Posts filed under ‘Vietnam’
Microfinance Loan Officers in Vietnam
By: Tran Chau, KF13, Vietnam
At SEDA, there are 16 loan officers who are the heart of the organization. They are responsible for educating clients, dispersing loans, collecting repayments, completing paperwork, and handling any issues that could arise during the loan cycle. On any given week, from Monday to Thursday, loan officers begin their day somewhere between 7:30AM and 8:30AM when they arrive at the office. There, they get ready to go to the field. They speak to the branch manager and the regional manager, double-check the collection ledgers, and organize the tasks they need to complete for the day. Promptly at 9:00AM, they depart for the field.
Current State of Microfinance in Vietnam
By: Tran Chau, KF13, Viet Nam
Vietnam currently has 52 microfinance institutions offering microloans and other services to the impoverished. Kiva is partnered with three, SEDA in Hanoi, TYM in Hanoi, and FPW in Thanh Hoa. Of the 52 MFIs, only one, TYM, is officially licensed by the Vietnamese Government.
What does a traditional Vietnamese market look like?
The Interior of Dong Xuan Market
By: Tran Chau, KF13, Viet Nam
Modern shopping centers and supermarkets are new to Vietnam. They are frequented mostly by the small and powerful middle class, have western products, and carry western price tags. For the rest of the nation and for those who favor the established ways of the east, traditional open air and partially enclosed markets are full of activity from morning until night. (more…)
The Beginning: Hedging Currency Depreciation in Vietnam
This is less than $25!!
By: Tran Chau, KF13, Viet Nam
I am a multi-millionaire, in Vietnamese Dong that is. The Vietnamese Dong (“VND”) is the official currency of Vietnam. The official exchange rate (a black market one also exists) hovers around $1 = 19,500 VND. Therefore in nearly all business transactions in Vietnam, millions, billions, and even trillions of VND change hands. (more…)
Power women of Thanh Hoa
by Elena Kuehn, KF 11 Vietnam
“What a woman! How much energy! Wow…” thoughts that have crossed my mind several times during the last two weeks. I was visiting Fund for Poor Women (FPW) in the Thanh Hoa province and got to know the people working there and could meet many of their Kiva borrowers. It wasn’t easy to arrange these meetings as most FPW clients work in agriculture and leave there houses when the sun rises and work until late at night. They can however be encountered at home during lunch break when they try to escape the sun during the hottest time of the day.
Continue Reading 13 June 2010 at 16:00 elenakuehn 6 comments
Viet nam – ready to take opportunities
By Elena Kuehn, KF 11, Viet nam
Viet nam is a country bursting of energy, activity and a continuous striving of the people to improve their living standards and enable their children to lead a better life. To achieve this people are willing to work incredibly hard. That makes Vietnam a great place for microfinance activities. And not only are the people ready to take on hard work, there is also a financial growth that rewards the effort. In this atmosphere of growth microfinance provides poor families in this country with the means to participate in this growth.
I have started my Kiva Fellowship 3 weeks ago and have already visited 3 of the Kiva field partners and many Kiva borrowers. What impressed me most when talking to the people and discussing their living situation, the loan impact and their future hopes is the fact that they constantly point towards their children and grandchildren. When I ask how the loan has improved their lives, I hear stories about how they were able to send their children to school for longer and provide them with better means to be successful in life.
The Vietnamese family plan foresees only 2 children for each couple, people with more children face a fee that can be a great burden to poor families. So many people comply with this rule. This makes the focus, and, I imagine, also the pressure on the young generation even higher. But with providing their children with a good education a family in Vietnam actually has a very realistic chance to lift themselves from the very bottom of society into a middle class position.
And Vietnam Continues…
My Kiva fellowship has officially ended. I returned to the US two weeks ago and still have plenty of processing to do. The only thing I am certain of is I have yet to understand what it all means down the road. In some ways it seems a dream had ended. But the vivid memories of specific moments that made it worthwhile spring me back into reality. I can’t thank you enough for all the support from friends, family, Kiva Friends, my MFI, and the greater community. Below is a clip of one of my last motorbike rides: returning to my apartment after visiting the Hanoi Hilton (Hoa Lo Prison). It was used to hold American troops prisoner during the war. It was quite an inter-cultural experience as I am a Vietnamese-French-American. Thank you Kiva community and keep doing what you do!
Alex is the first Kiva Fellow (KF9) working with TYM Fund in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Interested in becoming a Kiva fellow? Click here.
Join the Vietnam lending team here.
Microfinance at the Margins
What have I learned about the nonprofit world? It’s complicated. Not the hard to solve kind but rather the kind that consumes a half-century before a dent is made.
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An Interest Rate Example
By Alex Duong, KF9, Vietnam
“That’s my philosophy. The key is to get up in that batter’s box and take a swing. And all you have to do is hit one single, a couple of doubles, and an occasional home run out of every 10 at-bats, and you’re going to be the best hitter or the best business leader around. You can’t play in the major leagues without having a lot of failures.
- John Donahoe, eBay CEO
Substitute “hitter” and “business leader” for microfinance institution and the quote is absolutely relevant. Microfinance is still in its infancy and far from perfect. So long as more players enter the batter’s box, exciting innovations will appear on the horizon. And interest rates are likely to come down assuming healthy competition takes place. Until that time, however, the following is one rationale for current interest rates from the perspective of interest rate spread (click “more” below).
Death-Defying Repayment in Vietnam
It’s funny how death makes a person keenly aware of their responsibilities. You think about all the wrongs you need to right, the people with whom you need to make amends, and the debts you need to repay. You’re lucky if you’ve never faced death. If you live in a developed country like the United States, things like tuberculosis, diarrhoeal diseases and stomach cancer don’t make it on the list of top 10 leading causes of death in your country. But if you live in a developing country like Vietnam, your fate is different. I recently met a Kiva borrower who was diagnosed with stomach cancer. The 6-month survival rate of stomach cancer patients diagnosed in its later stages is less than 15%.
Despite her recent surgery, Pham Thi Dieu, continues her daily life in Dong Anh Province, just outside of Hanoi, Vietnam in defiance of her stomach cancer. Dieu and her husband continue to work in a family member’s construction business. Her husband does the labor, and she resells construction materials and handles the books. The women in Dieu’s village support her and surround her with love and encouragement. Because health is risky business in Vietnam, Dieu is realistic about her chances of survival, but “I still have to work to help my family, take care of my two boys…and besides, I still have 6 more months of repayment on my loan,” she states rather matter-of-factly. I showed Dieu the photos of the 12 lender profiles on Kiva who were supporting her loan. “Well, I have to get better now, don’t I? I owe a responsibility to these people as well.”
With Dieu’s permission, I share her story and the attached video as a reminder of the hope and connection you Kiva lenders give when you honor the lives and businesses of borrowers through the loans you make. You can also watch videos of the loan process in Vietnam and meet the different credit officers who make it happen by following these links.
Video: Follow Your $25 to Vietnam EPISODE 3!!!
Dear Lender,
If you’re tuning in for the first time, you’re in for a treat! Watch as a group of women in a remote province of northern Vietnam receive access to credit for the very first time. Feel their hope, hear their fears, and share in the laughter =)
This is the last of a 3-part video blogging series in which I attempt to give you a snapshot of the person-to-person experience you would have if you were to follow your $25 Kiva loan to Vietnam. I hope you enjoy!
Innovation – Found It!
After four months at ground zero, I hold certain things to be true. There will always be a tradeoff between quality and quantity. Also, sustainable aid does not include giving money away. Microfinance, which encompasses interest bearing loans, is currently a lead contender for sustainable development. Perhaps that is why it has peaked the interests of so many. And until most recently, I was concerned its current state was not sustainable. Why? Many MFIs are experiencing double digit percentage gains and hitting numbers that make any for-profit enterprise envious.
Kiva Animal Kingdom
At microfinance institution Asociación Arariwa in Cusco, Peru, and now working with Emprender in La Paz, Bolivia, I have met a ton of animals. Being an animal lover and from New York where I rarely see live animals walking around (unless the occasional stray cat or rat or cockroach counts), seeing animals as part of my daily life is a pleasure.
Continue Reading 2 February 2010 at 06:07 lethalsheethal 6 comments
Parallels in Microfinance and Corporate America
By Alex Duong, KF9, Vietnam
A recent interview with John Hagel of my employer Deloitte sparked the idea for this blog entry (article here). According to Hagel, the US market is maturing to the point where solely focusing on product and process innovation have decreasing marginal returns. A good example is Microsoft Office or the iPod. At first, new products came out every 4-5 years. Now it seems the product line must be refreshed every 2-3 years. So what could serving the poor have in common with profit oriented businesses? It turns out there are plenty of parallels.
A few staff members of my MFI, TYM Fund
Consider Microfinance Ancillary Effects
By Alex Duong, KF9, Vietnam
Before continuing, please take time to read colleague Victoria Kabak’s post on Nicaragua. I’d like her courageous efforts to be recognized. And if you are out to make a loan today, rather than Vietnam, please consider funding someone in Nicaragua here, particularly a borrower with AFODENIC.
Victoria, I don’t have an answer either. Perhaps build a regression model? But that is probably skewed by my swimming in a quantitative pool these last few days with friends cash flow and NPV.
***
Ok, on to this post about ancillary effects. A recent trend in microfinance (MF) has been to incorporate social performance indicators. The concept involves measuring poverty alleviation actually induced through loans and other MF efforts. Metrics or not, what I can tell you is that Madame Lien would put those statistics to shame. Check out her preschool students below.
The “Wiggle” and Other Observations
By Alex Duong, KF9, Vietnam
Vietnam has received consistent coverage on this blog since the Kiva Fellows 5th class (KF5). Often there are snippets or video discussing the dangerous, lawless traffic of the streets. And until now, there have been no solutions for navigating the madness. Below is video of what I’m coining as the ‘wiggle.’ Watch how this man avoids cars, pedestrians, and other motorbikes. Each little twist is a subtle yet intentional twist that finds the next opening. Click to read about this fellow’s thoughts on Vietnam culture.
Kiva Love Machine Leads to Visiting Samoa
By Alex Duong, KF9, Vietnam
I’m going to let you in on a secret: Kiva is one big hunk of love. Understanding the phrase ‘Kiva love machine’ sheds light on what motivates the work of Kiva fellows everyday. Why does Rebecca Corey rise at 5:30AM to catch the bus to work? Why does Thomas Gold risk driving in deathly traffic? Read on to learn about the bond that unites fellows.
The Intro
By Alex Duong, KF9, Vietnam
The CIA World Factbook provides the following details for Vietnam -
Population median age: 27.4
Percentage of population living in urban areas: 28%
Literacy rate: 90.3%
GPD growth rate: 6.2% in 2008, 8.5% in 2007
Unemployment rate: 4.7%
Leaving aside the recent inflation spike, Vietnam offers a young, competent, and dynamic environment that is ripe for putting microfinance to work.
Chia Buồn
By Hanh Tran, KF8 – Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women (FPW) – Vietnam
I never leave home without my camera these days. But there are many instances when I fail to pull it out in time to capture some of the interesting things I pass on the street everyday.
Peddling Bamboo
Then there are times when I am tired of filming or when I capture a moment on video and find myself debating what I should do with it. When you are interviewing people each day and they trust you with their stories, it’s a great privilege – and at times overwhelming. I had one of these moments last week.
Chief Credit Officers, Ms. Ha, whom I’ve grown very fond of, and Ms. Hanh gave me instructions to meet them at Nuoc Mam Thanh Huong for a borrower meeting. This is the area where the popular brand of nuoc mam (fish sauce) is made in Thanh Hoa. I hopped onto a Xe Om (motorbike) and told the driver to take me there. I knew immediately when we had reached the vicinity of our final destination…distinct harsh and pungent whiffs of fermented fish floated through the heavy, humid air. Nuoc mam is a staple of Vietnamese cuisine. I grew up eating many meals with nuoc mam, and still, the scent is too strong for me. I was glad that I had recently caved in and bought a facemask to avoid breathing in the dusty Thanh Hoa air…and in this case, the strong fermented fish odor.
Ms. Ha and Ms. Hoa at a borrower meeting
Sometimes it just aint enough…
by Michael Kasseris
Often times life is like a boxing match. You’re put into the ring with a challenge and you have some rounds to hash it out. Once you’re in this figurative ring you have a few options: you can get scared and jump out of the ring, you could dance around for a few rounds, or you can try to engage the challenge and see how you hold up. I know this metaphor sounds incredibly cliché, however it reminds me of a phrase our Fellows director told us way back in San Fran. To prepare us for our experiences in the “microfinance mundo,” ( I borrowed this from Susan Arthur, I really like it!) he told us that we should be ready for a few “gut punches.” (more…)
A Glimpse of the Borrowers
By Hanh Tran, KF8 – Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women (FPW) – Vietnam
Visiting borrowers during the past three weeks has taught me that interviews can take place just about anywhere– standing in the middle of a noisy market, sitting on very short stools near a street stall or squatting on someone’s kitchen floor.
Earlier this week, Ms. Ha, a credit officer at the Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women (FPW), offered to take me to three repayment meetings. I grabbed my bag – which nowadays contains my handy Flip video camera, a notepad, my pocket dictionary, and borrower group photos – and we set off.
An hour later, we found ourselves at a lively market in Dong Son District. Searching for borrowers in between the rows of colorful fruits and vegetables, fresh cut flowers and delicate china turned out to be quite the task. With Ms. Ha’s expertise, we managed to track down all six women belonging to the 11-Don Son Group.
Our next stop was to the home of a first time borrower, Ms. Phuong. Once there, I spent time with a group of four women, asking questions and listening as they gossiped and teased each other.
The final meeting for the day was at a local Women’s Union center where I was able to catch a few short interviews as group members dashed in to make their monthly repayments and rushed back to work as quickly as they came.
If I could, I would spend hours talking to each borrower. I realize the questions that I am able to ask during the short amount of time I have with the women only offers a glimpse into their lives – a small chapter of the full story. Yet, in those few moments, there is a connection. The hours pass by quickly and at the end of the day, I have footage, pictures and pages of notes. Here are a two of their stories.
(more…)
Leap of faith
by Michael Kasseris
There wasn’t much wind blowing through Hanoi that morning. The air was heavy and humid, like every step I took was like walking through a pool of water. It was my first morning in Hanoi and I needed to cross the street my hotel was on to hail a taxi. As I stepped closer to the edge of the sidewalk I noticed how fast the air was moving across my face. A swarm of motorbikes, taxis and trucks racing through the street swept the air past me and blew a cloud of dust in my eyes. Before I knew it my chances of crossing the street were over and the violent current of traffic seemed to have no end, or so I thought. (more…)
Close to Home
Total chaos can be beautiful. Horns honk at me from left to right and the vibrations jump from one ear to the other. A river of motorbikes (xe oms) race past my taxi window. There appears to be no traffic lights, no speed limits and few rules. I stop to listen and start to see life—life as it is lived in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Having spent some time in Hanoi as an undergraduate, the bustling sounds of the Old Quarter are familiar and comforting. The streets lined with booming businesses of every sort are images that come to mind when I think about microfinance and entrepreneurship in Vietnam.
As I left Hanoi for Thanh Hoa, where I will be based as a fellow during the next three months, I wondered what entrepreneurship would look like in Vietnam’s second poorest province. During the foggy morning as my train rushed by brilliant shades of green across Vietnam’s lush rice paddies, I could not help but be captivated by the tranquil countryside. It’s raining as I leave the train station and my first sight of Thanh Hoa is a gray, damp and serene scene. (more…)
Microfinance and the Millennium Development Goals
Microfinance, while not the cure-all tool for development, is a very powerful tool for poverty reduction in the developing world. We’ve all heard the effect it has on poverty as portrayed in numerous academic studies and from sources like Muhammad Yunus. Because of my infatuation with microfinance I started wondering what other impact microfinance has had on development issues such as inequality. After a quick search on UC Berkeley’s academic journal search tool I only found one (one?!!) article which even mentioned inequality. This was evidence to me that microfinance is still in its infancy as an academic subject.
Prior to becoming a Kiva Fellow I decided that I wanted to go back to graduate school and study economic development with an emphasis in microfinance, if at all possible. Because I discovered the lack of scholarly attention towards microfinance and its impact towards other development issues I decided that I wanted to study what impact microfinance has on all aspects to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals besides just poverty reduction.
The Millennium Development Goals are eight international development goals that 192 United Nations member states have agreed to achieve by the year 2015. While it is very debatable that the goals can be achieved by that date, they are nonetheless goals worth fighting towards for a long time to come. The eight goals (which have more specifics than shown below) are as follows:
1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. 2) Achieve universal primary education. 3) Promote gender equality and empower women. 4) Reduce child mortality. 5) Improve maternal health. 6) Combat HIV/Aids, malaria, and other diseases. 7) Ensure environmental sustainability. 8) Develop a global partnership for development.
My question for these goals is simple: does microfinance have a significant impact on any of these goals besides poverty reduction? My theory, as of now, is that yes it does impact at least five, maybe even seven of these goals; however I need to run statistical models to test the significance. In short I believe that since most clients are women, goal 3 has a major impact and since a goal of microfinance is increasing credit to hopefully increase family income, the other goals will be affected as well. Think about it like this: extra money means maybe another child will get to continue their education, or there is now money available to afford the medicines required to fight a child’s malaria bout to keep them alive past the age of five (goals 4 and 6), etc., etc…
As an anecdotal case, here in Vietnam with my MFI SEDA, I know that the vast majority of borrowers are female. According to the women I have interviewed, the majority have seen an increase in their standard of living and income (whether this is due to a real increase in income or income simply mirroring inflation is another topic that needs to be studied) and many who still have school age children use their extra income to pay for their kids tuition fees and hope that their children will be able to go to university and further increase their standards of living, especially for eldest sons (who take care of the parents when they get older!). Furthermore, many of the women now have extra income to also buy medicines if their children become sick. Just from my interactions with the borrowers here, I see a potential impact going beyond just poverty reduction…I see Millennium Goals 1-6 being affected. Thus there is reason for further study into this impact!
To learn more about the Millennium Development Goals, please check out the MDG Wikipedia page. If you’re interested in lending to SEDA borrowers to help them have an impact on the Millennium Development Goals, please check out SEDA’s fundraising page!
Kiva Fellows IN the Field – Part 1
According to the author of Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, Asians are typically better at math because rice farming is so much more labor and time intensive than all other forms of agriculture. While we don’t necessarily agree with the math side of his argument, we agree with the difficulty of rice farming.
Many of the Vietnamese Kiva borrowers are themselves rice farmers. In order to appreciate and gain a sense of what the life of a Vietnamese Kiva borrower is like, we, the two Kiva Fellows in Vietnam, took the opportunity to spend a day in a typical borrower’s shoes, or lack thereof.
The rice paddy in the distance is calling out our names...
After spending two hours literally in the field bending over in the baking sun and in ankle deep mud and water, we realized that we had not become experts in rice farming techniques. To make this point clear, we couldn’t even tell the difference between the weeds we were supposedly looking for and the actual rice; the grass had evolved to look almost exactly like the rice! This is just one of the difficulties that the farmers face everyday in the field. (We haven’t even mentioned the exact science of fertilizing and watering let alone the creepy crawlies everywhere)
For us, we could barely comprehend the effort it takes for the farmers to simply put rice on their own tables, let alone the fact that the borrowers have other job duties as well. To supplement their own income, many of the farmers take up Kiva loans to run micro-enterprises such as selling fruit and vegetables at market or raising and selling animals. Simply put, being a Vietnamese farmer isn’t as clean-cut as one may think, and we found this out the hard way…
Bernice and Nate, Kiva Fellows IN the Field
Please continue on to Kiva Fellows IN the Field – Part 2
An Atypical Borrower: From Riches to Rags
Ms. Nguyen Thuy Minh, a Kiva borrower with SEDA
One of my main roles as a fellow with SEDA in Vietnam is interviewing borrowers and then writing a journal update so that lenders can see how the borrower is doing. I have many questions that I like to ask most of the borrowers and one of my favorites is quite simple: What did you do before you started this particular business? This question is great because it really helps me learn about the person I’m interviewing; their previous jobs tell a lot about them. Take for example Ms. Nguyen Thuy Minh.
Ms. Nguyen, 45, currently runs a mobile phone business which she started four years ago and helps her daughter-in-law raise animals. Six years ago her husband was killed in an accident and that accident changed her life as she knew it. When most people think of microfinance they think of a poor person trying to empower themselves out of poverty and thus we assume that person was always poor and that microfinance is the opportunity they never had before. Ms. Nguyen’s case, however, is completely the opposite.
Prior to her husband’s accident, Ms. Nguyen’s job was running a confectionary factory for 16 years with her husband which employed over 60 workers—now that’s a favorable impact on a community, a locally owned business which creates jobs! She and her family were very well off until her husband’s death. For some reason or another his death meant the closure of the factory (I didn’t want to pry into all of her personal details about the accident and accompanying results but I assume her husband had many debts) and quickly propelled Ms. Nguyen and her family into the type of poverty they had never known before.
The location that Ms. Nguyen and other borrowers in her community make payments on their loans.
As Ms. Nguyen described her situation, she said her best option was to start a mobile phone business in her hamlet but it meant that she had to work harder than before for less money to simply get by. To help her business along and to help begin increasing her standard of living she decided to apply for a micro-loan (before, with the factory, her credit was good enough to get loans from traditional banks). Her loan has since helped increase her daily income and has allowed her to purchase more new phones in bulk, thus reducing her overall costs.
Ms. Nguyen’s story is a perfect example of an atypical borrower, but nonetheless microfinance has become a valuable tool for her. With that in mind, I think her role as Group Leader is also valuable to microfinance in her community because she can share her knowledge of business management with her other group members and possibly with many others in her community. In fact, one of my goals now is to see if Ms. Nguyen could possibly run a work-shop on business management with the other SEDA borrowers in her community which perfectly answers another question I like to ask borrowers: what impact do you and your business have on your community? And my oh my, what a potential impact Ms. Nguyen can have!
Shortcut keys can’t save me now!
I’m already four weeks into my fellowship and as I anticipated, it’s been full of surprises!
A consultant by training, I’m in my element when I’m in an office, laptop in hand and armed with my shortcut keys. This is why I jumped at the chance to conduct my first Kiva training session. We pulled together a Power Point presentation, drafted and translated ‘cheat sheets’ and were ready to go. …or so we thought… Talk about an emotional journey!
The day started well with,
Enthusiasm: Granted, I was probably the only one who was excited for the session to begin but I Fn+F10-ed and the presentation was up and running. Then came…
Anxiety: “Wait! That’s the search bar not the address bar.”
Chaos: Forgetting to translate the calendar months could have resulted in a mad grab-bag of dates had it not been for a quick cross-reference table and printer.
Frustration: Taking up 3 computers for the better part of the day in an office with limited resources was not spectacularly well received by senior management…
Relief: By the end of the day, everyone got the hang of it and profiles proliferated!
Needless to say, it was a most educational day and despite the shaky emotional foundation, it wasn’t drastically different from the countless office days I’d experienced before.
Contrast this with the unfamiliar field. I find myself on the back of a motorcycle (breaking the only rule my dad ever gave me) and traveling to the community house that doubles as the FPW repayment center once a month. I realize that I have left my office sanctuary and <<CTRL+Z>> is not going to save me. I can’t take back the loud crashing noise of my motorcycle helmet falling to the floor or rescind my confusing question of “do you enjoy your job”. I don’t know much about animal husbandry or agriculture or raising a family, and I can’t quickly google ‘Le Mon’ to figure out what it is. …but somehow, it doesn’t matter. The women welcome my questions and share details of their lives. I hear stories of strength and hard work – hauling fertilizer to and from train cars certainly puts my ‘long hours’ into perspective; of sacrifice – expensive medical trips to get better treatment for their children; and most often, I hear of success. “Increased earnings, new TVs, demand for more loans!” There is definitely no shortage of demand for microcredit here, and to me that is a sign that there is a need being fulfilled and that these loans are working!
No shortcut key could’ve taught me that.
Join the Vietnam Critical Mass Lending Team
See loans currently being fundraised by the Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women
The Perfume Pagoda Pilgrimage
In Vietnam, the beginning of spring is marked by a very large festival called the Tet Festival where the symbol of the Lunar New Year and spring awakening is the arrival of the blooming kumquat and peach trees. Unfortunately, I missed this festival by just a week or so before arriving in Hanoi. While I missed the actual Tet festival, the festivities do not stop that soon: every year for one or two months after Tet, Buddhist pilgrims (85% of the population of Vietnam identifies their religious beliefs as Buddhist, whether they practice often or not) flock to the Perfume Pagoda, aka Chùa Hương in Vietnamese.
The throngs of boats waiting to take pilgrims to the mountain.
My guide book says that the Perfume Pagoda—which is 60 km south west of Hanoi in picturesque limestone mountains and is actually a large cave—is one of the prime places to visit in the Hanoi area, but warns about visiting it for two months after Tet due to the crowds. I must say, the warning was completely justified! Nonetheless, this was a cultural experience I am glad I partook in.
Prior to my trip to the Perfume Pagoda, my co-workers at the MFI SEDA/Binh Minh asked me for 70,000 VND which is roughly $4. I was unsure why they wanted this money, maybe it was for lunch for the week? I soon found out that they actually wanted me to join them on their annual pilgrimage to the Perfume Pagoda to pray for wealth, health, and prosperity for the new lunar year. We left on a Sunday at 5 AM, for a long but incredible day.
After a sleepless 1.5 hour bus ride to the town of My Doc, we finally arrived at the river that would take us to the foot of the mountains. The town was crawling with people and vendors of cheap trinkets and stacks of small denomination bills which are both used as offerings at the various temples, altars, and pagodas. I could sense the urgency and the excitement in my co-workers who were non-stop chattering in Vietnamese. As I looked around the town upon arrival I was overwhelmed by the mass of people yet I could not help but feel slightly lonely because of the language barrier. Nonetheless the staff at SEDA/Binh Minh did everything they could once we were on the river to explain to me what the day would be like and the purpose of the festivities.
To get the festivities started we purchased a whole cooked chicken, plopped him/her on a pile of sticky rice, stuck stacks of money under it and added a few flowers. We then marched the chicken and a platter of fruit into the first temple and put it on the altar with incense burning everywhere. Everyone, by this point, was praying for wealth, health and prosperity in general. I assumed this was an offering but as quickly as it began the chicken and fruit platters were back out the door of the temple. Apparently they were lunch for the boat ride ahead…
A My Doc woman rowing effortlessly.
The boat ride lasted about one hour and I was placed squarely in the middle, probably so I wouldn’t fall into the water. The boat was rowed by a small but buff woman who steered the row boat with professional poise, which in my opinion was incredible! We had at least 16 people in our boat and she propelled us through the water without a hint of being tired and with extreme ease. Apparently most of the women in the town of My Doc, aged 13 to about 65, row the throngs of pilgrims up the river every year, all year long. Not a single obese one amongst them.
The scenery on the river was literally awe inspiring. Too bad it was cloudy, because I bet with a blue sky and a blazing sun the limestone and lush green mountains would be even more phenomenal. Despite the clouds it was still pretty. As our boat made its way amongst the other boats the staff of SEDA/Binh Minh broke out into traditional Vietnamese songs until we made it to the docking point where the hike up the mountain would begin.
The hike up to the Perfume Pagoda is several kilometers and quite steep. It doesn’t make it easy that the stone-paved path has been trekked on so many times that the rocks have been burnished smooth and thus are insanely slippery; I lost my footing too many times to count. Unfortunately, all along the path the view was blocked by more vendors and food and drink stalls (which were actually quite necessary due to the heat). I would have liked to have seen the view, but it makes sense for the vendors to be there: with the thousands upon thousands of people walking by it’s a small entrepreneurs dream to have such easy access to a market like this one! I would not be surprised if some of the stall owners had micro-finance loans of their own, from Kiva or any other organization.
The SEDA/Binh Minh staff before the hike up to the cave.
With roughly 1/3 of a mile to the cave, our ability to walk normally stopped. Suddenly I was at a rock concert back home: we were in a mosh pit. The throngs of pilgrims had finally all converged on one narrow path to the pagoda with intense pushing and shoving. I swear, at one point my feet were no longer on the ground and my body movement was only because of the sway of the crowd! Fortunately for me, I was a head taller than everybody so I was able to get fresh air, while everyone else must have been suffocating. Being a head taller was also useful for the staff of SEDA/Binh Minh to keep track of me and each other as I was a very visible landmark amongst the sea of people. In fact I was called a ‘hero’ by them since I was able to make my way through everyone easier and thus opening up a path for them behind me!
The pagoda itself was breathtaking. After walking down about 120 stairs I found myself in a wide-open cavern with a giant pillar of stone in the middle. Behind the pillar was a grotto with several Buddhist altars where people were doing a number of things including praying, trying to catch ‘lucky water’, aka drops from stalactites, and stuffing money into fissures of the rocks (a sacrifice in hopes that wealth will surely be had this new year!). The intensity of the spirituality simply washed over everything in the cave. I was left without words as I took it all in.
Entering the mouth of the Perfume Pagoda.
While I was literally one of only four recognizable foreigners I saw the entire time (I only saw the other foreigners on my way back down the mountain) amongst the at least 100,000 people, I would surely visit it again during this time of the year. If I could, I would edit the guide books to say “do not visit the Perfume Pagoda for the first two months after Tet, unless you want a truly unforgettable cultural experience that you’ll probably keep with you for the rest of your life.” Furthermore, I am glad that I was able to share this experience with everyone at SEDA/Binh Minh because now I truly feel like I have been accepted by my co-workers!
If you are interested in lending to Vietnamese borrowers please join the Vietnam Critical Mass lending team!
Also, please lend to any and all SEDA/Binh Minh borrowers!
Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover
My name is Nathan and I would like to introduce myself to the Kiva community as one of the members of KF7. I am stationed in Hanoi, Vietnam with the local MFI SEDA. I am extremely grateful for this amazing opportunity and strongly urge anyone who is considering applying as a Kiva Fellow to do so immediately!
A typical Hanoian street scene.
The well-known idiom ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ perfectly explains my first several days in Vietnam. While I had many fears prior to arriving in Vietnam including safely crossing the hectic and mob-like streets of Hanoi (I even was hit by a passing motorbike on the sidewalk one day and the previous day I saw a city bus T-bone another motorbike!), I am no longer afraid that there are no deserving recipients of microfinance here in Hanoi.
Before arriving in Vietnam, several previous fellows told me that in terms of Kiva placements, Hanoi is a 5-star rated fellowship. The city looks and feels like a modern city in all aspects including hotels that are budget to posh, an extensive public transportation system, large businesses and high-rise buildings on many blocks, and young, trendy, and fashionable people everywhere. The house that I live in even has high-speed wireless Internet, a luxury the vast majority of Kiva Fellows will not even come close to having at home let alone in Internet cafes.
This so-called 5-star rating made me question whether microfinance was actually all that necessary in Hanoi and the surrounding communities. After my first day in Hanoi I still felt this way after looking to purchase a mobile phone. After being pointed in a direction to find a phone by a long-time expat from Australia (maybe this was my first mistake!), I went into a very fancy looking store with an all-glass front with automatic sliding doors. Inside, the clientele was 100% Vietnamese with many of the people wearing what appeared to be designer clothing and sporting cool and trendy-looking haircuts. The cheapest phone that I found in the store was around $40, with prices ranging all the way up to $600+ for iPhones and various Blackberry phones.
My initial fear about microfinance in Hanoi however has turned out to be unfounded. Without even having a chance to settle down and get over my jet lag I went right to work as a Kiva Fellow my second day. After taking a hired taxi to SEDA’s branch offices on the outskirts of Hanoi and beyond I realized that there are in fact many deserving recipients of microloans here in the Hanoi surrounds.
Bac Ninh: The location of a SEDA branch office.
In one village that I visited near SEDA’s Bac Ninh branch office, I met my first group borrowing team. The village was small and had open raw-sewage drains along the tiny road in front of the small retail shop of one of the women. Nearby several small children were playing next to dogs that were foraging in piles of litter. The five women that I met live very different lives than many of the residents of Hanoi-proper, and in my humble opinion are using their microloans to attempt to better their opportunities. In fact, when asked what their hopes were for their futures they all said the same thing: get larger future loans so that they can improve their businesses even more so that hopefully they can send their children to university to provide the children better job opportunities than they have. Very inspiring if you ask me!
Lesson #1 learned in Hanoi: you can’t judge a book by its cover!
To learn more about SEDA, please click HERE. If you would like to lend to woman like this group near Bac Ninh, Vietnam, please check out SEDA’s currently fundraising borrowing groups by clicking HERE.
