[Vnbiz] Tet and unbelievable shocking facts

Sun Feb 25 09:36:24 PST 2007

Brother Hoanh,

You analyze like a true lawyer.  I concur.

Governance.  Leadership.  Citizenship.

These are interconnected.  In America, leaders will be the first to be
scrutinized.  In Vietnam, the youth generation will bear the blame. The
blaming game goes on for a few days, people who live there acted wtih
shocking reation, and then life goes back to normal.  Nobody questions why
young people turned out like that in the first place.

On 2/25/07, Tran Dinh Hoanh <tdhoanh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
>
> Dear brother Lam & CACC,
>
> I agree with you absolutely, brother Lam.  Both the organizer and the
> disorderly people are to be blamed.
>
> But we are not really in the blaming game here.  We are trying to solve
> the problem, right?  In this kind of issue (and thousands of other social
> issues), we always talk about a two-prong approach:  The long-term prong is
> education for the people, the immediate short-term prong is government
> action.
>
> I would like to repeat the key point I have made in this case that "The
> press doesn't see the problem with the government organizers and only blames
> people instead."  That is  a wrong attitude, which is very detrimental to
> the country's development.
>
> When I talk about the government's responsibility (the short-term prong of
> our two-prong solution), I actually think about this scenario:  The
> government is pressed into seriously taking its responsibility for public
> safety (when organizing Tet festival); the government then comes up with
> propaganda methods to educate the public about improper/proper behavior
> (during the festival); the government then arrests disorderly people and
> prosecutes them criminally (for conduct like stealing flowers, food, or
> coins in water fountains).  These arrests and prosecutions will "educate"
> all the people about bad behavior and will stop 98 percent of bad conduct by
> most people (The 2 percent left is for hardcored criminal).  This scenarios
> means:  From the short-term solution (of government responsibility) will
> come the long-term solution (of educating people).
>
> The point is:  If you are a good manager, your people don't do crazy
> thing.  If your people do crazy things, your FIRST question should ALWAYS be
>  "What have I done wrong?"  If we are not self-disciplined like that, we go
> nowhere.
>
> Let me repeat this:  If your people do crazy things, your FIRST question
> should ALWAYS be "What have I done wrong?"
>
> The government should ask itself first "What did we do wrong?",  whenever
> something goes wrong. The press should ask first about "management
> responsibility" (of the government), whenever something goes wrong.
>
> Then we will be happy to see that when the managers do things right, their
> people act like model citizens.  When the managers do things wrong, their
> people may act like jerks.
>
> Let me remind you brothers/sisters about this story that I posted here
> about two months ago.  I was on an airplane from Hong Kong to Phnompeng.
> Before boarding in Hong Kong, all passengers had to go through custom.
> Everyone was orderly, quiet and polite.  This same group of passengers again
> had to go through custom at Phnompeng airport.  But now in Phnompeng, they
> became disorderly, they jumped lines, they talked loudly, they said stupid
> impolite jokes, they were nasty to each other.  How do we explain
> the incredible behavioral transformation of the same group of people within
> a span of two hours?  Of course, we all can see that this behavioral
> transformation has little to do with this group of passenger, but it has a
> lot to do with the management at Hong Kong airport and Phnompeng airport.
>
> Yes, let's educate our people about good behavior.  But let's demand that
> our government managers do a good management job first.
>
> Have a good day!
>
> Hoanh
> __________________________
>
> On 2/25/07, Dao Xuan Lam - Branch Manager (G-mail) <daoxuanlam at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
> >
> >
> >
> >  Dear brothers and sisters,
> >
> > I agree with brothers Hoanh and Tram's ideas generally. I understand
> > that if I point one of my fingers at my staff when he/she made a mistake,
> > for instant, then four other fingers of mine point back myself. The
> > organising committee / organisers and or the related bodies of the event
> > should be blamed, etc, it is no questioning.
> >
> > But the problem(s) firstly initiated from the people's thinking,
> > behaviours, and sense toward the community. Just take a quick look at the
> > "happy/satisfied faces" of those persons while they were doing such wrong
> > things, I can't stand them.
> >
> >  Many expats keep asking me re. the worst thing in Viet Nam - the
> > traffic and I repeatedly explained that the streets/ roads in other
> > countries are not so wider compared to the ones in Viet Nam but every one
> > travel/move on the right lanes/ tracks, on the contrary, in Viet Nam so many
> > people  travel/move on whatever lanes/tracks that they want to. And my
> > answer is the first and foremost thing need to be done is to get the
> > people's thinking attitude changed and secondly is the combination of
> > traffic facilities/ infrastructures and traffic control /enforcement &
> > management.
> >
> > I assume that you will agree with me that if the little children steal
> > small thing(s) and if not well educated  and or no proper measures taken
> > then they gradually steal the big/huge ones, one day.
> >
> > Just a quick note to share with you all.
> >
> > Bye for now and good nite.
> >
> > Dao Xuan Lam
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >
> > *From:* Tran Dinh Hoanh <tdhoanh at gmail.com>
> > *To:* vnbiz at vietlinks.net
> > *Sent:* Sunday, February 25, 2007 10:35 AM
> > *Subject:* Re: [Vnbiz] Tet and unbelievable shocking facts
> >
> >
> > [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
> >
> >
> >  ------------------------------
> >
> > Dear CACC,
> >
> > If you go to a concert and the concert participants have all kinds of
> > disorderly conduct like drinking, trashing, fighting, who are you going to
> > blame?  The disorderly people?  Yes, of course.  But wouldn't
> > you immediately point the finger at the concert organizer?  The organizer
> > has a legal duty to make sure that things are safe for concert goers.
> >
> > Shouldn't the HCMC government, organization agencies for the Test
> > festival, and the HCMC police be responsible for all the crazy things that
> > amount to outright stealing and robberies as mentioned by the article.
> > Obviously this kind of conduct is not new, it has been repeated year after
> > year, according to the article and readers' comments.
> >
> > Why does the press not say anything about the folks in charge of the
> > festival, i.e., the HCMC government and the HCMC police, instead of
> > whining about some participants' lousy behavior.  Yes, their behavior is bad
> > and should be prosecuted, but if the government doesn't know how manage a
> > festival, such behavior will happen anywhere in the world.   I can see the
> > potential for that right here in Washington DC, not just in HCMC.
> >
> > There are two big governance issues here:
> >
> > 1.  The incompetence of city government to conduct a festival that
> > relatively free of criminal behavior (stealing and robbing are crimes) (I
> > say "relative" because there are always some criminal activities here and
> > there) .
> >
> > 2.  The habit of the press to not see the government's responsibility
> > and to blame the entire population for bad things.   So, generally in many
> > issues, the blame is that the people is immature and bad, not that the
> > government's incompetence and irresponsibility are the cause for the people'
> > immaturity.  Does this sound familiar?  The government and the Party don't
> > do wrong things, only the stupid People does!
> >
> > Can we try to get out of this oppressive/subvervient mode of thinking
> > and start to think and act like a modern nation?
> >
> > If any government official says, "We can't control such a huge crowd,"
> > I would respond, "Then why don't you resign so that we can find the people
> > who can do that to take over the job?"
> >
> > Come on, brothers and sisters!  We have to be serious about governance.
> > Don't sit there and whine at the people.  Demand that government officials
> > either do a good job or resign.
> >
> > Have a great day!
> >
> > Hoanh
> > ___________
> >
> >
> --
> Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
> Attorney of Law
> Washington DC
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