I have successfully managed (once and hopefully again) a Canadian visa application, for a Vietnamese family member (tourism).
It was slightly longer than my thesis, although much shorter to complete -- unless you include failed previous attempts. To date, it remains my magnum opus of bureaucratic compliance.
It's a frustrating and moderately expensive experience, that I would otherwise never have learned about as a Canadian citizen.
Meanwhile, a visa to enter Vietnam for 3 months from a Western nation is a fee and a rubber stamp. A fascinating problem arising from that is the number of undocumented migrant workers we get from the West! It's been a thing for a decade, but in the past was mainly people offering English lessons who did not meet the requirements for a work permit. It's expanded significantly in scope post-Covid, although I don't have any hard numbers to share.
I feel it's quite fair to expect some visa costs/paperwork when no fair and bilateral visa arrangement exists. On the other hand, the level of noncompliance with the terms of the issued visas worries me. I'm a documented immigrant to Vietnam, I run a small and boring company. If the rules change in a crackdown, will I get caught up in a regulatory net meant to catch someone else? Losing my company this way would be really disheartening.
I'm unable to think of an easy fix to the asymmetrical unfairness of visas -- but I thought you might enjoy a slice of what it looks like from the other side. I guess immigrants anywhere are presented with many of the same challenges.
A friend had to change the plane in Canada to travel from Europe to South America. He couldn’t attend the journey because he didn’t get a visa for Canada solely to take an onward flight.
FYI, the same applies to the US. There is no transit-side to international airports; you must do immigration after arrival even if you will not be leaving the airport.
There's an expression I've heard here that amounts to "If you lose your job, start a business". People prefer steady jobs, but if that's not available, you either start a business or join the family one.
A side effect is that when I go to industrial markets, a lot of the shopkeepers are working for family, and aren't really being "paid" per se. So they can be a bit cranky at times, there are indeed places they would rather be. So I make sure to have my order ready and zero questions :)
I'm actually setting up a family business in Vietnam right now. Many families have one, but mine does not. I've got relatives coming back from jobs overseas and I want to offer them something better than being a receptionist for USD 250 a month. Or at least something in addition to that.
I encountered a similar problem, but solved it with USB keyboards / keypads instead. I managed to get a low-speed USB host working on ESP32. Now I use these instead as much better build quality is available, although they are notably more expensive.
One thing that caught me off guard was that USB keyboard scancodes were different from PS/2. Previously I had tackled the issue using PS/2 keypads and a chip with some firmware that translated the scancodes to 5V serial. This was neat, but sourcing old keyboards eventually became a pain.
That's always been my understanding as well. I recall some cases in the last few years where this resulted in quite a bit of the funds being recovered.
Some people here do pay bribes. I do not. Neither do most people around my age that I know.
I immigrated here 12 years ago. I have a company license, a driving license, proper residency, and so on.
I got every last piece of it by filling out forms, and waiting a normal amount of time. I speak Vietnamese like a small child and have no Vietnamese heritage.
Perhaps some people will report something different, and perhaps they are also correct. However, this is my story.
We're Westerners so we're insulated from low level corruption because we can report to the Tourist Police and our local Consulate or Embassy, who will complain to that Quan's MPS.
The kind of low level corruption your mentioning impacts the working class or middle class (the kind living in a 1 bedroom apartment in D10 with a Honda motorbike) because they have no recourse.
That said, the mid-upper level corruption is very significant. How else do you see retired generals and senior party apparatchiks with a $50/mo pension eating steaks at the Landmark 81 and living in a villa in Thao Dien.
And this is why my SO makes it a principle to always speak in English so she doesn't get Vietnamese service.
> And this is why my SO makes it a principle to always speak in English so she doesn't get Vietnamese service.
That's a general recommendation for any overseas Vietnamese (Viet Kieu) to just pretend not to speak Vietnamese any time they interact with officials. They'll never get aggressive and will usually move onto easier prey.
But you are correct the low level corruption is common. A good story I heard was getting the household registration completed at the police station - bring in forms, call back "you forgot to sign this form", go back and sign the form, a couple weeks later you call "oh, it was actually the wrong form, come back", go back sign another form, a couple weeks later "it's not finished yet", a couple weeks later "you're missing one form".
Finally, they go in, finish that form and say "hey, you've been working hard, let me buy you a coffee" and you slip them the equivalent of $10 USD (about 20x the cost of a coffee). Poof, magic, it's done the next day and the cop will even swing by your home to drop off the paperwork.
A lot of the corruption is simply slow-rolling things until what the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act calls "facilitation payments" are made.
Back when my family built our house a few years ago, we had to pay some bribe for a local officer to get our construction permission, otherwise it will get delayed for who knows how long.
On paper, gov's officer's salary is <500usd a month, yet several provincial secretary own large houses and villas. Where does the money come from ?
You see this stuff reported once in a while in Vietnamese newspaper, and stuff that are not reported could be worse.
Amomg Vietnamese people, government's corruption is well known, happens at every level, and everybody I know is treating it as an open secret.
My very limited experience with Vietnam officials was that you could avoid bribes, but it was much more convenient to just bribe them.
I was going through the land border from Laos to Vietnam and was told to leave some "coffee money" in my passport on both sides of the border. I think it was either 20k or 50k Dong.
Apparently if you did not do this, you would get seen last and they would stamp it perfectly diagonally in the middle of a fresh passport page to try and ruin that page.
No idea if this was actually true because everyone just paid.
A friend's fintech company in Vietnam (it's one that you know) was pretty much told to make room in the C-suite for a very well connected family member to the Northern power brokers. I agree there is no requirement to have a Communist Party member join the company, but someone with connections? Sure.
It matters whether it's a local versus foreign company. If it's run by Vietnamese (or Viet Kieu) or run by foreigners. It mostly depends on how much money is involved, as a small local business is small potatoes, but when you're talking about the companies raising $100M USD in a round, it starts to matter a lot.
And my friend's company wasn't exactly opposed to it, since it's a symbiotic relationship. Have a problem with getting a license? Having "that guy" call his uncle who sits on the regulatory body can expedite it. Of course, you have to share in the wealth so sweetheart investment deals get offered in return.
He told me you can't make it big (think the equivalent of Stripe in the US) without those connections because if you don't, your competitor will and suddenly you'll find that permit you were told would take 3 months has been "delayed".
Anyone who tries to get government approval for things like licenses, etc knows it's a painful process even for the routine stuff. Now image trying to do something "different". The usual response is "you can't do that". The system is pretty much set up to require a back channel to the people in the government who can make or break a company.
Yes, it’s amazing how naive HN is when it comes to these things. This place is super useful for technical knowledge but insanely useless when it comes to situations where lived experience differs from “official” ways the world (is supposed to) work.
> you can't make it big (think the equivalent of Stripe in the US)
Hehe. We might be 2nd or 3rd degree connects. Are they that fintech HQed near the crescent mall?
> The system is pretty much set up to require a back channel to the people in the government who can make or break a company
Exactly. Welcome to "emerging markets"
> when you're talking about the companies raising $100M USD in a round, it starts to matter a lot
Lower rounds too. Big reason I got spooked by the VN scene. It's exactly the same kinda shit you'd deal with in China, India, or Indonesia, but way less RoI.
Kinda sad honestly, there is a lot of talent, but leadership and policymakers there don't have the breadth needed to make the next Thailand or Malaysia (despite having the right fundamentals).
If they can attract the successful 2nd and 3rd gen Viet Kieus in the US, Canada, and Australia (the Harvard, UCLA, UNSW, UToronto grads) at the policy level, I think there is a lot of potential.
He worked at a few large companies with offices, and this is what he told me. Maybe you need to be big and legacy with a physical footprint. But this is what he told me. He has a lot of very interesting anecdotes. For example in Laos if you impregnate a woman as a foreigner, you have to marry her, under penalty of death. So his girlfriends were always trying to mess with his condoms, try to get him to have unprotected sex, and various oddities. So he claimed
> Relationships with Lao citizens: Lao law prohibits cohabitation or sexual contact between foreign citizens and Lao nationals except when the two parties have been married in accordance with Lao Family Law. Any foreigner who cohabitates with or enters into a sexual relationship with a Lao national risks being interrogated, detained, arrested, or fined. Foreigners are not permitted to invite Lao nationals of the opposite sex to their hotel rooms, and police may raid hotel rooms without notice or consent. Foreigners, including U.S. citizens of Lao descent, are not allowed to stay in the homes of Lao nationals, even family, without the prior consent of the village chief and local police.
Interestingly, outside the USA, this can be the case! In my jurisdiction (Vietnam) I have to do a yearly audit proving that I do business, or I can lose my license.
Additionally, as the owner I must have up-to-date contact information in a public registry, have at least one employee, and rent a physical workplace where I can receive mail. Officials come by to check once in a while.
I think at worst I've gotten a few extra spam calls from all this, but not even that many. On the other hand, I use the registry to look up companies before deciding to sign a contract with them. A couple of times this has saved my clients or I from being the victims of fraud. I really don't mind it as far as systems go.
Anyway, I agree with you, and for the legitimate cases where "companies that don't do business" make sense, maybe we should create some other instrument to handle them -- because like you, I find that there are a lot of cases that don't make sense.
Years back, there was a CDROM drive I really needed to work at the moment, but it was jammed shut. I could hear it trying to open, and failing.
I reasoned that the motor holding it shut had mostly failed in some way, but could still exert some force. So I popped the cover off the drive, took out the magnet that holds it shut, cooked it on a gas stove for a few seconds, and put it back in.
Th Curie temperature for a neodymium magnet is a few hundred of degrees, but practically speaking, they will lose a lot of magnetism even at lower temperatures. Popped it back in and the drive worked for another year or so.
Sure, but weakening the magnet lets it return to more or less "normal" functionality, not requiring you to reach over and stick a pin in a very small hole every time you want to change the disk.
It was slightly longer than my thesis, although much shorter to complete -- unless you include failed previous attempts. To date, it remains my magnum opus of bureaucratic compliance.
It's a frustrating and moderately expensive experience, that I would otherwise never have learned about as a Canadian citizen.
Meanwhile, a visa to enter Vietnam for 3 months from a Western nation is a fee and a rubber stamp. A fascinating problem arising from that is the number of undocumented migrant workers we get from the West! It's been a thing for a decade, but in the past was mainly people offering English lessons who did not meet the requirements for a work permit. It's expanded significantly in scope post-Covid, although I don't have any hard numbers to share.
I feel it's quite fair to expect some visa costs/paperwork when no fair and bilateral visa arrangement exists. On the other hand, the level of noncompliance with the terms of the issued visas worries me. I'm a documented immigrant to Vietnam, I run a small and boring company. If the rules change in a crackdown, will I get caught up in a regulatory net meant to catch someone else? Losing my company this way would be really disheartening.
I'm unable to think of an easy fix to the asymmetrical unfairness of visas -- but I thought you might enjoy a slice of what it looks like from the other side. I guess immigrants anywhere are presented with many of the same challenges.