Word: minh
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Nguyen Gia Thieu's neighbors rarely saw him, except when they glimpsed his silver Mercedes gliding through the gates of his three-story villa in Ho Chi Minh City. His lifestyle?the house, the servants, the beauty-queen wife?befitted one of Vietnam's top entrepreneurs, but it infuriated the community. One neighbor snarls, "They are too rich to even look at ordinary people." So there was no sympathy on Jan. 7 when police arrested Thieu, 38, then raided his house, hauling off reams of documents and more than $250,000 in cash. The charge: his Dong Nam Telecom Trade...
...Western business and technical expertise. The Hanoi government courts them with preferential tax rates, relaxed visa requirements, even low-interest loans. "It's the best of both worlds," says David Thai, 30, who returned in 1995 and now runs Viet Thai International, a coffee business in Ho Chi Minh City. "In business terms, it's pretty much a license to kill...
...Since 1987, when the government first opened its doors to them, more than 150,000 Viet Kieu have returned to work for multinational corporations, nongovernmental organizations or themselves. There are more than 700 Viet Kieu-owned enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City alone. Phil Tran's animation company, Glass Egg Digital Media, is one of them. But, says the 39-year-old whose family departed Saigon when he was 12, "There's always been tension between those who stayed and those who left." Many Vietnamese see returnees as carpetbaggers who escaped the lean 1980s and now flaunt their wealth. Viet...
...with false promises of American work visas. The following month, police began chasing Ho Tran Lap, a Viet Kieu businessman accused of running an illegal long-distance calling service; he's still on the lam. And on Jan. 16, a Vietnamese-American who runs a company in Ho Chi Minh City that makes brushes and combs was stabbed in the forehead?the result, police suspect, of a business dispute...
...communicate with spirits via s?ances. Communist leaders replaced the church's ruling hierarchy with a government-supervised council after the fall of Saigon in 1975, but the faith endures for millions of Vietnamese. "God teaches us that everyone is equal and there are many paths," says Doan Tuong Minh, 77, who has followed Caodaism since she was 18. "If you open your heart, your third eye will open, and God will give you peace." In the halls of the Holy See, it seems to make sense. Then again, maybe it's all those pink lotuses...