Huge 4x4

Loship will use the investment to expand its delivery network, human resource, technology and market. — Photo tvphapluat.vn

HÀ NỘI — Loship, Việt Nam’s fast-growing one-hour-delivery e-commerce startup, has announced its latest investment from Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn.

Tallinn participated in Loship’s Series C funding through his investment vehicle MetaPlanet Holdings.

This capital injection marks Loship as the first portfolio company of MetaPlanet in Việt Nam and Southeast Asia. The investment comes four months after the startup secured capital in a bridge round led by Vulpes Investment Management.

According to Loship CEO Nguyễn Hoàng Trung, the fresh capital will be spent on expanding the firm’s delivery network, human resource, technology and market.

“A huge portion of the funding will be poured into upgrading our app and developing technologies in Loship,” Trung said, adding that they will also ramp up their marketing strategies to cement Loship’s presence in the domestic market.

“It didn’t take me very long to realize Loship was on to something,” Loship quoted Tallinn as saying in its announcement.

“MetaPlanet is planning to pay more attention to the rapidly growing economies in Southeast Asia. So I’m delighted to be off to a strong start in Việt Nam by adding Loship as our first portfolio company there.”

Founded in 2017, Loship traces its roots back to Lozi, a review app allowing users to find food, beverage, and coffee shops, before transitioning into a one-hour-delivery services platform.

Loship has closed its series A and B rounds from investors such as South Korea’s Smilegate Investment, Hana Financial Group, DTNI, and Golden Gate Ventures. — VNS

Dragon fruits exported to Thailand

Statistics from the Department of Agro-Processing and Market Development show that total fruit and vegetable export revenue in January was USD260m, a decrease of 7.6% compared to the same period last year.

More notably, the total export revenue to Thailand has been on the rise. Vietnam often had an import surplus of fruit and vegetables from Thailand but the situation changed in 2020 when Vietnam exported USD157m worth of vegetables and fruits to Thailand, an increase of 209.7% compared to 2019.

Vietnam imported USD78m worth of vegetables and fruits from Thailand in 2020, a huge decrease from 2019’s USD487m worth of products. In December 2020, Vietnam imported USD8.5m and exported USD8.2m worth of products from Thailand.

In January, Vietnam imported USD7.2m worth of products from Thailand and exported USD16.2m worth of products. The majority of the products exported to Thailand are dragon fruits, mango, longan and litchi.

The situation is set to worsen and Hanoi has to pay due attention, they add.

In the last week of February, the Red River section that flows through Lao Cai Province in northern Vietnam has become so clear that there are some shallow areas towards the banks where the river bed can be seen at a depth of one meter. This is a highly unusual development because the Red River is known for its reddish or pinkish hue.

Dao Trong Tu, head of the executive board of the Vietnam Rivers Network, said one possible reason for the changes seen in the Red River is rooted in China. A series of hydropower plants and reservoirs operated by China further upstream could have held back alluvium, he said.

The Red River, over 1,100 km long, originates in China and flows through 26 localities in northern Vietnam including Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Phu Tho, Vinh Phuc and Hanoi, with a combined population of more than 26 million. The river section that flows through Vietnam is about 510 km long.

Tu said that of Red River’s total water volume of 133 billion cubic meters, China contributes 39 percent, the rest is from Vietnam (60 percent) and Laos (1 percent). The amount of alluvium that comes in from China is huge, at around 160 to 200 million tonnes per year.

The Red River has three tributaries in Vietnam – the Da, Lo and Thao rivers. In upstream parts of these rivers, China has completed several of 52 planned hydropower plants.

China’s dams are likely holding a large amount of sediment, stopping it from flowing downstream to Vietnam.

“Consequently, agriculture activities in the Red River delta are strongly affected,” Tu said.

The lack of alluvium might have caused the riverbeds to sink lower, preventing water from flowing into farmers’ fields. Authorities are, therefore, forced to release around three to five billion cu.m of water every year from dams in Hoa Binh and Tuyen Quang provinces for irrigation.

Agreeing with Tu, Nguyen Lan Chau, Deputy Director of Institute of Mechanics and Environment Engineering, under the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations, said China’s hydropower plants could be considered a key reason for the drastic reduction in the amount of alluvium in the Red River.

Chau said the river water in Lao Cai has been getting clearer after China began operating two major power plants on the upstream part of Thao River.

The first one is Nanshan, with holding capacity of 300 million cu.m of water and the second one is Madushan, which can hold more than 550 million cu.m. The two dams are 140 km and 100 km away from the Vietnamese border.

Chau said her studies show that the river’s clear color in Lao Cai has been randomly seen in recent years, especially in the dry season. Water flow in the river has also been reduced, she added.

She said Beijing has begun operating 12 of 29 dams planned in the upstream area of the Thao River, 11 among 12 on the Da River, and eight plants on the Lo and Gam rivers.

“The lower amount of alluvium from the upper Red River makes it hard for Vietnam to cultivate, and increases erosion along rivers in downstream sections,” Chau said.

Floods and droughts

Numbers that indicate flood levels on the Red River under the Long Bien Bridge, Hanoi, August 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

Tu said China’s dams typically cause floods in Vietnam in the rainy season, when Beijing needs to release water to ensure the reservoirs’ safety. The water flow in this season accounts for 70 percent of the whole year’s flow due to geological and climatic conditions.

“This creates the situation where Vietnam is constantly bombarded by floods.”

He also said the risk of dam collapse is a possible disaster that people downstream cannot ignore.

Chau said Vietnam has suffered many times from flash floods caused by China. In 2015, there was a flood with an amplitude of three meters in Lao Cai; in 2006, the flood amplitude was over 10 meters in a section of the Da River in Muong Te District, Lai Chau Province; another flood the same year, which was caused by a broken dam in the upper part of Thao River, surpassed alarm level 2 (82 meters), and left two people dead. In 2007, the flood amplitude was over four meters in the Nam Na River in Lao Cai’s Bat Xat District.

In August 2020, authorities in China’s Hekou Yao County informed their Lao Cai counterparts that the Madushan Dam would open its floodgates as heavy rains had caused the dam to reach its maximum capacity. They did not provide a specific figure, only saying that water levels in the Red River would be higher, prompting Vietnam’s northern localities to take precautions without really knowing what to prepare for.

The third problem, Tu and Chau said, is drought during the dry season, when dam operators store water in their reservoirs.

Chau’s studies have shown that in January and March 2007, the water flowing into to Hoa Binh hydropower plant in Vietnam was at the lowest level in a century, at 140 cu.m and 145 cu.m per second. Additionally, China’s night and day regulation mode made for huge fluctuations of water levels in the Da, Thao, and Lo rivers, leading to a higher risk of riverbank erosion.

Tu said he was very worried that Vietnam does not have a bilateral mechanism for cooperation with China on the Red River despite Hanoi’s attempts to reach one. Tu and his colleagues have visited China to discuss this issue, but things haven’t changed.

One possible mechanism that should be considered is similar to that of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), where some riparian countries’ leaders exchange information and views regularly.

Tu said that when China does not provide detailed information, Vietnam could not have good preparation to react in urgent cases. For example, in 2020, China announced when it would release water from its dams, but did not say how much . Vietnam did not know how to measure the impacts on economic and civil activities in order to prepare an adequate response.

He said the situation will only worsen in the future if no agreement is reached on joint management of rivers that flow through both countries.

It’s time to fess up: after several years of living in Vietnam, my Vietnamese language skills remain a disaster. It’s a veritable train wreck, there’s no getting around it.

I have excuses which I replay in my mind in an effort to dull the pain of defeat, most of which are pretty lame. Vietnamese is a tough language for most foreigners to grasp, with endless pronunciation quirks representing the biggest obstacle between us and success. Fair enough, we all know that.

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants to practice their English with us, so we, as guests, should indulge them, even at the expense of our own progress. That approach conveniently twists a feeble excuse for tires spinning in mud into a benevolent gesture, so that we feel we are making a contribution to the community when the truth is it’s laziness on the part of us foreigners.

Those damn accents are the crux of the problem, and the cause for much despair, and there are lots of them – rising, falling, short, long, flat, bim, bam, bop, humpty, dumpty, and probably a few I’m forgetting.

As if that’s not enough, sometimes the accents are stacked up on top of letters, while others appear underneath – a circle, a French-style circumflex hat thingy, a teeny-weeny dot, and a rising or falling symbol. The speaker needs to decipher them together with all the corresponding letters, then amalgamate the entire mess, and spit it all out masterfully in one fell swoop.

Some words demand complementing facial movements and gesticulations, which are as critical to the word as the letters and accents, such that without those gyrations a listener won’t have the faintest idea what we’re on about.

All that is great theory, very logical, so now let’s put ourselves in a day-to-day scenario in the local market. Check out this linguistic work of art: ‘cá lóc’ (snakehead fish), a freshwater beauty commonly used in Vietnamese soups and hotpots.

‘Cá’ is the generic term for fish – pretty straightforward if pronounced with a rising tone. (If it’s so simple, why do I screw it up so often? It’s only two damn letters.)

I try various versions of it with moderate success, then finally in desperation making a swerving, twisting motion with my hand to mimic a fish wriggling through water, which works just fine.

The real challenge comes with ‘lóc’ because we must billow out our cheeks ever so slightly for a brief moment or the word will be incomplete and unintelligible, just as if letters were absent. I’ve tested it ad nauseam and am thrilled to report that at least this one mystery has been resolved:

Me: “Ca”

Poor Vietnamese victim trying to understand: (blank stare)

Me: “Ca”

Victim: “Cá? Cà?”

Me: “CA!!” (thinking if I say it louder it will be easier to understand, but in fact it just intimidates the victim, ultimately hindering communication)

Victim: “Tên ngốc này đang muốn nói gì vậy?” which loosely translates to “What is this idiot trying to say?”

Me: “Cà” (with a falling tone) which when uttered alone defaults to “cà pháo,” that funny little oft-pickled round, white member of the eggplant family, which has absolutely sod all to do with the fish at hand.

Me: “Cá lóc” (without billowing my cheeks)

Victim: (blank stare)

Me: “Cá lóc’ (billowing cheeks)

Victim: “Cá lóc!” followed by a huge grin as light suddenly goes on…

The cheek billowing business also includes names, such as ‘Ngọc’ (which means jade or a precious stone) and ‘Lộc’ (a plant bud, also symbolizing fortune or wealth).

When researching this piece, I found a 56-second instructional video about how to pronounce the Vietnamese name ‘Ngoc.’ No joke, it’s out there.

In an effort to repair my damaged ego, I watch it again and again doubled over laughing at some of the attempts to say it. One university official at a graduation ceremony (of all places to muff up a name!) actually said ‘En-gok’ when congratulating a student named Ngoc.

En-gok!

After years of toiling away, studying your arse off in a foreign language, that’s what they call you? The Vietnamese student never blinked, took his diploma with gratitude and carried on, where many of us would have kicked the presenter in the shins.

Thinking of that clip lifts my spirits even during the darkest hours of Vietnamese linguistic hell.

Language limitations have never presented an obstacle to forging friendship with locals in Vietnam, a true testament to the welcoming spirit of the Vietnamese. Some of my dearest friendships are with people who can’t understand a word I’m saying and vice versa, so we’ve found ways to understand each other through our movements, demeanour, sleight of hand tricks, pantomime, sketching in the dirt, and dancing little jigs.

Props help too, so I carry fruit around with me in case the situation gets dicey.

Here is an excerpt from a real-life conversation between myself and the lady that sells vegetables and fruit up the street:

Me: “Xin chao!”

Lady hears: “Xin chao!”

Me: “Tôi hy vọng bạn tận hưởng một ngày!” (I hope you enjoy the day!)

Lady hears: “Tôi chúc bạn một ngày kinh hoàng.” (I wish you a horrid day.)

Then I hand her a tangerine, a peace offering in the event I insulted her, which I sensed I had.

Me: “Tôi hy vọng điều này làm cho bạn bị ốm!” (I hope this makes you ill!)

Lady laughs uncontrollably: “Bạn hoàn toàn mất trí.” (You are surely insane)

Staying with a commercial theme, I’ve realized a healthy dialogue really takes two to tango. Some people squint and make an effort to understand, others look at me as if I’m from a faraway planet, and the odd person grasps the message of my rant immediately.

The elderly lady in the local market definitely gets it, but that’s mostly thanks to her intuitive skills and ability to anticipate. She knows that nine times out of 10 I forget something critical to the success of my recipe and will return to fetch it, and, I suspect, often knows what I’m going to request before I do so.

I’ll say ‘quen hung que’ (forget basil) and she hands over that treasured herb without further ado. No blank stares, she has a mind like a trap, maybe even knows which dish I’m trying to make (unlikely since I make them up as I go). She also gives me a humble, foreigner-sized portion of chili peppers instead of the enormous clump locals get, tosses in coriander and spring onions knowing they’ll come in handy, often saving me another trip.

Let’s move over to Daytime Headquarters for another glittering example of what us students are up against. I always drink the same black coffee at HQ and the entire staff know it. The confusion starts based on the weather and how far I’ve walked – I sometimes drink hot tea on the side, sometimes cold.

‘Nóng’ is hot – I have it down more or less, so people know what I mean.

The issue is with ‘đá,’ meaning ice, rock, icicle, or ice cube. The word is only two bloody letters, what could possibly go wrong?

I started off by using all possible pronunciations of the word which include ‘đã’ (means ‘is already/was’ and ‘right away’), ‘da’ (skin), ‘da’ (leather), ‘da’ (cloth), and đá (ice), which is what I was trying to say in the first place.

The staff try to stifle their giggles, or pretend they’re laughing at something else, but I know exactly what they’re up to, and I can’t blame them in the least.

Stubborn as always, I keep flailing away like a blindfolded kid trying to hit a pinata at a party. I’ve noted greater success with ‘đá’ if I say it with a screech and a little scream, like a crow, as if I was angry or being bitten by a snake.

Despite all these challenges, sooner or later I will speak passable Vietnamese, simply because I can’t avoid success forever. The fact is if enough monkeys tapped on enough typewriters for long enough, they would spit out the entire works of William Shakespeare.

There is a faint glimmer of hope – after all, even an old, blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.