Witnessing many major cases of businessmen who find every way to bend over backwards, willing to be a “landing place” and “backyard” for corrupt officials to get rich, I cannot help but feel aversion. However, when reading the heartfelt letter of the daughter of the owner of Thanh Buoi car company, I had to “calm down” my pen.
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| Thanh Buoi Company organizes free trips to help transport relief goods for people in the North affected by the recent super typhoon Yagi. |
Simple brand but deep meaning
Honestly, when I read the information in the newspaper, the documents of the authorities with dry language, about the driver of Thanh Buoi bus company (Thanh Buoi Company Limited) causing an accident that killed 5 people; the son of the owner of the company ignored the process of checking the driver's license, measuring the driver's alcohol concentration before leaving the station... my pen trembled. The emotion at that time was anger at a bus company that seemed indifferent to human life.
But when I read the heartfelt letter from Mr. Thanh's daughter, as a farewell to her father (Mr. Le Duc Thanh, Director of Thanh Buoi Company, passed away on September 5, 2024), my initial emotions suddenly subsided.
Thousands of comments on Facebook under the letter, or even on mainstream newspapers, with farewells, touching old stories, thanks, and condolences to Mr. Thanh made me read the letter very carefully and slowly, and then respect it.
It is known that the famous Thanh Buoi brand is simply the combined name of the husband and wife (Mrs. Nguyen Thi Buoi). "The father is a driver, the mother is a busboy" working together from small to big things, traveling far and wide to earn a living, raise children, go through many hardships, and strive to establish a career.
Success through sweat
The daughter's letter depicts the entire "start-up" process of her father and mother. From a 16-seat car, from the scene of the husband being a driver, the wife being a bus conductor and "whenever there are customers with enough money for fuel, the mother is overjoyed", Mr. and Mrs. Thanh Buoi strived tirelessly to have a famous Vietnamese car company, with more than 300 cars and 1,300 employees, establishing an ecosystem with thousands of bus routes nationwide, "encroaching" on the fields of tourism, money transfer...
It all started with sweat dripping down my face, working hard every day and every hour, from driving a truck, then switching to a passenger bus: “Driving a passenger bus again, with my dad’s new method, the truck carried wind for a while before I had any customers, late at night my dad still went to load the truck.”
That success did not come from “hiding in the shadows” or “being a backyard, a landing place for corrupt officials”, but thanks to the eagerness to learn of a person with only a 7th grade education, patience, and lessons learned from real life: “For 40 years as my father’s son, I have never seen him sad, never heard him complain about difficulties, fatigue, or illness. My father said, easy things are done quickly, difficult things take a long time, you have to be patient, if everything is easy, everyone else will do it.”
Starting a business, through the eyes of a daughter, in the father there is also a constant search to make a difference: "Mom and Dad will run the bus again, will pioneer in the South to make the bus run continuously, run on time, not pick up passengers along the way, not cram passengers".
The difference that made the Thanh Buoi brand, until Mr. Thanh passed away, when the car company had not yet recovered from the disaster, still remained in many people. The owner of a business who used to be a passenger since the days of setting foot in Saigon to start a business exclaimed: “Whether right or wrong, Thanh Buoi is always associated with the footsteps of many young generations from the countryside who came to Saigon to find ambitions, to find dreams, to step out of poverty. Only those who have experienced the time of having to take a 'black car' crammed with 32 passengers on a 16-seat car, changing cars 4 times for a distance of just over 300 km, weaving in and out of traffic to pick up passengers will understand. When Thanh Buoi was born with a high-quality car brand, the journey to find knowledge, and the trips home after making a living became easier.”
And through the daughter's farewell to her father, Thanh Buoi's success is also due to his passion, his dedication to every small task, and his respect for customers as his own relatives. "In the old days, every customer wanted to ride in a car driven by his father, to be picked up by his father, and to have his father load the goods. The customer's goods were his father's goods, and his father carried the customer as if he were his own relatives."
“When I was young, I also sulked because at every meal, my father talked about cars, customers, and goods. Many times I told him, Dad, please remove your phone number from the hotline and leave it to the operator. He said no, he had to listen to what customers were saying to fix things. If only the staff listened, we would be distracted from our work and no longer know what was wrong. When I got older, I understood that I was his son, but customers, goods, and cars were his life. Without one of those things, he would die.”
The success of Thanh Buoi car company is also due to the boss's closeness and care for his employees as if they were his own relatives: "Dad cares about his employees, he is tolerant and generous, many acquaintances say they are sick, no matter how busy he is, he still stops work, many times goes to their homes to give them plants and leaves. Anyone who lives far away comes to see dad, asks him for leaves and plants to cure their illness, dad creates conditions for them to stay at dad's house to help them conveniently."
Not only me, many friends, even veteran businessmen have admired Mr. Thanh. A CEO exclaimed: “How much effort it took to build a business brand, to support a total of 1,300 workers and their families, to transport tens of millions of passengers over the years. Now, starting a business is more common, but Mr. Thanh's generation, people with an entrepreneurial spirit like him, are very rare. Even my generation, probably the same age as his daughter, when entering life, the majority chose to be salaried employees. Those who choose the business path are only a minority, and those who start a company to produce a certain product (even a small one) are even fewer.”
Teaching children from cooking to ironing clothes
Mr. Thanh's daughter choked up as she said that her father was successful and rich, but he didn't have super cars, golf clubs, Patek Philippe watches worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, or luxurious parties.
“Dad’s joy is not in lavish places, parties that last all night long, not in flashy places, but in growing trees. Dad grows trees because he loves trees and fruits, but I thought he was more like a farmer than a transporter. I never praised Dad’s pineapples for being delicious because I was afraid Dad would grow more, I was afraid Dad would have to work too much, travel far and get tired, but Dad, at this moment, here I want to say that the pineapples you grow are very delicious.”
Many officials and businessmen, I know many people who just want to give up, because they work hard, put all their effort, sacrifice everything to bring in money and fame, but their children are spoiled. As for his children, Mr. Thanh not only immerses himself in work, but is also a loving father who meticulously educates his children. "Not only does he teach his children manners and rules, but he also shows them how to cook soup, braise tofu, and iron clothes. When I asked my father to let me get married, he said, it's not called getting married, but starting a family, like starting a career, learning from my mother."
With his wife, whose name he combined to create a simple, rustic brand, but conveying the sustainability of being together, Mr. Thanh is always at home for warm family meals. “I like the way dad waits for mom to eat together. Whenever something happens, mom calls dad to tell him and asks if dad has eaten yet, what he ate with. The kitchen is always on fire because dad eats home-cooked meals every day.”
Just the owner of a bus company passed away, but caused grief for thousands of people because of his sudden departure.
A car company that is in a “scandalous” state still receives thousands of comments wishing to resume operations soon. Even the former editor-in-chief of Tuoi Tre newspaper, Ms. Vu Kim Hanh (currently the Chairwoman of the Association of High-Quality Vietnamese Goods Enterprises) wrote on her personal Facebook: “Since Thanh Buoi had an incident, I often hope that after handling it, they will soon resume operations. I think many poor families will also want to travel in a budget style like my family, they still need Thanh Buoi.”
A heartfelt letter that hundreds of people from all walks of life, touched, shared, even a former journalist had to write on Facebook: "For me, being a father who, when he passes away, can have his children say goodbye with loving words like the eldest daughter of the owner of Thanh Buoi bus company gave him is the most precious thing."
All those stories helped me separate my emotions and be clear in my writing. The fact that Thanh Buoi company caused an accident, was punished, and even had its license revoked… is another story. It is natural that a business will have to face the consequences if it makes a mistake. Business has harsh rules, “the business world is like a battlefield”, dare to do, dare to take responsibility. But the entrepreneurial spirit of a person like Mr. Thanh Buoi is truly admirable.
And I, like many others, hope that the rest will continue the spirit of their father, revive the business, and continue on the path that Mr. Thanh has chosen. In addition, we need to be more careful and strictly comply with the law to avoid regrettable mistakes.
By November 2023, Thanh Buoi Company will have its car transport business license revoked for 3 months and its car transport business license revoked indefinitely.
Mr. Le Duc Thanh fell seriously ill and passed away on September 5, 2024.
Source: https://baodautu.vn/toi-da-phai-ne-trong-du-doanh-nghiep-tai-tieng-d225970.html
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