Sarah Dang, Mimi Vu, and Tru Lang are all Vietnamese people who grew up in the West and chose to live in Vietnam for many years. All three are living with dreams and aspirations to create new values in a country of 100 million people.
Tru Lang at Mua Craft Sake restaurant - Photo: TTD
Sarah is the Vietnam market leader for WhiteCoat (a Singapore-based telehealth startup ), Mimi is the co-founder of sustainability consultancy Raise Partners, while Tru Lang is a chef and founder of a sustainable restaurant chain.
Seasonal Dreams with Vietnamese Agricultural Products
How does cuisine relate to sustainable development for the community and the environment? After more than 10 years as a chef in many restaurants around the world, Tru Lang decided to open a different kitchen, starting in Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City with seasonal cuisine.
"I find Vietnam very diverse from North to South, with mountains, forests, rivers, and seas. Regional cooking ingredients are very fresh and rich. Eating seasonally is a very natural thing.
Many people around me live by the seasons, feeling the coming and going of the rice season, the vegetable season, the fish season... I want to bring that feeling into my kitchen" - the French-born, American-raised guy said about the birth of the restaurant Mua in Hoi An in 2019.
Tru Lang is surprised that many Vietnamese people prefer imported agricultural products.
"Many people think that domestic agricultural products are of lower quality and less safe than imported goods.
This is sometimes true, but the truth is that Vietnam can grow and raise a lot of food with the same quality, if not better than imported products from abroad" - Tru Lang said about the desire to create a new impression about the diversity and quality of Vietnamese agricultural products .
Mua Restaurant cooperates with partners who grow vegetables in a sustainable model to ensure the criteria of using high-quality local ingredients for all dishes and drinks. For Tru Lang, using ingredients grown and raised domestically not only ensures freshness but also a way to accompany the community, creating jobs for people and young people.
"At Mua, we use clean ingredients from good domestic producers, creating a space for people to come and enjoy. We limit kitchen waste and plastic packaging. Local people work with us, all parties develop and spread happiness" - the boy born in 1984 added.
A year ago, Tru Lang opened another restaurant, Mua Craft Sake, in District 3, Ho Chi Minh City - a space that blends the characteristics of a Vietnamese pub with a Japanese Izakaya sake bar. The sake at Mua is made entirely from delicious rice varieties such as ST25.
Vietnam has inspired Tru Lang on his journey to new sustainable culinary values.
"In Hoi An, a farmer told me while standing in the field that he felt time passing by and loved life more. The seasons remind us of life.
We all have only one life to live. I am living and working full of energy, now I am in Ho Chi Minh City, then in Hoi An or wherever I need to be. For a long time, I have always been concerned about environmental protection , sustainable business and giving back to the community" - Tru Lang shared with a smile on his lips.
Eye-catching dishes at Tru Lang's Mua Craft Sake restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City - Photo: TTD
Love work, love life
Planning to go to Da Nang to work with a non-governmental organization for two years, but until now, Mimi Vu (born in 1978) has lived mainly in Vietnam for nearly 20 years.
"I always hope for the best development for each individual in society, the whole country of Vietnam in which each person, each community, the economy and the environment can develop strongly and sustainably. My friend and I always ask each other what we can do to make this happen" - Mimi shared about the very important question that guided her career path in Vietnam.
With experience working for NGOs in many fields, Mimi and Van Ly co-founded Raise Partners, a consulting firm on sustainable development strategies for businesses in 2019.
Mimi Vu (right) at an event in Vietnam - Photo: NVCC
"People, society and the environment are closely related. In the past, many people and businesses thought that investing in people such as giving scholarships or investing in the environment such as planting trees were charitable activities unrelated to business.
We have worked very hard over the years with stakeholders to establish that environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors are a profitable business strategy,” said Mimi, who was born and raised in the US.
Mimi analyzed which businesses and workers can operate with peace of mind if the environment is flooded, threatened by storms, floods, and landslides, and who can live healthily if the food is unsafe? According to her, when there is a good living environment and individuals are educated to have good qualifications, those things will help businesses develop and the economy grow.
"As an investor or a business, you have to invest in the environmental, social and human factors around you. That is a responsibility to do but at the same time there are many opportunities there. At Raise Partners, we always say that Vietnam has a lot of potential. Solving Vietnam's challenges is your business opportunity and that is why you should come and stay in Vietnam" - she said.
She said that Raise Partners’ clients are mostly foreign-invested enterprises and foreign investment funds. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more foreign investors have contacted Raise Partners to learn about opportunities in Vietnam. The parties work together to build a sustainable development strategy to maximize their goals and ideas.
"More and more Vietnamese businesses are also starting to pay attention to ESG. ESG is a strategy to build a solid foundation from which to reach out to the world, exporting goods to global markets to take advantage of opportunities from free trade agreements that Vietnam has signed" - Mimi excitedly shared.
The appeal of 100 million people
"This morning, Sarah took half a day off to go to the eye clinic, also to observe the actual medical examination environment for work. Sarah thought that putting herself in the situation of people in remote areas having to go to Ho Chi Minh City to go to the doctor is very difficult.
"I believe that telemedicine technology will become popular because the COVID-19 pandemic has proven the feasibility of this model," Sarah Dang, chief representative of the Whitecoat telemedicine application in Vietnam, told Tuoi Tre on a day in early August.
Sarah was born and raised in the Netherlands but is no stranger to Vietnam. She has worked and managed the factory of VDH Safes, a safe manufacturing company in Vietnam for over 20 years. Over the past year, she has taken on a new job, bringing telemedicine services to develop in the Vietnamese market.
"This service is also suitable for monitoring some chronic diseases that require discussion with a doctor such as diabetes, high blood fat... Medicine will be sent to the home" - Sarah explains about Whitecoat's operating model.
Sarah Dang (second from right) with colleagues at Whitecoat office in Vietnam - Photo: NVCC
"The customers who buy packages from companies for remote medical examination services in Vietnam that Whitecoat targets are 0.1 - 0.2% of Vietnam's population of 100 million. I have the ambition to reach more people, but first I need to serve this 0.2% of customers well.
We started with big companies in Ho Chi Minh City so that people can get used to the new value and feel the difference" - the woman born in 1982 said about the potential of the Vietnamese market.
Changing people’s medical habits is not an easy task. However, according to Sarah, in the market of 100 million people in Vietnam, where there are many young people who love new things, have good incomes and are willing to spend on quality services, that is the basis for optimism.
"In Vietnam, I believe that good service will definitely be supported. Of course, we also need to pay attention to the price, but the most important thing is good service compared to the price. I believe that once we have experienced and felt the convenience, the remote medical examination service will be supported by the people" - she confidently said.
Sarah said she was very pleased that the Vietnamese Government had legal bases for remote medical examination, treatment and prescription services and was continuing to improve these regulations.
Vietnamese people must act to develop.
Mimi Vu said that many Vietnamese people like her are returning to Vietnam to start businesses. "For Vietnamese people, they see many opportunities to start a business, establish a career, and learn about their roots here. Vietnam is a place where you can live your dream, where you can be proud of your ethnic origin, which is not easy in the West now," Mimi confided.
According to her, in addition to the wave of Vietnamese people and overseas Vietnamese returning home, there is also the return of international students. Mimi said that in the past, Vietnamese international students often chose to stay abroad to work or start a business, but now many people choose to quickly return home to seize opportunities.
"After all, if Vietnam wants to develop, it cannot rely on foreigners but must be Vietnamese people acting for Vietnam's own development needs," she emphasized.
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