Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE One Ho Chi Minh City resident has spent the last decade making a name for his Vietnam-made ceramic products in a domestic market dominated by Japan and China. Hoang Viet Hai, 30, has spent ten years turning his company, Yen Lam, into a household name in Ho Chi Minh City. Over 100 restaurants, many of which are famous in the southern city, and a number of local residents use Yen Lam products. The company’s path to success was not an easy one, however. Periods of intense competition often forced Hai to draw on his creative prowess to keep the business alive. Hai’s first failure occurred after he opened a shop specializing in traditional Vietnamese ceramics on a street in District 5, an area where Chinese ceramics have already replaced Vietnamese pottery. The entrepreneur was undeterred by competition and created a line of aroma lamps, then unavailable in the local market, which garnered numerous orders from essential oil producers and put his company on the map. However the appearance of Chinese-made lamps that sold at half the price sent his business in a downward spiral. About five years ago, his business suffered another blow when Japanese pottery became a hot item in Vietnam. Resignedly facing the reality, Hai became more inventive in his approach to the pottery business, introducing novel designs for a variety of ceramic products, each with its own distinctive signature beauty. Now, with a catalogue of bowls, jars, plates, flower… [Read full story]
The paternity claim, which the woman's adoptive family now believe is genuine, adds a new twist to a saga which began in 2007 when a naked and filthy woman was discovered trying to steal food from a farmer. The woman soon dubbed "jungle woman" by Cambodians, was found hunched over like a monkey, scavenging on the ground for pieces of dried rice. She was taken in by a Cambodian family who identified her as Rochom P'ngieng, a girl who went missing in 1989 while herding water buffalo in Ratanakiri province, around 600 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of Phnom Penh and…... [read more]
A Vietnamese man reportedly doused himself in gasoline and set his body ablaze on a street in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday night. The reason behind the act would disturb many: he promised to do so in exchange for 40,000 likes on Facebook. In a post that is now viral, the man, believed to be 24, said he would burn himself with gasoline and jump off the bridge when there were enough likes. “I’m going to keep my promise... Please share if you want to see the fun,” he wrote. He got 86,000 likes within 23 hours. Hundreds of…... [read more]
A Vietnamese man has been fined VND7.5 million ($330) for stealing a music player from another passenger during security checks at Hanoi's airport, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reported. The man from Hanoi took the player at Noi Bai International Airport before boarding a flight to the southern Mekong Delta city of Can Tho last Thursday. The airport security agents alerted colleagues in Can Tho, who caught the passenger upon his arrival. The man later said he picked up the device from a tray at the security check area. Passengers on all flights within and from Vietnam are required to have their…... [read more]
A Vietnamese man is demanding an explanation from a local hospital after recently discovering that he has been living with a pair of surgical scissors in his abdomen for 18 years, according to local media reports. Ma Van Nhat, 54, told the Vietnam News Agency that he had a surgery at the provincial general hospital in Bac Kan in 1998, after he was injured in a road crash. The man said he had been healthy, until he had abdominal pain recently. He went to another hospital last week and got an X-ray surprise: a 15-centimeter pair of scissors in his…... [read more]
A Vietnamese man who was cleared of murder and rape last month has demanded VND20 billion ($881,340) in compensation from the supreme court for damages he and his family incurred during his 11 years in prison. Han Duc Long, 58, from the northern province of Bac Giang, filed the request to the Supreme People’s Court in Hanoi on Tuesday. Long said the ordeal has affected his family’s income, caused physical and mental damage to him and his family and disrupted his children’s education, while leaving his family to suffer contempt from their neighbors. “I was sentenced to death so every day in prison…... [read more]
