Leave or Stay, it Is Not the Matter

It was a Wednesday evening, October 12th 2016. At Tan Son Nhat International Airport, the main airport of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Hung Nguyen was bidding his farewell to his family and his friends before leaving for Germany on a two-year Master Program in European Studies, European University of Flensburg. They gathered for a group photo, broadly smiled and gave Hung best wishes for his upcoming trip. Hung and his friends are a group of close friends, studying bachelor together at in International Relations. Two months ago, the group also stood here, saying goodbye to another classmate, Uyen Phan. Uyen left Vietnam in August for studying in the United States. However, she chose another path, she started again from bachelor degree in another major which can help her find a job easily after graduation in the U.S.

Two years ago, there was a hot story on Vietnamese media: 12/13 winners of Road to Olympia Peak did not return to Vietnam after graduation. Road to Olympia Peak is the leading knowledge game show for high school students in Vietnam, which has been broadcasted on the national channel Vietnam Television annually since 2000. The final winner of each year gets a full scholarship of 35,000 USD in Australia. Now the number increases to 15/16 with only one winner returned to Vietnam, while the rest stayed in Australia to work, or moved to other countries to continue their higher study.

Hung, Uyen and the game show’s winners are among the new wave of Vietnamese migrants in the world, who travel abroad for their study or for work in developed countries. Some of them have returned, but many of them chose to stay. And the number of Vietnamese leaving the country is rising year by year. According to International Organization of Migration (IOM), in 2015 there were 2,558,678 Vietnamese leaving outside their country of origin, which took 2.67% of all Vietnamese citizens. With the data was counted since 1990, it means on average there are about 100,000 Vietnamese leaving the country every year, making Vietnam’s stand in the top 10 emigration countries in East Asia and Pacific in 2013 according to Migration and Remittances Factbook 2016 of World Bank Group. Are these numbers big enough to think about?

Vietnamese migrants, a quick glance

If you meet an Asian-looking person, with yellow skin, black hair and small eyes somewhere in Europe or America nowadays, don’t quickly assume that he is originally Chinese, he might have his ancestors coming from Vietnam. Vietnamese has a history of migration for over a century, since the first immigrants from French Indochina, the French colony included Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia; came to Europe in early 20th century to work and to fight against both the Central Powers in World War I. There were also students from wealthy families coming to France to study at that time. This wave of immigrants lasted till 1954, when the French withdrew from Indochina and the infamous Vietnam War began. The next generation turned their major destination into the United States of America when the Americans got their influence in the region during the Vietnam War, with students and families of South Vietnam’s officers. They became a huge group when the war ended in 1975 with millions of people fleeing from the fear of Communism and seeking for asylum in the U.S, Europe, Australia and some other developed countries. There was another group of Vietnamese migrants leaving from Vietnam in 1980s to Red Europe as a labour and education corporation in Communist bloc, which made Vietnamese now become one of biggest immigrant groups in Eastern Europe. Then comes the current wave of Vietnamese migrants since the end of 1990s. This group consists of people who leave the country for better education or higher paid jobs in both developed and developing countries, no matter America or Europe, Japan or Singapore, United Arab Emirates or Qatar.

The more to leave, the more to worry

And the trend seems to be growing now. On a report from Migration Policy Institute in 2015 by Karl Miller, among 100,000 Vietnamese leaving the country each year, labour migration has a strong increase. Between 2000 and 2010, labour migration had the annual growth rate of 5.5%. On average, about 90,000 Vietnamese now leave Vietnam each year to work on contract overseas. There were 552,000 migrants from Vietnam that are tertiary-educated in 2011, which meant nearly one-fifth of the total migrants had finished education in college or university, the number must be increased now when there are more and more students going overseas for their education. Up to now, Vietnamese students can be found in over 50 countries, with 90% paying for their own schooling. Kate Miller also revealed that between 2000 and 2014, enrolment of Vietnamese students in American educational institutions got an impressive growth rate at more than 700% though the U.S. is one of the most expensive destinations, marking Vietnam at the sixth

in top 10 country of foreign students in the States with 29,101 students in December, 2016. With that high number of overseas students, there is a sad truth: nearly 70% of them do not come back home after graduation in 2011 according to Vietnam News, and that percentage seems not likely to drop down now.

The ongoing migrant flows is something problematic to Vietnam, a country with a population of approximately 95,000,000 in 2016 on United Nations database, with annual GDP growth rate around 6% and GDP per capita that has tripled to over 2000 U.S. dollars in 10 years. That should be a promising vision for young people. Hence, these numbers rang the bell. National media filled their headlines with the so-called “brain drain”, expressing their worry to the issue. It also became a nationwide debate on social media and national newspapers with the topic “Stay or return”, involving students, parents, government officers and experts. “Brain drain” even came into the conversation between former President of the United States Barrack Obama and Vietnamese youngsters during his visit to Vietnam in May 2016 when a young girl asked him how Vietnamese firms and government can keep their talents. For Vietnamese government, the headache of “brain drain” is getting more severe.

What makes them leave?

Media and experts tried to find the answer of why young Vietnamese are leaving the country. In general, there were several typical causes: people are losing their trust to the government and they want a better quality of life. As a country with high corruption rate, which is ranked 113/176 in Corruption Perceptions Index 2016 by Transparency International, Vietnam is becoming less preferable for students when they decide their post-graduation life. Imagine that you have to pay someone a big amount of money to get hired into an office or pay bribes to Vietnamese officials from 20% to 50 % of your project budget to get it finished if you are an entrepreneur, you will be likely discouraged from going back home. Life quality is also considerable. First, Vietnamese education system is still struggle to reform, especially in higher-education which is criticized as “old-fashioned” and “unpractical” by experts and employers. Second, pollution in Vietnam is getting more serious. While air pollution in two big cities Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh is often measured as “unhealthy”, the catastrophe of sea pollution due to steel production of a foreign company in Central Vietnam in 2016 has increased the number of fishermen leaving their home for making ends meet in big cities or becoming export labours, also

raising health risk in people. “You don’t want to raise your kids — no job is so important that it’s okay if your children have asthma and they can’t breathe.”, said Obama. Vietnamese people usually think for their next generation; they just do not want their kids to grow up with ashes around their nose. But are they enough to see the big picture?

Not really.

Though trust in the system and quality of life might be crucial, many young people only think of them as supporting factors. In fact, though having a big number of migrants, Vietnam is still behind other fellows in South East Asia region: Philippines, Indonesia and Myanmar. And it is even farther behind other countries in Asia-Pacific, even developed Western Europe countries like Germany or United Kingdom in World Bank’s Migration and Remittances Factbook 2016. Whether the issue might be overrated, there should be something bigger behind the emigration happening all over the world, regardless developing or developed countries.

Globalisation should be another explanation for this.

“We choose the best place that fits us”

According to the United Nations, in 2015 the number of international migrants, who live in a country other than their birth country, reached 244 million, increasing 41% comparing to that in 2000. And 2.5 millions Vietnamese migrants are only 1% of this. In the era of globalisation has been in its blossom period since the end of Cold War. In globalisation era, transactions and interdependence between countries grow, meaning that levels of money, ideas, messages, business or people crossing borders are getting higher. With globalisation, less fences are imposed. Like European Union, the birth of Schengen Area leading to visa-free entry to all citizens of member countries, increasing movement between borders. In South East Asia, 20 years ago it was really hard for a Vietnamese to travel to Thailand, due to complicated visa regulations but now it is just 2 hours of flying with a passport due to arrangement between member states of the Association of South East Asian Nations (or ASEAN). The appearance of international institutions like International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Trade Organization (WTO) or numerous agreements made by governments also reduce barriers in trade, investment and capital flows, bringing more opportunities for people who want to do their own business somewhere away from home. Taking Zalora Group as an example. Zalora Group is an e-retailer founded by a German company named Rocket Internet with operations in several East Asian countries including Vietnam, Indonesia,

Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brunei. Thanks to this international operations, it brought Doan Chu a chance to work overseas. Doan Chu, 26, a talented Vietnamese girl, is now a PR executive in Zalora headquarter in Singapore. Working as a PR manager in Vietnam branch for 2 years, Doan got promoted to regional office last year. She is now working in an international environment, speaking English all the time and living an expat life. Doan is still traveling between Singapore and Vietnam quite often to visit her family and it is not a problem when it only takes one and a half hour to get home.

The same situation happened to Phuong Pham, a freelance journalist based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Phuong has working experience in London and Bangkok for BBC, now she lives in Ho Chi Minh City but still travels between Thailand and Vietnam for her feature stories for international media. For her job, sometimes Phuong stays half of a month in Bangkok and the other in her home base and she does not find any problem with it. Another colleague of Phuong, Eric San Juan feels the same. He has been a correspondent working for Agencia EFE, the largest Spanish-speaking news agency, in Vietnam and Philippines since 2009. “Before, young Spanish never left the country”, said Eric. But now he can see more of his countrymen around Asia during his 8 years of living here. What Doan, Phuong and Eric are doing now can be seen as the active labour mobility happened all over the world thanks to globalisation. With the expansion of market and the appearance of multinational companies, there are more opportunities for all citizenships. In Google regional office in Singapore for instance, there are not only Singaporeans but also Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesians, Australians and even staff from European countries working in projects and solutions for every specific market. And you can find the same image in many offices around the world. Even in Europe, with the aging population, there are more demand in semi-skilled and unskilled workers like construction builders or cleaning staff which creates more opportunities for labours from developing countries who can meet that demand.

But young people only choose to work overseas when they are ready for it. Growing up in when information is booming, these generations have a different mentality from their parents. Youngsters now are usually seen as “global citizens” who are a part of a global society. They see migration is a way to experience the wider world and to gain independence, rather than escaping from their country. “We know who we are and we also know how to integrate into the world. We only choose the best place that fits us”, said Thu Pham, founder of ICHA, a project that helps young Vietnamese gain practical experience by traveling trips along Vietnam and direct interaction

with different working environments. Graduated in Education and Psychology in the U.S, Thu chose to return to Vietnam because she wants to apply what she learnt into Vietnam society. Thu believes psychology and education are still less developed so there are more opportunities for her. “Opportunities to try new things” is also the reason that took Giang Dang, a PhD in Development Economics in Austria, back to Vietnam. Acknowledging the need of social studies in Vietnam, he decided to go back to experiment and do something to help. “I’m not regret of my decision to return after 13 years, I’m happy with what I am doing now”, Giang said.

It’s all about opportunities

“So do you mind going back?”. I asked Doan about her future plan. “I don’t mind. No matter where I live, to me it’s more important that what I can do”, she replied. In her point of view, Doan thinks Vietnam needs to let its young generations see more opportunities if it wants them to return. Doan affirms Vietnam is a growing market, that means there will be more opportunities for young people. Giang shares a similar perspective: “people need a good environment to develop, it means a better administration and welfare from Vietnamese government is necessary”. Not only the government needs to take action but also the young Vietnamese themselves. “Those who studied in Vietnam value seniority and somehow less adaptable to change while graduates of international schools or returning from abroad are more open to new things and can easily adapt”, said Vanessa Ventura, an expat who has been living in Ho Chi Minh City for 4 years. In Vanessa eyes, one of immovable weakness of Vietnamese youngsters when they go to work is about their work style and attitude. Young Vietnamese are nice and easy to work with, although sometimes they want everything to happen fast, which means more money and fast promotion. As an employer, she has personally experienced young talents who confirm to join and cancels one day before. However, “Vietnam is still a lucrative market and students who study abroad have lots of opportunities here”, said Vanessa.

How about Hung? He has no intention yet, but he thinks he will stay for a while to work for experience and savings then return home as a high-quality educator. “As long as you are excellent, you can stay close to your family while still having time to see the world”, he concluded.