You Don't Know Vietnam

What does contemporary art in Vietnam look like today? And where should you start as a newbie? 

As Vietnam approaches the end of its debut national pavilion at the Venice Biennale, curator and Artistic Director at VCCA Tuong Linh Do joins Ian Paynton for a quick look into a scene that's more vibrant, diverse and open than many people realise. 

From the experimental artists of 1990s Hanoi to today’s generation working across video, sound, performance, installation and traditional lacquer, Linh maps a scene shaped by history, rapid change and a growing confidence to tell its own stories. 

They discuss how Vietnamese contemporary art has been under-documented; the artists and spaces that helped build the scene; how to explore it with only one week in Vietnam... and why a private studio visit might be the best place to begin.

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If you enjoy this conversation or think someone in your network could find value in it, please share it and hit follow to get notified when the next episode drops.

This podcast is brought to you by We Create Content, the content marketing agency that builds audiences for global brands in Vietnam. You can follow our host, Ian Paynton, on LinkedIn, and follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok and X. 

A special thanks to DJ Jase at The Beats Saigon for the soundtrack, and to YOU for listening. 

How do you get a Vietnamese fragrance into the top 10 men’s fragrances on Shopee in your first year... while both founders still have full-time jobs? 

Enter Vy Nguyen and Ngu Phan (Peter), Co-Founders of Lenoir. They join Ian Paynton to share how they built a perfume brand around Vietnam’s students. From testing scents with friends and packing orders after work to discovering why customers kept buying samples, this is a story of trial, error and paying attention.

We explore how gifting changed their business, why small freebies and personal touches matter, and what it takes to keep up with young Vietnamese consumers. We also get into the harder questions: staying ahead of copycats, adapting to a more competitive e-commerce market, and building customer relationships when the platforms control so much of the experience.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why starting with e-commerce can get you to market faster
• How listening to customers can change your business
• What works with young Vietnamese online shoppers
• How to find and test your unique selling point
• How to stay ahead of copycats

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoy this conversation or think someone in your network could find value in it, please share it and hit follow to get notified when the next episode drops.

This podcast is brought to you by We Create Content, the content marketing agency that builds audiences for global brands in Vietnam. You can follow our host, Ian Paynton, on LinkedIn, and follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok and X. 

A special thanks to DJ Jase at The Beats Saigon for the soundtrack, and to YOU for listening. 

Before Ian Paynton co-founded WCC, and before journalist David Stout went on to report from Myanmar, Hong Kong, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Balkans and Saudi Arabia, the pair spent their days making a print magazine about Hanoi. Fifteen years later, they reunite to remember what David calls “the best days of analogue Vietnam”. They revisit some of their favourite editorial assignments, from the 103-year-old woman living with four generations of her family to Ha Giang before mass tourism and the overlooked importance of Vietnamese tea. They also reflect on the extraordinary pace of Vietnam’s transformation, what Hanoi may have lost along the way and why, beneath its changing appearance, the spirit of the city remains unmistakably intact.

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoy this conversation or think someone in your network could find value in it, please share it and hit follow to get notified when the next episode drops.

This podcast is brought to you by We Create Content, the content marketing agency that builds audiences for global brands in Vietnam. You can follow our host, Ian Paynton, on LinkedIn, and follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok and X. 

A special thanks to DJ Jase at The Beats Saigon for the soundtrack, and to YOU for listening. 

What does Vietnam look like through the eyes of someone arriving at one of the most ambitious moments in its recent history? Ten months into his posting, Singapore’s Ambassador to Vietnam, Rajpal Singh, joins Ian Paynton to reflect on what he has learned so far — from the country’s infectious energy and optimism to its pace of change, its openness to outsiders and the ever-growing relationship between Vietnam and Singapore.

In this episode:

• Why Vietnam’s energy can only truly be understood from the ground
• What makes this such an ambitious moment in the country’s development
• The opportunities and learning curves facing newcomers to Vietnam
• What the Ambassador has discovered about Vietnamese food, family life and hospitality
• Why Singapore and Vietnam are natural economic partners
• What the two countries have in common
• How Vietnam and Singapore's relationship is expanding into technology, AI, sustainability and food security

Chapters

00:00 — Introduction
01:00 — Ten months as Singapore’s Ambassador to Vietnam
02:10 — Feeling Vietnam’s energy from the ground
03:40 — Optimism, ambition and Vietnam’s next leap
05:50 — Learning Vietnamese and understanding the country
07:40 — Why Vietnam cannot be understood overnight
08:30 — Life as an ambassador
09:50 — Bun cha, bun bo Hue and bia hoi
12:00 — Discovering Vietnam as a family
14:20 — Vietnamese openness and hospitality
16:30 — Highlights from the first ten months
18:10 — The Vietnam–Singapore Industrial Parks
20:00 — What Singapore sees in Vietnam
21:50 — Why Singapore and Vietnam are natural partners
22:40 — Two countries that have overcome the odds
23:45 — Supporting Vietnam’s next stage of growth
24:35 — What comes next for Ambassador Rajpal

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoy this conversation or think someone in your network could find value in it, please share it and hit follow to get notified when the next episode drops.

This podcast is brought to you by We Create Content, the content marketing agency that builds audiences for global brands in Vietnam. You can follow our host, Ian Paynton, on LinkedIn, and follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok and X. 

A special thanks to DJ Jase at The Beats Saigon for the soundtrack, and to YOU for listening. 

Vietnam's young people have more opportunity than any generation before them. They are globally connected, ambitious, educated, and growing up in one of the world's fastest-changing countries. But beneath the optimism lies something else: pressure to constantly improve, build impressive careers, gain new qualifications, make their families proud, have a side-hustle, and somehow still figure out who they are along the way.

In this episode, Ian speaks with youth development advocate Ha Pham about the hidden pressures facing Vietnam's younger generation — from self-improvement culture and social media to family expectations, identity, ambition, and the fear of being ordinary in a country that's moving fast.

Listen now to learn:

🇻🇳 Why opportunity and pressure are rising together
🇻🇳 The fear of being ordinary in modern Vietnam
🇻🇳 How social media is changing ambition and self-worth
🇻🇳 The tension between traditional values and personal identity
🇻🇳 Why many young people feel they're living between two worlds
🇻🇳 What gives Ha hope for Vietnam's next generation

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoy this conversation or think someone in your network could find value in it, please share it and hit follow to get notified when the next episode drops.

This podcast is brought to you by We Create Content, the content marketing agency that builds audiences for global brands in Vietnam. You can follow our host, Ian Paynton, on LinkedIn, and follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok and X. 

A special thanks to DJ Jase at The Beats Saigon for the soundtrack, and to YOU for listening. 

In this 70th episode, former US ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius shares a rare, first-hand view of Vietnam’s transformation; from post-war recovery to one of the most dynamic economies in the world today. We get into the long arc of Vietnam’s growth, the mindset driving its progress, and the optimism that continues to define it. And why, despite any challenges, Ted is still betting on Vietnam as a place to live, raise his family, and do business. 

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoy this conversation or think someone in your network could find value in it, please share it and hit follow to get notified when the next episode drops.

This podcast is brought to you by We Create Content, the content marketing agency that builds audiences for global brands in Vietnam. You can follow our host, Ian Paynton, on LinkedIn, and follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok and X. 

A special thanks to DJ Jase at The Beats Saigon for the soundtrack, and to YOU for listening. 

E-commerce in Vietnam is big, but it's about to get A LOT bigger. Right now, it’s sitting at around 12–15% of total retail. But it’s growing at 2–3x the speed of offline, and the way people buy in Vietnam is changing fast. In this episode, Ian Paynton sits down with Ryan Molloy, CEO of Redfern Digital, to break down what’s actually happening on the ground. 

We get into:

•  Why TikTok Shop has overtaken Shopee in just a couple of years 
•  The shift from search-based shopping to discovery-led buying 
•  Why live streaming has gone from “nice to have” to non-negotiable 
•  What it really takes to launch and scale an e-commerce business here 

We also workshop a real example — what Ryan would do if he had $100K to launch a new brand in Vietnam today.

If you’re thinking about entering Vietnam, or trying to understand where commerce is heading more broadly, this is a useful one. Because Vietnam isn’t just growing fast. In many ways, it’s skipping steps — and rewriting the playbook as it goes.

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoy this conversation or think someone in your network could find value in it, please share it and hit follow to get notified when the next episode drops.

This podcast is brought to you by We Create Content, the content marketing agency that builds audiences for global brands in Vietnam. You can follow our host, Ian Paynton, on LinkedIn, and follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok and X. 

A special thanks to DJ Jase at The Beats Saigon for the soundtrack, and to YOU for listening. 

You know the score! Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing markets in the world right now. But most global audiences and brands still don’t understand how it actually works. Sure, they see the headlines, but it's a difficult place to immediately understand from the outside. How to actually understand life on the ground? In this episode, Ian Paynton is joined by Huy Nguyen, CEO of Pencil Group, a network of cultural marketing agencies that looks at Vietnam through a different lens: not as a market, but as a set of communities, values, and behaviours that shape everything from decision-making to brand building. Together, we break down the cultural truths your brand must master before entering Vietnam — from why culture should be treated as infrastructure, not decoration, to the role of family, regional nuance, national pride, and the hidden signals in everyday communication. If you’re a brand or marketing director thinking about entering Vietnam — or already operating here and wondering why things don’t always land — this is essential listening. 

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoy this conversation or think someone in your network could find value in it, please share it and hit follow to get notified when the next episode drops.

This podcast is brought to you by We Create Content, the content marketing agency that builds audiences for global brands in Vietnam. You can follow our host, Ian Paynton, on LinkedIn, and follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok and X. 

A special thanks to DJ Jase at The Beats Saigon for the soundtrack, and to YOU for listening. 

Triathlon participation in Vietnam has grown nearly 30x in a decade. And Danang is about to host its first full-distance Ironman. In this episode, Ian Paynton speaks to Rob Zamacona, the General Manager of Sunrise Events Vietnam, about what it really takes to build an event of that scale here. We unpack what Ironman's growth reveals about modern Vietnam: the power of community, how nothing important happens overnight, and why “reading the room” might be the most valuable business skill you can develop for getting things done in Vietnam.

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoy this conversation or think someone in your network could find value in it, please share it and hit follow to get notified when the next episode drops.

This podcast is brought to you by We Create Content, the content marketing agency that builds audiences for global brands in Vietnam. You can follow our host, Ian Paynton, on LinkedIn, and follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok and X. 

A special thanks to DJ Jase at The Beats Saigon for the soundtrack, and to YOU for listening. 

In this episode of You Don’t Know Vietnam, Ian Paynton is joined by Gauthier D'haenens, a Vietnamese-born Belgian adoptee who returned to Vietnam as an adult searching for his biological parents — and instead found a very different sense of belonging.

Gauthier shares his deeply personal journey of growing up feeling like an outsider in Europe, returning to Vietnam to reconnect with his roots, and ultimately choosing to build a life here despite never fully fitting into one box or another. Together, Ian and Gauthier explore what it means to live between cultures, how Vietnam can strip away old identities and force new ones to emerge, and why grief, distance, and belonging are some of the least talked-about realities of long-term life abroad.

The conversation also dives into Vietnam’s evolution beyond the usual Hanoi–Ho Chi Minh City narrative, why Danang is emerging as a serious tech and lifestyle hub, and what global leaders consistently misunderstand about building businesses and teams in Vietnam.

This is a reflective, honest episode about adoption, ambition, wonder, and the quiet sacrifices that come with choosing Vietnam — and why, for many, the country has a way of confronting you… and changing you.

In this episode, we cover:

• Growing up Vietnamese in Europe and returning to Vietnam as an adult
• Searching for biological parents — and making peace with not finding them
• Identity, belonging, and the emotional cost of living far from home
• Why Hanoi can break you — and why that matters
• Danang’s rise beyond tourism into tech and innovation
• What Vietnam’s future could look like, and what it risks losing along the way

Send us Fan Mail

If you enjoy this conversation or think someone in your network could find value in it, please share it and hit follow to get notified when the next episode drops.

This podcast is brought to you by We Create Content, the content marketing agency that builds audiences for global brands in Vietnam. You can follow our host, Ian Paynton, on LinkedIn, and follow the podcast on Instagram, TikTok and X. 

A special thanks to DJ Jase at The Beats Saigon for the soundtrack, and to YOU for listening.