Originally Posted by Kualalumpur
I am not against, but they must be trained, and carefully selected to avoid real mess, I have personal and a professionnal experience, and in my mind, worldwide, if people are too contaminated by the "God money" syndrome, it is gone on all sides, no matter how good their families are.
About how rich Vietnamese are, just put it simple. Check the price per square meter in Hanoi, see how many people are owner of their houses, and try to figure out how they bought it. Guess how those bar girl can have their own flat as owners, at 70-80000USD. Look at the amazing amount of cars in Hanoi and Saigon that are brand new, with a nearly 100% tax compared to foreign prices. Since January, about three dozens of Humvee have been sold in Hanoi alone.
The money is circulating in the families, but they will choose for what purpose. I know peoples who clean the motorbikes on the street, yet have a 600000USD house in Tay Ho. If a maid in HN or HCMC who gets 2 millions VND a month - already expensive - need 40 or 50000USD, she will ask her family and relatives, and in most cases she can get it within days. There is a huge amount of money circulating,
About your fresh engineer that earns 200-300USD a month, he will have as well a percentage from the supplies companies, the services, the customers...
So it is 200-300USD a month of salary, and a couple thousands USD a month of tips and percentages, if he is a little bit clever.
I work for a very large foreign company, and everything was tipped from up to down, all the people around me were getting their tips on everything, even a famous coffee place near Nha Tho.
My driver arranged to get 3000 to 5000VND each time I took a coffee and a pastry from there. And that driver was paid over 1200USD a month. For my house renting, he got 200 USD each month out of 1600USD renting. And my secretary, who found the house, 50USD each month.
Discussing with many foreigners, and vietnameses, it is a common situation. My Vietnamese friend who got a house built just in front of Westlake rented an architect.
Apart from his salary, the architect got money because he allowed the people to use old bricks here and there and resell the good quality ones, put more sand in the concrete and resell the spare good concrete, use some Chinese electric cables hidden in the walls instead of the Korean imported ones, make some marble pieces a little bit smaller, dilute the painting a little bit, everything was tipped and calculated in a way or another to earn more and more. That's where it starts to be very dangerous with gals. If they are trained to think like that, and there are many, they will not care to screw the husband to earn 50US more a month, or for the perspective to earn much more in a couple of years with their boyfriend. They can make big painful cheats for what we would consider to be worthless...
If a Vietnamese wants to have a job in a large company I know of, you get so much tips and others unclean money, that you have to pay 10 to 20000USD if you want to be employed. I know that from sight. And there are around a thousand people who pay each year to be employed in that company, that still gets larger and larger. That job is paid officially 400USD a month maximum. But they all have deluxe cars and huge houses, sometimes 2 or three houses, after a couple of years of work.
People do not realize that the most important is not the salary, it is the convenience to earn more money that is important.
There is no meaning to give the salaries in Vietnam, because the salary is absolutely nothing in the monthly income. Let's talk about a waitress in a club, they rarely get paid more than 2-3 millions per month. But if they have a rich foreigner every night + working sometimes as escort/guide, or in a massage place, they get an income of 1-2000USD per month. If that foreigner ask them for a good taxi, a good place to stay, a good hotel, they get additional tips. On one side their salary is less than 200USD, so they are very poor apparently, but on the other side they earn 1500USD/month.
|