How to Build a House in Vietnam

DoD  5

25 June 2015

Like Watching Cement Dry

…or to be more accurate….like watching concrete dry. They have poured yet another floor. As we wait for the concrete slab to cure, work goes on doing other things around the house and I am busy buying fittings and also working on projects (which in turn generate the income to pay for the house and purchase the fittings etc…simple economics really)

Work progresses slowly but surely… and I watch as the house inches slowly skyward but my bank balance descends at a much faster rate. For most normal people..(hehehe…. Normal?) it is not uncommon that the financial experience of house building is unique and often stressful. Even though the figures are considerably smaller here – you can build a quality house in Vietnam for about 25% of the construction costs in a big city like, say, Sydney- they still are significant  in our household budget and they are rapidly creating a serious dentin my accumulated life savings. So nearly every day there is some payment to make and then every so often they are big… well, $10,000 is big for us.

Payment is always in cash… big wads of plastic banknotes. In some rare cases, suppliers will offer the opportunity to pay by bank transfer, but you then get to miss out on the smile on their face as you whip a stack of notes, lick your fingers and begin to count out the cash on the tabletop. They get to sniff the closeness of the cash and that is also a good point for you to stop … with a profound dramatic pause and a sad look back at whatever product you are about to purchase… and ask “are you sure that is that your best price?”

Like everything in Vietnam, buying things for a house, and even negotiating the price of the builder involves bargaining. Bargaining in Vietnam is a complex and subtle art (that I confess to being pretty hopeless at) that is deeply embedded in the culture… and really should be the subject of a long and detailed treatise. Increasingly however, even Vietnamese citizens are becoming annoyed at this endless bartering and haggling required for even the simplest of things. This has meant, for instance, that many people say they prefer to shop in supermarkets because the price is fixed. For us Tays(foreigners) such supermarkets offer us the rare experience of knowing that you are not being ripped off, not paying ‘skin tax’ simply because you are a Tay – and you are paying the same price as everyone else.

The whole issue of the never-ending attempts by Vietnamese to cheat foreigners on every possible occasion and on the price of…almost everything… is a tricky topic that is frequently talked and argued about – but is a daily reality for us. Not only do I get charged more whenever possible but even my wife Thu now refuses to go to the market with me as the old ladies will charge her exorbitant prices with a shrug, a sly grin and the justification “well, you are married to a Tay so you should pay more”. The topic is all over the internet as both expats and tourists complain of constantly being cheated at every little turn… but the Vietnamese just shrug and say …”BinhThuong”… it is normal. Often they are only small amounts, but it gets wearing.

The only way I have found to deal with it is: (a) have a sense of humour and try your best not to get too wound up (not always achieved on my part). Learn useful phrases like “Dat Qua!” (too much!) and “ToiKhongPhai La Con Ga!” (I am not a chicken!) and practise an over-the-top operatic face-pulling indignant hands on the hips stance…people usually giggle. (b) never give in. Don’t let them wear you down and agree to a higher price… if you think it is too high, simply just don’t buy it unless your life depends on it (c) do your homework. Look around on the internet or stand behind Vietnamese people in the market and watch as they pay for a kilo of apples or oranges or whatever. The market ladies will know exactly what you are doing – they usually don’t like it - and often it will require a patient wait…but stand your ground, watch how much local people pay and then offer the same amount (d) don’t forget the ‘Experience Economy’. Of course the prices are higher in different contexts …just like everywhere around the world. If you are a tourist buying some trinket in a local market you would be insane to think you are paying the same as the locals..but don’t forget that they could never afford to go on holiday to the other side of the world and buy some souvenir like you.

Anyway, for me, buying the tiles, fans, flooring, light switches etc for the house is a lengthy, long-winded and complicated process. Firstly, I need to work out what it is called in Vietnamese (good old Dr Google Translate is immensely useful). Then do a Google search typing in for instance “gạchxi măng (cement tiles) Danang”. That usually throws up five or six possible suppliers and maybe even , these days, a rudimentary website with some pictures and prices. Then I then give these details to Mr Tuan my trusty building supervisor. Tuan has not yet developed strong internet searching skills, so even with my appalling Vietnamese language skills I still often find things before he does. He looks at me incredulously and gasps “How did you find this when you speak terrible Vietnamese?”. But I have noticed that internet searching requires a kind of logic that is typically uncommon with Vietnamese people… I have a hunch that it because they are not used to the frank directness and simplicity of the google-question.

Sometimes I ask Tuan to simply “ask around”. “Tuan oi, ask your neighbours where is a good place to buy light switches etc”. Sometimes this works a treat. But often it simply turns up the shop closest to his house. By and large , most of my Vietnamese friends do not search very far afield for anything they need- they tend to just go around the corner to, say, the local light switch shop, and haggle to get what they believe is the best price. The idea of putting a couple of days into researching a variety of suppliers, then comparing prices to get the ‘best deal’ is all a bit too much effort for most Vietnamese people I know. Every so often, with a bit of research and a bit of firm negotiation I end up with a price for something or another and Tuan is just astounded. “How did you know that this shop had this thing at this low price when the shop near my house was so much more expensive?”.

So these days, I give Tuan a few leads and then he gets on the phone and tries to find out  if (a) the shop even exists (small businesses come and go quickly in Vietnam but yet they leave the website up for a while) (b) if they are actually at the address they say they are (c) if they even have the products they advertise (more than fifty percent of the time businesses will continue to advertise products they no longer have – there are no consumer protection laws or suchlike so they will see it simply as a way of luring customers to their business or shop . Then we make up a schedule of ‘research trips’. Off we go to see if we can find what we are after… never with the commitment to actually buy – simply to make ‘informed decisions’ in the future.

Often this whole process requires the use of pictures on my smartphone or actual samples (I currently have a terracotta tile and a broken piece of plasterboard in my backpack as an example to show shopkeepers and ask for their price – last week it was plywood and MDF). Sometimes it is clear from the tone of the conversation that the seller is doubling the price because he has spotted a Tay… and even Tuan is starting to get annoyed about this these days. Sometimes the service is so rude and incompetent that we simply walk away in disgust. The other day, over a coffee, Mr Tuan confided in me that his attitudes had shifted since sharing the experience of shopping with me. “Why”, he quizzes in genuine confusion, “Why is their service so bad? How do they stay in business? Sometimes it seems like they just don’t want to take our money. I never noticed how bad it was until I started working with you”. Then every so often we find someone  reaaaaaaalllllly helpful… really professional and a pleasure to do business with. Tuan now beams at the thought of dealing with these people but it also compounds his confusion regarding the incompetent attitudes of the others.

Of course there is a vast volume of development and market theory that explains and discusses this phenomenon. As Vietnam’s economy opens and grows, the middle class grows fastest. It is the middle class that creates the demand for all sorts of new services and products… often those that have come from overseas or they have been seen on the TV or the internet. The old days in Vietnam of walking into , say, the tile shop and being told “you can only have these red tiles because that is all I have- take it or leave it” are disappearing… but slowly and you would be surprised how many times I have encountered exactly that line of so-called salesmanship.

So Tuan and I slowly work through of list of requirements: tiles, bamboo floorboards, water heaters, air conditioner, ceiling fans, gyprock, waterproof membrane for the bathroom floor (Wow… that was tricky trying to explain that one “I want some rubber paint to put under the bathroom tiles so the water does not go into the bedroom”), light fittings, timber for stud walls, builders glue etcetc etc. I am slowly educating Mr Tuan into the dark arts of house-building and he is proving to be (mostly) a fine apprentice – although every so often he has a day where he just “zones out” and just doesn’t get it and finds something impossible to interpret…. Usually he rings me later that night to apologise. 

And sometimes he shares my joy. Yesterday we found a factory that still makes the old French colonial cement tiles that are found on the floors of government buildings and old shops. They have a beautiful soft touch and a unique satin sheen. These days these businesses have been re-vitalised as such tiles have become TresTres Chic with the yuppies all around the developed world. In wanky home design shops in London/Sydney high streets they are sold for $ 350 a square metre… hehehehe… yesterday we found them for $20. And the elderly lady, Mrs Lan, that sold them to us from a small office in a factory in a far-flung industrial estate at the foot of the Hai Van pass, was so charming and helpful I almost wanted to re-design the house so we could buy some more tiles off her. And the ‘‘Green Moss’ limestone floor stones. The remains of a job lot, they are a deep green, mossy colour (duuurrggghh) and almost exactly the same thickness as the French cement tiles … and the stone comes from Thu’s hometown – a nice touch of hometown connection in our new house. And the young woman in the tile shop that was simply just very very helpful… explaining why one shower set would be better with the bath destined for Mrs Thu’s swanky new bathroom and volunteering that the choice of one toilet over another (frankly a toilet is a toilet to me unless it is one of those remote-controlled musical high-tech Japanese jobs) would mean I was eligible for a big discount. Such little wins are a delight and these kind of salespeople are rare here in DaNang and it is genuinely a pleasure doing business with them.

So as the concrete cures in the drizzly weather, Mr Tuan and I slowly begin to amass a dusty pile of deposit receipts that come along with the promise of future deliveries. And the concrete and brick shell of the house has now progressed to where we can stand in our ‘living room’ and look across the scrubby, bare paddock across the river and towards the ocean. It seems like we are on track timewise although we have been having a bit of trouble to actually get Mr Khai the builder to give us a firm schedule of works and a commitment to when he will be finished. Last week Mrs Thu got tough with him and sternly told him “no work schedule… no more payment!”. He looked glum for a minute but then got over it.

Oh… and it is the time to get some other stuff done… a haircut, get the brakes replaced on my beautiful little Honda Cub, find some new sunglasses, bake some bread and ..oh yeah… do some work formy clients and customers. We also started making a few movies for upload….here is one on how to make Korean style Seaweed salad   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYKzj1spFS0

So, I better go and count out some cash to pay for the rooftop water tanks… I don’t want to miss out on that 30% promotional discount that they swear will only be around this week! Hehehe…. As if

DoD

 French cement tiles

 The second floor before the formwork

 Pouring the 3^rd floor into the twilight hours

Pouring the 3^rd floor into the twilight hours