning it. It’s everywhere, if they ban Blogspot, there’s everything around Facebook and Twitter that could convey the message. Gradually, they will just restrict their control on the range of media you can access. But one thing I will say that they will never restrict their control on is politics. I think Vietnam and China may be similar, but I still feel that China is somewhat more liberal in this aspect. Vietnam is still 20 years behind.

Siran: Generally, there’s still a lot of hope of opening up…

Tuan: Oh sure, everything is ok, except politics.

Siran: What do you see as the impact of digital media and the increased connectivity on Vietnam’s economy?

Tuan: I was working part-time for a Vietnamese start-up company. My boss and her husband decided to set up two firms. The way they go about trying to reach their clients and to establish their supply chain is solely through their websites. They told me that previously it cost much more to set up that business. So from the way I see them execute their business plan, I suppose the impact of digital media on Vietnam’s economy is really huge as more and more people are connected to the internet. Nowadays the access is more or less limited to urban areas whereas at the countryside, you wouldn’t see as much exposure. The negative effect on the economy would be the fraud cases. Vietnam’s legal system is not that firmed up yet. This thing is still new to the country. People can still exploit this loophole. They put up any offer, any post that can deceive people who stumble upon them. There is actually not yet a legal framework that protects the interests of consumers in this case. That might create a backlash again ecommerce in the future. So I suppose that this is one are they can improve on.

Siran: That’s very insightful. Really helpful! I’m just going to end our interview with one last question based on what you just talked about. From a blogger’s point of view, do you have any advice for businesses that want to tap on the potential of digital media to enhance their businesses in Vietnam?

Tuan: Are you talking about foreign firms, or just any firm that operates in Vietnam?

Siran: Ok, let’s just focus foreign firms since they know much less about the Vietnamese culture.

Tuan: So I guess the first step is always to know the laws. It’s the best for you to know the language as well, because it’s hard for the officials. Most likely you can’t even get to talk to the officials, but most of the documents and things like that are in Vietnamese and the translation may not be that accurate. So if you actually misunderstand something, you may face unnecessary liabilities. So that is the first step, you’ve got to know the rules of game. Other than that, when you are already established there, you should focus on the big cities. If you are going to have your business channels online, your target is very clear, that is the urban class. Although this class of people is growing in size very fast, currently, I would say it’s still very small. I wouldn’t think a lot of people use credit cards in Vietnam for example. If you go to shopping malls, most of the transactions are in cash. So if you want to have a business based online with credit card payment, you may have limited number of successful transactions. That’s one thing you should consider; you want a physical office so that people can come and visit.




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kejia 		Latest page update: made by kejia , Nov 2 2009, 4:53 AM EST (about this update About This Update kejia Edited by kejia


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