Fili’s world

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This was one mystery I had to unfold. It never made sense, it couldn’t be working out. My MBA’s marketing (shitty) instincts were pushing me for an extensive research to uncover the impossible marketing plan (4P) and my MBA’s organizational behavior training was calling for a qualitative in-depth participation. So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for boarding research O19/TRQ, we are ready for departure, have an enjoyable ride.

T-shirts, T-shirts… where can I find some good T-shirts? I needed not look down at the T-shirt I was wearing. I knew what I would see if I was to do the mistake of taking a glimpse. It was the smell that was coming out of me that suggested that I’ve been pushing this grey T-shirt over its maximum lifespan. The combination of a 40c heat and sweat, bundled with merciless river-laundry practice of 3rd world has resulted in a piece of cloth that the locals would be ashamed to be caught in. Maybe it wasn’t really that bad, but that’s what was going on in my head as I was browsing through HoiAn’s market. Everybody was selling the same poor-quality Vietnam T-shirts that I would never wear. There should be a state rule forbidding more than a certain amount of tourists from wearing the same T-shirt, no matter how Vietnam patriotic it may seem. No wonder the Vietnamese always tell me they have a hard time telling the tourists apart - they all wear Vietnam and Ho-Chi-Min crap-T-shirts! I admit it; even I get confused sometimes.

I gave up on finding something that looks different, but I was then prepared to start off a price comparison. Without any bargaining - the same T-shirt would cost around 1-1.5$ in the market (15000-20000 dong) and about 4-5$ in the old city. Having an urge to understand the local business I headed to the old town and waited for the comforting familiar sounds of “Hallo! Come inside… you take a look at my store… you buy from me…” which suddenly sounded more like commands than requests. I kept walking till I found a street with two T-shirt stores that looked exactly (exactly!) the same on opposite sides of the street and waited a while ignoring their attempts to lure me inside. After minutes I noticed that all the tourists walking that street interested in T-shirts went over to one of the stores, while no body came into the other. Amazed, I walked over to the deserted store and said I wanted a T-shirt. Price started at 4-5$, but when I showed my knowledge of what was happening in the market, it dropped to 3$ but no less. As the salesgirl mother rode to their house to get me my T-shirt, I sat down and asked the girl lots of questions. She started telling me about how the rent costs 4000000 dong a month (a small calculation would result in them having to sell about a 150 T-shirts a month to cover expenses), and telling me how business are bad in low season - me being the only customer that day. She asked me why I thought the tourists go to the other place and not hers, so we sat there together and watched. Looking deeper, there were some differences. First, my salesgirl was wearing Pijamas, while the girl on the other store was wearing a decent looking dress. Suggesting that she would dress differently resulted in a shy answer that she doesn’t have any money to buy new cloth. “Why not wear your T-shirts, look better and advertise what you’re selling at the same time?” was a suggestion we could agree on. Mumbling something about how good of a person I am she requested some more of my tourist’s insights. I noticed some more details - different lighting that left my girl in the dark, different approach to people with fast English diction that sounded aggressive etc. but that all didn’t seem enough. So, I told my salesgirl to wait as I walk over to the other store and actually ask people why they chose the other place. The Spanish girls there were amazed about my questions, but participated in my survey. It turned out that the store wasn’t alone, and that they had somesort of a chain - recommending people that come into one store to go to another - sometimes for discounts. Moreover, they had people on motorbikes on main street offering a free ride to the T-shirt store. Finally, strange in the T-shirt business but existent, they had a good reputation that went from one satisfied costumer to another. I came back with all the conclusions to my salesgirl and we sat down together to think what she could do to improve the competition. Instead of fighting in prices, which is ridiculous, we set to use her family as marketing folks and do some rearrangement. Coming back after two days, her smile and warm words suggested that things have been better, but who knows.

It was early, too early, but I gave them my word that I would come to play. 7:00am I reported to the Ping-Pong place and started playing the locals. Hours passed by, playing and drinking outside, all was great. Hai wanted me to join the group in his girlfriend’s cafe 5 minutes bike-ride away, so we did. Exchanging smartass remarks in broken English - we had great laughs. My new bodies introduced me to the local lottery game and to the wonderful local lemon-ice-tea-with-an-unfamiliar-twist(dragonfruit?!)-inside. Then on, forward, to the Bia Hoi for a couple of morning Larue/draught beers and I was beat. Exhausted from all the sports, totally wasted from all the beer, I just collapsed into the Hotel’s swimming pool, never to come out.

Dem Choup Hou, or something like that, is the local full moon celebration. No cars, no electric lights on the street - just live Vietnamese music, red light Chinese lamps and lots of candles sailing quietly on the river stream. Laura (who’s name I now know how to spell), Christian from Mehico and myself joined up with Caroline and Christopher to sit down by the river and watch the whole thing. I love this place. I’m having a great time here so I’m going to stay for a while, but Laura is leaving today after finishing her shopping spree.
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