The Bureau Podcast

When you think of Italy, you think of great food and wine and great cities like Milan and Venice.

In 2018, over 60 million tourists visited Italy, making it the 5th most visited country in the world behind France, Spain, the US and China.

Meanwhile, Venice is Italy’s most popular city for tourists with close to 28 million foreign visitors checking out its romantic canals and architecture in 2017.

However, sadly, Italy has become the epicentre of the COVID-19 spread, with the highest number of recorded deaths from the virus (at the time of recording this episode).

To find out more about life on the ground in Venice, we speak to world-renowned Venetian tattoo artist, Crez, who operates from his Adrenalink studio in Marghera, not far from his city’s tourist mecca.

Crez is one of just 100 tattoo artists globally who earned the right to be included in Anna Felicity Friedman’s World Atlas of Tattoo published in 2015 – an honour that recognises inductees as the most significant practitioners in the history of tattooing.

He also has a strong connection to Vietnam.

We ask Crez the following questions:

1. Where in Venice are you in relation to the tourist areas that many people listening would know about?

2. How has your neighbourhood been affected?

3. How will this change Italy?

4. Usually you would be spending your days tattooing people, how are you spending your days at the moment?

5. You have a strong affinity with Asia, including with Vietnam, what message do you have for listeners in this part of the world?

In this episode of The Bureau Podcast, we're celebrating the first 10 Bureau Bites episodes, our new shortened "pod-bite" series in which we interview a whole bunch of interesting people with a connection to Vietnam. In this first part of two, we revisit the first five stories which delve into the impact COVID-19 is having on travel and hospitality in Vietnam. And for a little added extra fun, we mix it up with a playlist of songs befitting of the stories and the pandemic experience we're going through right now. So crack the top off your favourite beer or mix up your favourite tipple and kickback for 30 minutes as Matt and Mel recap with a mix of fact, fiction and fun. 

Vietnam can be quite a perilous place to live. Traffic accidents remain the biggest single cause of fatalities in the country. While the number of fatalities has been steadily falling each year from around 14,000 deaths in 2010 to around 7,600 in 2019, there were still 48 reported traffic accidents that claimed 21 lives per day last year on our roads. Meanwhile, drownings remain the leading cause of death for children in Vietnam. A conservative estimate suggests that on average, 16 people drown every day in Vietnam, a rate that is believed to be ten times that of developed countries. And then there are all the other dangers at workplaces and around the home that pose a risk to everyday life. Fortunately, however, there are a few organisations in Vietnam that are working with government departments to turn things around. One of those is Survival Skills Vietnam, a social enterprise that strives to raise awareness of hazards in our environment and who conducts first aid and evacuation training for businesses and the general public. To find out more about Survival Skills Vietnam, we spoke to co-founder Trang Nguyen, who’s based in Ho Chi Minh City.

We ask Trang the following questions:

1. Why is there a need for social enterprises like Survival Skills Vietnam?

2. What have been some of the challenges you and your co-founders have faced in setting up your organisation?

3. What are some of the myths associated with survival skills and first aid in Vietnam?

4. What are some everyday things that people typically overlook around home that can be dangerous?

5. What are the essentials for an at-home survival kit?

Singapore has been widely praised internationally for its efforts in containing COVID-19 and limiting fatalities to two people so far. But concern is afoot as the number of COVID-19 cases in the small island state has doubled over a 48-hour timespan, with an estimated 200,000 citizens yet to return home from overseas. Meanwhile, the livelihoods of just about everyone in every industry have been hard hit, no less so for people working in the entertainment and creative industries in Singapore. In order to find out more about how Singaporeans are coping with COVID-19 and more, we speak to Singaporean actor, host, environmental activist and Netflix' Singapore Social star, Paul Foster.

We ask Paul the following questions:

1. How are things in Singapore at the moment?

2. How have you been spending your time since the COVID-19 crisis started?

3. What is it about Singapore and Singaporeans' ability to simply get things done?

4. What environmental projects are you currently involved in?

5. Is there going to be a Season 2 of Singapore Social? 

As of March 25, the Vietnamese Government reported that there has been a total of 141 COVID-19 cases since the outbreak, with 17 of those having fully recovered already, which leaves 124 cases, with 93 of those being Vietnamese and the rest foreign. It's a very impressive result so far, indeed, although those numbers have risen since this recording. According to the Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister, “the virus is somewhere near everyone, thus anyone may contract it and transmit it to others if we do not seriously abide by official instructions.” One of the best-known directives the world over is for people to social distance and stay home, easier said than done if you don't have anything fulfilling to do. One person in Saigon who’s been keeping himself occupied with a side project for quite a while now, is Doru Tudose. By night he’s a DJ, but by day, he’s building his own electric car.

We ask Doru the following questions:

1. How’s the social distancing going?

2. Tell us more about your electric car.

3. What does the average Saigonese need to do to help the environment?

4. What impact has COVID-19 had on nightlife in Saigon and how will it affect it in the long term?

5. Who should we be listening to at the moment while we’re practising our social distancing?

6. Is there any chance you have a playlist for social distancing that we can share on thebureauasia.com?!

Bureau Bites is a regular "pod-bite" bringing you the latest news from Vietnam and the region.

Episode Background

The Australian Government has increased measures in its bid to stem the rise of COVID-19 infection rates across its states and territories. They include operating bans on pubs, gyms and indoor sporting venues, cinemas and nightclubs, restaurants and cafes, and places of worship, and include the avoidance of non-essential travel. While the Australian Government has acknowledged that these new restrictions will change the way Australians live, with business owners and their employees being severely affected, what of Australians and Australian businesses in Vietnam? Where do they find themselves in all of this? In order to find out more, we spoke to Simon Fraser, the executive director of AusCham, who is based in Ho Chi Minh City.

We asked Simon the following questions:

1. How would you describe your past week?

2. How have Australian businesses in Vietnam been faring since COVID-19 has ramped up?

3. What financial support or otherwise will Australian businesses in Vietnam receive, if any?

4. Does a contingency plan for Australians and Australians with business interests in Vietnam exist should COVID-19 escalate further and continue well into the year and perhaps into next year?

5. What advice is there for Australian business owners in Vietnam at the moment, especially for those that have been or will be hit hard by the situation?   

Bureau Bites is a regular "pod-bite" bringing you the latest news from Vietnam and the region.

Episode Background

Walter Mason is an Australian author who has been visiting Vietnam since 1994 and since then has kept coming back. He has travelled the country with a Vietnamese-Australian monk, stayed in remote monasteries, and spent six months back in 1999 studying Vietnamese language at the Ho Chi Minh City Social Sciences University. Walter has a lifelong interest in Eastern spirituality (he's a practising Buddhist) and Vietnamese food. In 2010, he published his first book, an entertaining travel memoir called Destination Saigon, which he says is "a love letter to Vietnam." In 2013, he followed up the book with Destination Cambodia, another memoir but this time about his adventures in the Kingdom and the reasons why the country has drawn him back again and again since his youth. We were able to speak briefly with Walter over the phone while he was visiting Saigon last week before he had to rush back home to Sydney to be with his family. 

We asked Walter the following questions:

1. How long have you been coming to Vietnam?

2. Which places would you recommend travellers to visit in Vietnam?

3. How would you describe Destination Saigon to people looking for a great read?

4. How has your trip been this time round with the Coronavirus playing out?

5. What differences have you noticed in the way Vietnamese are reacting to the Coronavirus compared to Australians?

6. Do you have any uplifting stories about Vietnam amidst all the depressing ones we've been hearing and reading about?

7. Is there a new book in the pipeline?

Bureau Bites is a regular "pod-bite" bringing you the latest news from Vietnam and the region.

Episode Background

The outbreak of COVID-19 worldwide has dominated the news for weeks now with stories of illness, death, economic hardship and isolation. This means there hasn’t been many positive, uplifting, feel-good stories at the top of local and international news feeds. However, recent stories like the reappearance of dolphins in Venice and the visibility of fish in its canals began to catch our attention. There were also reports of a group of elephants that had apparently sauntered into a village in Yunnan, China, got drunk off corn wine and then passed out in a tea garden. It appeared that animals were bouncing back and in the meantime raising our spirits at a time of despair. But were these stories really true?

We spoke to Megan Ly from PR Newswire based in Ho Chi Minh City and asked her the following questions:

1. Why do so many untruths go viral?

2. What example comes to mind of an untruth on Vietnamese social media that went viral recently?

3. So how can consumers of news and social media safeguard themselves better from being “scammed” by fake news?

4. And finally, do you have a memorable uplifting “true” story that has come across your desk at PR Newswire since the news of the COVID-19 virus broke?

Bureau Bites is a regular "pod-bite" bringing you the latest news from Vietnam and the region.

Episode Background

In a previous episode, we reported that bars and nightclubs in all of Saigon's 24 districts were to be closed from Sunday, March 15th from 6pm. However, a high-profile case has emerged since, where a British man unknowingly carrying COVID-19 visited a District 2 bar on multiple occasions after the supposed lockdown. It's created anxiety within the tight-knit community and has raised questions about a seemingly grey area between the definition of what's a bar and what's not.

We ask hospitality industry insider Richie Fawcett from The Studio Saigon his thoughts on the situation and its possible impact on the hospitality industry in Saigon for the foreseeable future. 

We ask him the following questions:

1. What are your thoughts given that there was supposed to be a lockdown on bars in all districts of Saigon?

2. What impact is COVID-19 going to have on the hospitality industry in Saigon for the foreseeable future?

3. What innovations in hospitality do yo predict might come out of all this?

4. If he were to create a cocktail to sum up the situation we find ourselves in, what would it be like?  

Bureau Bites is a regular "pod-bite" bringing you the latest news from Vietnam and the region.

Episode Background

We talk to Stanley Boots, founder of 7 Bridges Brewing Co. in Danang, who, along with his staff of 45, has been under house quarantine for almost two weeks after it was discovered two patrons carrying COVID-19 had visited his Danang taproom. 

We ask him:

1. What exactly happened?

2. How is life under house quarantine?

3. What does the future hold for 7 Bridges Brewing Co.?