Taking a taxi to Nội Bài Airport in Hanoi, after chatting for a while, the driver said: ‘You are very straightforward and sincere. I really enjoy serving people from Saigon like you—you say what you mean, without beating around the bush.’
At the end of a course bringing social enterprises from around the world together in central London, United Kingdom, in 2015, Jimmy, a social enterprise leader from Indonesia, said, “Before meeting you, I imagined Vietnam very differently. T, you're the role model I want to work toward. I hope to visit ‘your beautiful Vietnam’ soon.” (Mr. T is how I often introduce myself to international friends.)
If you go to another region and behave poorly, people do not think poorly of you; they think poorly of Saigon.
When you step into the world and behave badly, people do not think you are bad; they think Vietnam is bad.
Every Vietnamese citizen who steps into the world with good awareness, thinking, knowledge, and skills adds a “Plus” (+) for Vietnam in the eyes of international friends.
With more and more positive (+) points, Vietnam's image will improve. One day, mentioning Vietnam will no longer evoke war, failure to queue, buffet waste, petty theft, or uncivil behavior… It will evoke ‘Beautiful and Wonderful Vietnam.’
That can happen only when you are aware of your own responsibility, so that you start training yourself now and let no moment go to waste. This awareness means that every Vietnamese person who goes out into the world sees themselves as a “Tourism Ambassador” for Vietnam. This role is not merely entrusted symbolically to one person, such as Kỳ or Kong, but belongs to every Vietnamese person who interacts with the world.
Today we should “appoint” ourselves as Vietnam's “Tourism Ambassadors.”
P.S: This picture appears in a book called ‘Entrepreneurial Portraits,’ in which I am featured. The artist made it into a painting, exhibited and auctioned it, with all proceeds going to charity. If you want to buy this painting in real life (there is only one, capturing the subject’s spirit as perceived by the artist), contact my ‘love’—we are never… at each other’s weddings Minh Trâm please.
