Lost in America

When the feds busted the "Black String Gang," they scratched the surface of the Vietnamese youth problem in South St. Louis. But no one's bothered to dig deeper into how it started.

https://www.google.com/maps/d1/viewer?mid=1SnMdN29_y2EE_wO2-GNloOuPwRNKl-Q&ll=38.59180554778073%2C-90.24273349199501&z=15
Black-and-white shots of a store aisle, shelves bulging with dried noodles, cans of coffee, a bin of gnarled roots.
Sudden color: a woman seated at the cash register, obviously pregnant, a toddler clambering onto her lap.
Black-and-white again, a side doorway. A man entering, face concealed by a white cloth tied in back.
Out of the security cameras' reach, two customers are idly browsing through red-and-gold party favors. One feels a hand grab her neck from behind and looks up to see a gun pressed to her friend's temple. They're shoved to the floor. Back on the color camera, a robber in a brown leather jacket, blue bandanna over the face, knocks a man off a stool to the ground.
The video is eerily silent, but by now there's a lot of harsh yelling in Vietnamese. The American-born customer will later swear she heard one of the robbers say, "I'm sorry, ma'am" in English as he put the gun to her head. "We were so obviously not the targets," she remarks. "I was lying face-down on the ground, my wallet in my hand, and they never took it."
The Vietnamese robbers of the Grand Trading Co. focused on the store's Vietnamese proprietors, seizing their money, jewelry, purses. To this day, the Oct. 30, 1996, robbery remains unsolved. But law-enforcement officials feel sure it was the act of what they call the Black String Gang.
The name has plenty of Asian mystique — but, as it turns out, the cops made it up themselves. Five years ago, they seized upon their first clue: a black string worn like a bolo around the neck. Now, someone close to one of the defendants swears he never wore a black string and adds that the ties were simply a fashion fad at the time. Someone else remembers teenagers roaming South Grand with black cords around their wrists. A young Vietnamese woman says she always figured "Black String" referred to their tattoos, because many Vietnamese favor single-color tattoos that cost less than a rainbow of ink.
Investigating a Vietnamese gang is not hard science.
Still, this March, after years of work, federal agents and police arrested 21 of these alleged gang members in a single swoop. For the indictment, they trotted out a new name: Hieu's Group. An Amerasian immigrant named Hieu Vo, they said, had been leading a highly sophisticated, organized, violent street gang. The 23-count federal indictment cited crimes ranging from simple bookmaking to armed home invasions and conspiracy to murder.
At first glance, the indictment's long list of Vietnamese names and overlapping crimes looks seamlessly sinister. With a little more data, it rips into patchwork. The defendants range in age from 22-48. Some went to college and had full-time jobs; others never finished high school. Some are indicted for a long list of crimes involving threats of violence; some for credit-card fraud; others only for bookmaking. (As Truong Nguyen, a veteran of the South Vietnamese army, told his lawyer, "Who you think teach me to gamble? American soldiers teach me to gamble!")
Back in 1994, when word of a Vietnamese gang first filtered into the local media, it was presented dismissively as a group of five youths with maybe 10 hangers-on. Their crime? Intimidating South Grand Vietnamese restaurant owners (or what one openhearted Vietnamese clergyman describes as "staying too long over coffee and maybe asking to borrow some money").
By 1999, about 600 FBI wiretaps and video-surveillance transcripts had the U.S. attorney's office convinced that the gang was doing far more damage than just tough-punk extortion and that it stretched even further than the 21 men arrested on March 24, with links to Boston; San Jose, Calif.; and Columbia, S. Carolina. Federal racketeering statutes allowed U.S. prosecutor David Rosen to reach back, citing the early crimes and then adding more recent robberies and credit-card, mail and bank fraud.
For some members of St. Louis' Vietnamese community, the announcement broke a long, tense silence. They'd been terrified of trusting the police, terrified of reprisals from criminals, terrified that outsiders would begin to associate their orderly, self-sacrificing, elaborately coded Vietnamese culture with organized crime. The Vietnamese population had exploded in the past five years — from 3,200 to 14,000 in the St. Louis metropolitan area, counting babies born here — and their lives were finally beginning to take root; about 60 percent lived and worked in South St. Louis, where the South Grand commercial district was thriving.
For those outside the Vietnamese community, the indictment and attendant hoopla provided a sense of closure, a sense that the guys on white horses had ridden through town and cleaned up. What they'd cleaned up, nobody seemed quite sure. How it started, nobody bothered to ask.
Most St. Louisans think "Vietnamese" begins and ends with a couple of restaurants in the six blocks between Arsenal and Iowa on South Grand. But if you continue south on Grand, you reach the frayed edges of "Little Vietnam." There, teenage boys played billiards in an empty building, above the soaped windows of the defunct Pizza-a-Go-Go, and rumors flew about a police raid that had kids dropping from the windows. Up Gravois, past the tiny Truc Lam restaurant listed as one of the extortion targets, was an apartment where young boys allegedly gathered to smoke dope. West on Chippewa, the scrubby-Dutch border was studded with a nail shop and the black-lit Karaoke Club, another alleged extortion target and a popular gathering place for Vietnamese young people.
Across the nation, many of the Vietnamese immigrants now said to be gang members had come to this country in the late '80s and early '90s. Most were teenagers — too young to confront the challenge with stoic maturity, too old to be distracted by Mickey Mouse. Pressured to assimilate and make money, fast — trapped between the expectations of naive, tradition-bound parents and the chaotic freedom of the new culture — some decided they couldn't win. So they forged their own culture, constructed a family of friends, found enterprises that didn't require credentials.
The first generation wore classic black pants; high-collared, tieless shirts; linen jackets; black shades. Then came shaved haircuts, a little funk. Today, "they sound exactly the same as black gangs, listen to the same music, wear the same clothes," notes a 25-year-old Vietnamese St. Louisan, speaking of the "little brothers" now trying to follow in their elders' footsteps. There are at least two levels of "gang" — young punks and shrewd adult criminals — but the slide from "bad boy" to bad man is as fast and slick as a log flume.
The first wave of VCA (Vietnamese criminal activity, in FBI parlance) started in the 1980s. By 1993, the FBI was reporting Vietnamese crime "in a state of accelerated networking, the precursor to organization." The emerging gangs were said to be unusually mobile, cooperating frequently with Vietnamese gangs in other cities and moving back and forth fluidly. (According to the court file, dragon-tattooed Ut Nguyen, a St. Louis defendant, is out on bond in San Jose, where he lives with his wife and baby and holds down a full-time job making $1,500 a month. An informer told the FBI that several men who used to live here had returned to practice credit-card and bank fraud.)
Vietnamese gangs are said to prefer the name of a particular leader to a generic gang name, and they're said to exist independent of any particular turf. But, as one St. Louis police officer points out, the "Midwest flavor" changes things. Hieu's Group, however sophisticated or random it really was, certainly had at least a financial interest in the South Grand territory. Furthermore, these men weren't horribly violent — at least not compared to crimes in Orange County, Calif., where a choirboy was killed in crossfire in 1993; or San Francisco, where a police sergeant told an AP reporter about "people with their fingers burned to the bone ... infants thrown against the wall until the family gives up the gold ... children dipped in boiling water."
Experts credit the lack of lurid violence in the Midwest to the absence of drug dealing. "Some use," notes one law-enforcement officer, "and if a kilo of cocaine comes their way, they won't ignore it. But mainly they're too smart to risk the snitches and the chance of increased scrutiny."
Still, the guns pointed during the Grand Trading Co. robbery weren't water pistols, and the home invasions weren't sleep-overs with fudge. "The potential for ruthlessness is something they want known," observes one law-enforcement officer.
According to William L. Cassidy — a former intelligence officer who's advised the CIA, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Customs Service, the President's Commission on Organized Crime and the International Association of Chiefs of Police about Vietnamese crime — this ruthlessness is a twisted outgrowth of tradition. Great wealth, in Vietnam, was considered antisocial, a sign of selfishness. "Victims are spoken of scornfully, with anger, as if they had somehow violated an ancient compact to share and share alike. This anger is not the false anger of rationalization one usually finds in common thieves. With Vietnamese, something much deeper is at work." (From the article "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Color of Authority and the Rise of Vietnamese Street Gangs in Orange County," 1995.)
AnhTuan Nguyen, the respected 26-year-old general manager of Blueberry Hill's wait staff, thumps his mug down on the wooden table and slides into the booth. It's early, 9 a.m., and his quiet voice creates a small, vibrating circle of energy in the empty restaurant.
Nguyen, it turns out, used to bowl with the group of friends the indictment places at the alleged gang's core — Hieu Vo, Ut Ngo and Phuong Doan. Nguyen pulled back when "this thing got out of hand," he says, and his life curved in a different trajectory. Now he lives next door to the family of Hieu Vo — the man law-enforcement officials consider too dangerous to release on bond but whom Nguyen describes as "lanky and kind of goofy, with a major overbite."
Nguyen is the uncle of Vo's girlfriend and the godfather of their baby. "When he finally settled down with my niece and had a family, he pretty much changed his life around," says Nguyen. "I was laughing at the newscasts — in many ways I think they are trying to make themselves look good, make it a big dramatic thing. These weren't big badasses."
People weren't scared?
"They did intimidate, but it wasn't so much through fear of being beaten up as fear that they'd ruin an event," Nguyen says. "They used to show up at Vietnamese parties, demand drinks. People just didn't want any problem." Nguyen's sister and brother-in-law operate the restaurant Pho Grand, and although they're named in the indictment as extortion victims, Nguyen says his sister denies any financial losses. "We'd have just called the police," he explains. "The main restaurants they messed with were small ones off the main strip, run by recent immigrants who are still accustomed to the corruption in Vietnam."
Nguyen is one of many in the Vietnamese community who believe that Hieu's Group is an FBI construct, a merging of several different gangs or groups into a dramatic single entity. "Hieu's name is easy to remember," he points out, pronouncing the Vietnamese suffix friends added as a funny nickname. It sounds like "Hieu-gah." "Whenever something happened, people would say his name, whether he was involved or not."
The clincher for others is Vo's age: 26. In the Vietnamese culture, kids live in multigenerational families and grow up more slowly; they're not even considered ready to babysit until age 18 or 19, and youth can extend to the early 30s. The real leader of the gang, people whisper, "is a man in his 50s with lots of property, connections and business interests."
All officials will say is, "The investigation is ongoing."
In the 1992 Rough Rider — one of the few Roosevelt High School yearbooks whose last copy hasn't been stolen from the school library — somebody goofed. Ut Ngo's name appears beneath a photo of an African-American girl who's twice his weight and looks about 30. But there he is, an inch away from his proper name and history, grinning eagerly, his denim jacket leaving a moat of air around his long, skinny neck. Maybe it's just the cowlick, or the lopsided smile, but there's a sweetness about him that's hard to trace, seven years later, in accounts of armed home-invasion robberies.
Back when that picture was taken, Ngo was just a freshman and hadn't had much time to get involved in the life of the school. Yet virtually none of the other 111 Roosevelt students with Vietnamese names had done so, either. The '92 yearbook has almost triple the number of Vietnamese students as the '89 yearbook, yet they still don't show up in the casual "party pix," or the big sports teams, or the clubs (except the National Honor Society). Roosevelt's 1992 homecoming court was all African-American. So was — is — the school's prevailing culture.
The difference between a place like Roosevelt High and a school in Vietnam is the difference between swimming laps in a lane and diving into a tidal wave. In Vietnam, students were expected to be silent and obedient. At Roosevelt, teachers have been heard to cuss students out, and playing around in class is so pervasive, Vietnamese students mention it spontaneously.
By 1993, the St. Louis Public Schools showed no record of any student named Ut Ngo. He and Phuong Doan, who also dropped out of Roosevelt High, were hanging out with the man who's now alleged to be their gang leader. Four years their senior, Hieu Vo had arrived in the U.S. too late for school. So the three young men spent a lot of time singing at the Karaoke Club, or resting their elbows on vinyl gingham at Pho Saigon Restaurant. Soon, older men without wives were hanging out with them, drinking.
"Vietnamese kids just walk out of school," remarks one teacher. "They trade on the fact that Americans can't recognize Asian kids very easily. Parents don't know to come get a printout of their attendance. And the Vietnamese tend to be very susceptible to their peer group" — they've come, after all, from a society in which the group's interrelationships matter far more than the individual — "so if they get involved with a friend who's in trouble, it's only a matter of time before they're cutting classes, too.
"The school rewards the students who are very successful, very driven," she sighs. "That's the stereotype of the Asian student. But they don't all fit that."
You'd never know it to talk to Steve Warmack, principal of Roosevelt High School. "They are academic, they are polite, they've got a good work ethic, they blend right in," he says of his Vietnamese students. "Their attendance is probably better than the rest of our children." What about the dropout rate? "This is an area I really don't want to get into, because the way the rate is figured and the reality of what we have does not always line up. We have a really transient population, and it's extremely hard to keep tabs on some of those kids."
And those who do get into trouble? "I think a big factor is the lack of parental and home involvement in setting education as a priority of the household. Consequently" — ah, he admits it — "we have an attendance rate that is not where it needs to be."
As for friction in the student body, he swears there's only been one fight since he arrived. Maybe that's true within the school boundaries, retorts Anne-Elise Price, a public defender in the city's juvenile unit. "The problem my clients have is on the way to and from school. The fights happen a block away. I don't think they have dealt at all with the problem of the cultural clashes in that school. When the kids tell you that they get beat up at Roosevelt and then they drop out, they are telling you the truth."
Nabila Salib, director of the St. Louis Public Schools' bilingual and world-languages program, hotly defends the progress of the 1,000-or-so Vietnamese students in the public schools, about 550 of whom are in the English-as-a-second-language (ESL) program, half at Roosevelt and half at Soldan. "They are doing very, very well," she says. "They do attend school; they don't drop; they graduate — about 98 percent. And in math and science, they are the first."
It's true that Vietnamese students filled almost 32 percent of Roosevelt's 1999 upper-class honor roll. But given the number of dropouts you can meet just by walking down Grand Boulevard, Salib's 98 percent seems optimistic. What about the few she admits drop out — why does it happen? "It depends on the situation at home," she replies. "The few who drop out may need to work and support the family — something like that."
A former ESL teacher with years of experience in the public schools offers a sharply different assessment. "There is a significant dropout rate," she maintains. "And some who do graduate are not literate. I found (Vietnamese students) graduating with A's and B's who couldn't write a sentence in English."
Some ESL students hadn't been schooled enough to be literate in Vietnamese, the former teacher adds: "If you cannot read and write in your first language, and someone tries to teach you to read and write in English, you get unraveled."
Learning to order a burger and a malt might be a breeze, but the academic language necessary for schoolwork can take five to seven years to develop, she points out. "If you're a high-school teacher, you don't have five to seven years." What often happens is that teachers notice interpersonal skills — a kid is charming, charismatic, capable — and say, "Let's move him out of ESL into the regular curriculum." The student spends the rest of high school cheating to hide the fact that he can't read and write well enough. "It's hard on their self-esteem," says the teacher, "and it's a moral violation of them, to force them to cheat to survive."
One boy was put into freshman English: "He couldn't even follow directions to turn the page. And when I tried to get him moved, they refused. There was no chance for individual instruction — we used to have total workloads of 150 students apiece, with maybe one aide. Eventually the boy withdrew emotionally, and then he dropped out. Last we heard, he'd joined a gang."
Phuong Doan is 22, the youngest alleged gang member charged in the indictment. He, too, had trouble reading and writing English, so he found a girlfriend and dropped out of Roosevelt, probably in 1994. The criminal charges against him date back to the same year.
It's a Thursday afternoon in a parched, overbright stretch of July, and Vietnamese dropouts (the ones authorities claim don't exist) fringe the sidewalk in front of the public library on South Grand. Two, chain-smoking, talk about their jobs doing nails. Sam is cleaning offices. "Too many bad people at school," he explains. "They play around; they don't respect teachers. And they sometimes hurt you. Sometimes it's not only blacks; sometimes it's Bosnians and other Asians."
The kids resume the seesaw inflections of their native language. Then one drops into English with a jolt: "Man, I gotta go get my money."
He turns and nearly runs smack into Rudy Wilkinson, an independent Catholic priest who's made it his business to stand amid these kids. At Roosevelt, where Wilkinson's been working as a teacher's aide, the early-'90s surge in immigration made them "the new underdogs," he explains. "Kids called them "chink' and wanted to fight them because they thought they all knew karate. One Vietnamese boy now calls himself "Ching Chong Chinaman,' because that's what the other kids used to call him."
Wilkinson has "adopted" several of these boys, including one young teenager who's "very aggressive, a fighter, a very angry boy." Another protégé is 20 and just out of jail, "so gracious, you could never imagine how much damage he could do. I've always wondered how they can hurt people," confesses Wilkinson, "but they have no remorse. They just see it as them against someone else."
The 20-year-old's father is still in Vietnam, and the boy talks often — irrationally — about going back. "I'm sorry to tell you, there are a lot of kids who are not wild about living here," says Wilkinson. "They see themselves as outsiders, as people who are not allowed to be who they are. And they're too busy translating to deal with other emotions. There's trauma that's never been taken care of, and there's anger they don't always recognize, because it's so deep-rooted." (Clues lie in the names of Asian youth gangs elsewhere: Asian Bad Boys, Born to Kill, Born to Violence, Cheap Boyz, Death on Arrival, Fuck the World, Lonely Boyz Only, Scar Boys.)
Wilkinson would like to see something as simple as a youth center, maybe in the old grocery store on South Grand. "There is nothing to prevent problems, nothing for them to do," he says, "and when you see a kid starting to get in trouble, there is no one in the Vietnamese community to take him under their wing. They are working, or it is not their responsibility, or they are busy gossiping that he is a "bad boy.' Bullshit."
Inside the library, Tommy — a playful young man, full of charming banter and dressed in quintessentially American sports gear — waits to talk to his friend "Mr. Rudy" (Wilkinson). Tommy's back in St. Louis after an exile to a school in Mississippi. His parents, who own the Tan My restaurant, saw him getting involved with gangs and forced some distance. At first he missed his friends terribly, but now he seems to agree it was the only solution: "Get them out of state. When I came back, my life totally changed. I don't hang out with Asian guys anymore. I only know one, he lives right by my house, who's a straight guy, don't do nothing."
Seated at the very next table is one of the kids Tommy so rarely encounters, a Vietnamese boy who's so serious and thoughtful, wild impulse can't get a foot in the door. "I think all of those bad kids have been once good," he offers. "They play too much, or have a girlfriend. That can divide a youngster's mind away from working good in school. We never have that happen in Vietnam. And since a youngster does not have a good knowledge of how to deal with a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship — that love stuff — they have nothing to stop themselves from sexuality."
Add sex, then, to the list of juvenile starter crimes: drinking, drugs, gambling, stealing, truancy, violence, joyriding. Now, go find these kids.
"There was a Vietnamese boy here a few months ago," Sister Mary Anne Dooling, chaplain until last month at the St. Louis juvenile-detention center, recalls slowly. "He actually seemed very responsible — he was working very hard and worried that his boss would know what had happened. He was in some ways the parent, because his mom can't speak enough English to function. And you know, even for adults, seeing a parent become somewhat childlike is very hard. If I were a 16-year-old making all the decisions because this adult I'm supposed to respect can't communicate or operate, I would be so angry."
That boy was one of only a handful of Vietnamese that Dooling saw in her years at the detention center, yet she heard countless stories of other Vietnamese kids in trouble. Her experience matches family-court statistics: Only one or two Vietnamese offenders a year are assigned to a juvenile caseworker, come to trial or go to detention.
Barry LaLumandier, spokesman for the St. Louis Police Department, says sometimes the kids fall — or dive deliberately — into the crack between East and West. "If they run a stop sign and police pull them over and they sit there and speak Vietnamese, that's frustrating. Either they get a ticket without much explanation, or the officer throws up his hands and walks away."
What if kids enter the system at a lower level — say, for a "status" offense that's illegal only because of the offender's age? "They are referred to the intake delinquency unit for counseling," explains a professional in the system. "But the DJOs (deputy juvenile officers) don't have degrees in counseling, so mainly they tell the kid, "Look, you're going to be in big trouble if you don't straighten up.'" At the next level, they're placed on probation and given a set of rules to follow (go to school, meet curfew, avoid wild kids, report in once a week). "So the kids get on Bi-State, show up at the office and maybe the DJO's on a home visit or in court, so they sign in and leave. On other occasions, it's a five-minute meeting."
Other than arrests, the usual entry points into the juvenile system are truancy reports from schools and "incorrigibility" petitions filed by parents. Many Vietnamese students are already 16 and cannot be labeled truant. Often, Vietnamese parents are working too hard to notice "incorrigibility" or can't bear to admit it in a child whose culture values filial piety, respect and obedience above all else.
Keith Hulsey, who teaches ESL at St. Pius V Catholic Church on South Grand, remembers a Vietnamese boy who blew off school to take a job in Louisiana, Mo., joining a van pool to do light-industrial work. "He had to pay for his Tommy Hilfiger shirts and baggy pants," Hulsey says dryly. "His parents were worried sick. So when he came home, they were so relieved they didn't make him go to school. He's now 15, and working full time.
"In most cases, the Vietnamese hold education very highly," adds Hulsey, "but some get caught up in making ends meet." College isn't an automatic goal — in Vietnam, university was pretty much reserved for geniuses and members of the Communist Party. Even secondary school sometimes took more money than the family had.
Enrolling in this country's genuinely free public education felt like grabbing the gold ring. And then they saw that it could tarnish.
Phuong Doan, a handsome, sleepy-eyed 22-year-old whose English comes out with African-American inflections, is playing patty-cake with his chubby, solemn year-old daughter through the glass visiting booth at the Franklin County Detention Center. He's been denied bond since his arrest on March 24 with the Black String Gang.
His girlfriend (who, along with Doan's parents, refused to be interviewed for this story) has a graceful long neck, a round face and high cheekbones. "Me, too," she murmurs into the booth's phone, alternating between Vietnamese and English. "Yes, she is" — hugging the baby. And then, more sharply, "I'm busy at home," tacitly reminding him that she's working overtime, doing businesswomen's nails six days a week to pay for a lawyer and support their child.
The woman in the next booth starts raving about a Garth Brooks special. Doan's parents, who've been hovering in the background, decide to wait outside, give the little family some privacy. Their son's been different these past two years, working hard, in love with his baby girl. The girlfriend insisted that he move to Florissant, away from trouble. In recent times, when he saw his old friends Vo and Ngo — both of whom have babies, too — it was while taking their wives and girlfriends shopping, or going to movies.
"I work, I come home, and they come and get me," says Doan, alarmed by the resurrection of his past and terrified that he'll be sent back to Vietnam. (He doesn't seem to realize that's not even possible; we don't have diplomatic arrangements to deport criminals to Vietnam. If these defendants are convicted, they will go to prison and then, if their crime falls within new, stringent, retroactive categories such as "aggravated felony," they will be — theoretically — deported. In actuality, they will be released into the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and will remain incarcerated in this country. Indefinitely.)
Even if he's acquitted, Doan may qualify for deportation retroactively: Back in 1994, he was convicted of second-degree assault after what sounds like a youth-gang fight in a South Grand restaurant that's since closed. He spent two years on probation. As best he can figure, that conviction has now resurfaced as "Nov. 18, 1994: conspiracy to murder Nham Le." Both Phuong Doan (a.k.a. Thom) and his friend Hieu Vo (a.k.a. Hieu Co) are charged.
All friends recall is a fight between two Asian groups and a bullet zinging through a window; they also mention a Romeo and Juliet theme, with Doan's older sister marrying into the restaurant owner's family, as had Nham Le. After the fight erupted, Doan was arrested. Then his father lost his temper and got himself arrested, too. He was eventually released with a stern injunction to leave witnesses alone, or else. Meanwhile, friends say Doan's mom had gone, in Vietnamese tradition, to offer to make right whatever her son had done. She was arrested for attempted bribery.
These days, the Doans work long factory hours and then stay home watching movies, afraid to talk to anyone. Their son is also being charged with conspiracy to rob and actual armed robbery: According to the indictment, he and three other men "entered the home of Nguyen T. Pham and, while armed with a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument, confronted and bound Trag T. Phan and Nguyen T. Muoi and demanded the cash in the house." Next, Doan is charged with unlawfully transporting $40,000 in stolen goods from St. Louis to San Jose. And he's charged with extorting money from Pho Grand and Truc Lam.
Friends remember how, when Truc Lam put a camera above their doorway, Doan and his friends hammed it up, acting even tougher for the camera.
It's all turned very, very serious.
The Rev. Minh Chou Vo, pastor of St. Peter's Lutheran Church on Kingshighway, is a kind and irrepressibly cheerful man who — despite being mired in social work and interpreting responsibilities for his refugee church — will spend 15 minutes making silly faces to coax a smile from a shy toddler or drive for hours visiting alleged gang members scattered in detention facilities around the state.
Chou Vo has become "unofficial pastor to the gangs," in the wry phrase of his American wife, Kari Vo. Several times that has meant conducting funerals for young people shot to death, or spotting the trademark cigarette burns that sometimes mean gang involvement. Other times, it's meant taking a group of kids to camp and finding them all huddled in one cabin because they've never been alone. Explaining to naive parents that their kids are bluffing, that people do still get married in America. Helping a teased kid on the edge of trouble switch schools, learn better English and stop wanting to bash and kill people.
"The church can forgive, but the people cannot," Chou says angrily, referring to the three friends — Phuong Doan, Ut Ngo, Hieu Vo — he watched fall into trouble and climb back out. Now they have babies and full-time jobs; one even had a church wedding. "In the last two years, these young men changed a lot," he insists. "I am very proud of them. Everybody saw the change. But now they deny it."
Shortly after the March 24 arrests, Chou went to Truc Lam for lunch and felt his stomach go sour. On the wall was an official posting "in very, very mean language in Vietnamese, telling people to stay away from them. And they are not even found guilty yet! I don't think that is legal," he says firmly, "so I took it down. I left my phone number in case the FBI wanted to call me."
In English, the language wasn't so mean, he adds; it just said they were looking for evidence. In Vietnamese, the words burned shame. And Chou is convinced that the interpreter's emphasis was deliberate.
Chou's wife, Kari, worries more about inadvertent mistranslations. As an American married to a Vietnamese man, she knows just how complex the language can be, and how easily misunderstood. Vietnamese has no formal past tense, so as she leaves a parishioner's house, she's telling the family how much she's enjoying seeing their house. The language has no consistent personal pronoun for "I"; she's learned to refer to herself with different words, depending on her relationship to the person she's addressing. Vietnamese has no direct "no": "It's a softened yes-no," a courtesy Kari is afraid could be misunderstood by impatient officials who register only the first half.
"When a Vietnamese man says, "Yeah, yeah,' it's no guarantee that he agrees, admits or even understands," she continues. ""Yeah' is only a mark of attention; all it means is that he's listening." Refusing to make eye contact doesn't necessarily mean he's lying, either; it might simply be a show of respect. Conversely, grinning at a question does not indicate disrespect, just nervousness or confusion.
Kari also worries about the misidentification of criminals. Names are often identical (there are only about 200 Vietnamese family names, all told) and witnesses unfamiliar with American ways can be too readily acquiescent. "You get handed a list of names," she explains, "and you've been trained to say yes to people in authority, and you have in fact been a victim of crime, but not by every last person on that sheet. If you're lacking in English, it's easier just to say yes."
​

Original story below by Vietnamthoibao is in Vietnamese, link at the bottom, you can use Google translate to read it in English. I extracted important information for easier to follow for the readers.
The story:
1/ Nguyen Cong Khe is a former Thanh Nien newspaper's editor (a government owned newspaper), who just got arrested a few days ago by the Vietnamese government due to his misdeed in 2015 causing the state lost money due to undervalued land transfer and violation of government's land transfering rules.
Nguyen Cong Khe and associates formed a company named Thanh Nien real estate company, see Vingroup used its censorship power AGAIN to conceal its stake in an illegal allocation of state-owned land, which was revealed through the recent arrest of Nguyen Cong Khe : VinFastComm (reddit.com), to acquire the land at 151-155 Ben Van Don st, District 4, HCMC from the government on the cheap for the purpose of building Thanh Nien newspaper HQ (which is a government owned newspaper). Then he sold the project to Novaland for under market price, likely with under the table kicked back, causing the state to lost money. This lands him in jail now.
2/ Now, the associates that helped Cong Khe pull this off was Vinpearl and Sun Group, which contributed capital to the Thanh Nien real estate company as founders. Sun Group is not relevant to this sub so I will leave it out, and only focus on Vuong Pham.
"In a recent post on Facebook, Mr. Huynh Ngoc Chenh, a former reporter for Thanh Nien newspaper, said, "Thanh Nien newspaper and Thanh Nien media group cannot have enough several hundred billion to buy the land, let alone build it." a huge project. Some time later, I accidentally learned that Thanh Nien newspaper had borrowed a large amount of money from Mr. Vuong to buy the land." Mr. Chenh further revealed, "there was a meeting of the entire editorial board including the CEO, deputy CEOs and editorial board members to sign a document to sell 25% of the project's shares to get money to repay Mr. Vuong's debt... Recently, all the people who signed the sale papers were invited to worked with the investigation agency."
So, by every account, Vuong N Pham is a co-conspirator with Nguyen Cong Khe in the scheme, and without Vuong Pham, the scheme could not succeed.
But while Cong Khe was arrested and releated people were questioned by the authority, Vuong Pham escaped and even pulled the string to hide the information, see Vingroup used its censorship power AGAIN to conceal its stake in an illegal allocation of state-owned land, which was revealed through the recent arrest of Nguyen Cong Khe : VinFastComm (reddit.com)
This is the original news with the Vinpearl named highlighted.
https://preview.redd.it/83nu4d6vh6dc1.png?width=472&format=png&auto=webp&s=9cc11c8a43b2f6ade5943cecaf27d804627135b6
After a few hour, that was remove, and the current content is here, with that paragraph mentioning Vinpearl removed: https://nld.com.vn/vi-sao-cong-an-tp-hcm-bat-2-ong-nguyen-cong-khe-va-nguyen-quang-thong-19624011619571706.htm
3/ But here is the kicker: Vuong Pham personally guaranteed Nguyen Cong Khe loan of 300B VND (about $13M) at Sacombank to buy a land at Vinhomes Riverside, see the images below the fold. He gave Nguyen Cong Khe money and help this way, and in return, Cong Khe, a powerful government owned news paper's editor, protected Vuong Pham and Vingroup from media reports and was a helping hand in taking down bad info (but true) on Vingroup.
So in summary,
Vuong Pham by all account is a co-conspirator in the Nguyen Cong Khe's case and should be taken to the legal stand together with Nguyen Cong Khe.
Yet, I doubt this will occur.
Vuong Pham still has a lot of friends in very high up places, even in the politburo.
Here, we again share the truth for those who wants to know, the truth seekers.
Vuong Pham to pay for his illegal activities? Do not bet on it.
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Exhibit: Vuong N Pham guarantee for Nguyen Cong Khe 300B VND loan at Sacombank
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https://preview.redd.it/qh46f1akf6dc1.png?width=550&format=png&auto=webp&s=f553efd81f1875e30c81ab60acda679f64fc8b95
https://preview.redd.it/hp2vdn7mf6dc1.png?width=550&format=png&auto=webp&s=ab67ad9b89f2607d0050e5d5be555135c070b7f2
https://preview.redd.it/rlz9k2cof6dc1.png?width=550&format=png&auto=webp&s=9971ba721865026621dc84ed92229badbd87ca4c
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source: https://vietnamthoibao.org/vntb-moi-lien-he-giua-nguyen-cong-khe-va-pham-nhat-vuong/ This link is blocked from Vietnam a friend told me so, use proxy and VPN if you want to access

Many problems. Especially VF5 reported multiple engine noise problem.
Battery drain hugely after upgrade.
Camera not working or only intermittenly. Aircon setting does not remember. Not working in some cases.
Many warning and errors, Vinfast car owners just ignore and drive (very dangerous).
Many people do not know this truth, even Vietnamese, let alone Americans.
I will keep updating on Vinfast's car serious errors and problems for Americans to know. A lemon law suit has already been filed.
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Case 1: Hop Hoang Van - engine loud noise
My car's Vin number is 14, but with just nearly 2.4 thousand miles on it, I feel it's deteriorating so quickly. The 6.4 and 6.5 software runs much more stable than before, the battery is still fine, but the hardware is very worrying. The noise of the car body is getting louder and louder, it always sounds like it's missing a mountain, now it's adding engine noise, going slowly and it's screeching, accelerating a little and it's screeching, slowing down and it sounds like a plane landing (telling). Even in comfort mode without regenerative braking), there is also a screeching sound like the motor shaft rotating (almost like the sound of an industrial press).
https://vinfast.vn/dien-dan/thao-luan/mot-so-cam-nhan-ve-vfe34-sau-2-nam-su-dung/
Case 2: Nguyen Trong Duc VF5 screen error
https://preview.redd.it/zystgvdqk6bc1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=54afbbbe75d7c9fc324adb3b82d18b51042c520e
https://vinfast.vn/dien-dan/thao-luan/loi-hien-thi-mang-hinh-vf5/
Case 3: Ngoc Tuan Dang
Some errors on VF5 after updating to version 5.7.9.5

1. The reversing camera reports a technical error, sometimes it goes away on its own, sometimes the negative pole has to be removed.
2. Cannot adjust the volume of USB music playback on the headset. The default volume rocker adjusts call volume.
3. Loss of esim connection when the vehicle moves occurs continuously.
4. Traction control mode is turned off, must be turned on manually (does not happen very often).
5. The volume levels of adjacent entertainment music playback levels are inconsistent, the distance between loud and small is too large.

https://vinfast.vn/dien-dan/thao-luan/mot-so-loi-tren-vf5-sau-khi-cap-nhat-len-phien-ban-5-7-9-5/
Case 4: Bac Nguyen Trung
VF5 engine noise
Hello guys. My car recently had the following engine error: when accelerating and decelerating there was a very loud clicking sound in the engine, when accelerating at a speed range of 15 to 40km/h there was also a clicking sound, clicking and releasing the accelerator also occurred. There is a loud and clear clicking sound. On November 18, the first warranty was to repair and replace components in the engine. Not only did the problem not go away, but the noise became louder and clearer and even changed from one place to another (I received the car on December 1). Then on December 15, I went back for warranty, after 3 days the company told me to replace the engine, I agreed and changed the engine for the first time on December 21, I also had the factory technician test the new engine and found it was still making noise. abnormality and continued to leave the vehicle for research and then the company reported replacing the transmission shaft. I was ok and replaced the tire but the car still made noise and the company told me to replace the engine a second time. I was also ok and replaced the engine a second time. As of today, the company said it had finished replacing and invited me down to work. After testing the car with the guy in charge of after-sales and Vin in Bac Giang, there was a very clear clacking sound left. The company informed me that this sound is characteristic of VF5 and is the company's allowed standard. E did not agree to receive the vehicle and requested to thoroughly handle the problem and request documents to prove that the noise was of an allowed standard and had been inspected.
Above is the preliminary content of my faulty car. And the current cry appears from 4:45 seconds onwards. I hope you guys can give me your feedback so I can work with the company to protect my rights as well as those who have, are and are about to use this car.
https://vinfast.vn/dien-dan/thao-luan/vf5-loi-vin-khong-khac-phuc-triet-de/
Case 5: Nien Le Van
15 service trip in 6 months with many problems
From the time I bought this e34 until now, I have spent time going to the workshop about 15 times/6 months. In addition to the benefits it brings such as fuel economy, no pollution and so on... it also makes me feel tired all the time. I'm filled with anger and discomfort. I often look at information but never post about cars. It's 2 a.m. now that I'm writing an article like this to share with Vin and everyone, the limit of tolerance has reached its peak. ….the problems I encountered after buying a car for service are as follows. You should consider before buying a car

1. In the beginning, the car had software errors constantly, when picking up passengers, the engine could not be started, the entertainment screen was frozen and the air conditioner could not be adjusted => the software update only took about 1 month, recently. This is starting to happen again

2 problems charging the car battery. I usually charge it at the post and at home.
+ At the posts, I used to take passengers long distances (limited time) to find a place to charge, but when I got to the posts, I often got an error message that it couldn't be charged. I disassembled and installed it 2 to 3 times. Luckily, I was able to charge it. You don't have to run to find another station at another location, sometimes you have to go to shopping centers to charge and pay parking fees. There are times when there is no charging place or the charging station is faulty... very passive for the plan to transport passengers.
+ About charging at home: used the charger continuously every night for about 1 month, then the charger was broken and got a new one under warranty.. the company couldn't determine the cause, it took a long time. Every day I had to lie down for more than 1 hour. Lake for charging
=> The errors have been fixed but today when I plugged in the charger at about 20% it said the error could not be charged. Today I had to wake up several times to unplug and reinstall the battery.

1. Regarding the 2 rearview mirrors, when the door is closed, it cannot be folded. I went to the repair company and found it. I ran out on the street for about 15 minutes and it happened again. The cleaning technician did this and that. I bought rp7 spray and it didn't have any effect. more The driver's side lifting window is heavy when going up and down, sometimes it gets stuck. The mechanical adjustment button is also broken...it can't be repaired after going to the dealership many times. I tremble when parking on the side of the road, these 360 ​​degree glasses are a lot of money.
   
2. As for the body of the car passing through the speed bump, there was a shuddering sound like a dump truck carrying construction materials, the sound of wind whistling like the lifting glass was leaking..
   

5.The motor uses a new 4v8, but the howling and roaring sounds gradually become closer to that of a supercar...crying without words

1. The air conditioner doesn't have any effect even though it's not as cold in Da Nang as it is in the North, the automatic wipers and automatic lights are not stable. I turn the wipers manually with my hands.. If I turn them on too often, they won't work. Unbearable noise..
   
2. The most important thing I didn't think about when buying the car was repair. The service workshop is always overloaded. Whether you make an urgent appointment or not, it takes about 2 weeks for your turn to arrive. When it comes to the company, there are very few taxis full of personal cars...currently, car sales are not that much. What will happen after a few years? Only vin can be repaired...
   

In my personal opinion, the problems of the e34 will come with years of use and never-ending discomfort. They may increase in the future when battery, engine and repair problems, and additional costs arise. spare parts after the warranty expires….
I'm a person who always supports Vietnamese products, especially Vin. The phone I'm using is Vin Aris Pro. Now I have to use it to check the time and use the banking app. I like to turn off the power at any time.... but I can't stand it anymore. Should share so you can consider when buying a car. Although the promotions are very attractive.
I hope Vin listens and fixes it so people like me can still have faith
https://vinfast.vn/dien-dan/thao-luan/lich-hen-sua-chua-va-cach-xu-ly-loi/
Case 6: Luong Pham Quang
VF5 has engine noise
https://vinfast.vn/dien-dan/thao-luan/vf5-bi-bo-may-loi-loc-coc/
Case 7: Dung Le Viet
VF9 car has many errors - VF does not provide adequate support
The car was just received more than a month ago and did not run twice, the first time the rescue was able to start it, the second time it had to be towed back to the factory, after 4 days they reported a PDU error waiting for the factory to send a replacement!? That's a big error, there are plenty of software and hardware errors.
https://vinfast.vn/dien-dan/thao-luan/xe-vf9-nhieu-loi-vf-chua-ho-tro-thoa-dang/
Case 8: Nguyen Viet Hung
Vf5 errors encountered after 2 months of use

1. The front brake on the passenger side makes a noise when starting to move - the warranty has not yet expired
2. The two back doors are heavier than the two upper doors. – vf failed to make a warranty appointment
3. The steering wheel has a small squeaking sound - yesterday it didn't make any noise
4. The screen often has errors - even updating the software still happens
5. Report virtual errors on the screen

If you have any other errors, please share!
https://vinfast.vn/dien-dan/thao-luan/cac-loi-vf5-da-gap-sau-2-thang-su-dung/
Case 9: Hai Nguyen Vu
Engine replacement after only 1 month
The story is that my family bought a VF8 car from March 2023. On the first day of receiving the car, the car had a faulty electric motor and had to go to the factory to have the motor replaced. At that time, the family did not want to receive the car because the car was defective on the day they received the car. After 1 week, my family received the car but there were no documents to register it because the electric motor was replaced and the engine number was different from the original documents. My family called the switchboard many times and after 3 months they were told that the car had to be towed to Hai Phong to have it rebuilt. Ok. Agree. After that, the car was in Hai Phong for exactly 1 month, then the car was picked up but still had no documents. After calling the switchboard many times, 2 weeks later my family received a piece of paper made by VinFast with the content of replacing the electric motor. Along with that problem, my family signed up for an unlimited max battery rental package, but within 5 months because the car couldn't get the license plate up, I didn't dare go out on the main road, but vin still collected the monthly battery rental fee and collected it. The month Vin brought the car to Hai Phong. Calling the switchboard, the switchboard told them to just top up money to go and the company would support them later, but as of now, vin replied that there is no such support policy. If Vin's leaders read this, they should reconsider their way of working. Buying a defective car can cause all sorts of losses. Admin, please approve it so that Vin's leaders can read it. Thanks
https://vinfast.vn/dien-dan/thao-luan/de-nghi-lanh-dao-vinfast-co-nhung-chinh-sach-phu-hop/
Case 10: Khanh Nguyen Quang
I just updated the VF8 ECO version to the latest version 9.5. There are some small changes to the interface, improving the seat position memory feature..., but I encountered some new errors such as:- Can't remember air conditioning settings. Every time I get in the car, the air conditioner defaults to 16 degrees while the previous version I remember kept at 25 degrees. I've been trying all kinds of things and still can't get it resolved.– The 360 ​​camera still sometimes cannot open even when the car is stopped.
https://vinfast.vn/dien-dan/thao-luan/phan-mem-9-5-tren-vf8-co-nhung-loi-phat-sinh-nao/
In comment:
1/ After upgrading to 8.7.9.5, my car lost 8% of its battery power in 1 day and had an electrical system error when starting the car. At that time, when I checked the battery, it was only 20%. Remove the negative terminal and reset the battery to 40% and start the car as normal. However, battery drain and electrical system errors occur almost every day. After nearly a week, I couldn't stand having to remove the negative pole every day, so I had to bring the car into the workshop for inspection.
2/ After upgrading, I also had the same error as other people: the battery drains quite quickly, 1% every day, while version 9.2 can be left for a whole week without draining any %. Still continuing to monitor and update you later
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Previous car with engine problem: Customer feedback: The car had a faulty engine and was waiting tirelessly : VinFastComm (reddit.com)
https://preview.redd.it/yq4zfc94j6bc1.png?width=1109&format=png&auto=webp&s=fff414749d5864c4a39bea3f409b80861c0866a8
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https://preview.redd.it/19h13e7aj6bc1.png?width=1021&format=png&auto=webp&s=7f85d6fa4a263a30122d8960efa90be06a855660
source: https://vinfast.vn/dien-dan/thao-luan/mot-so-cam-nhan-ve-vfe34-sau-2-nam-su-dung/

Although there are Vietnamese businesses that have registered for trademark protection in many countries, they have forgotten their key markets, so they only know when they are "stolen".
Many famous Vietnamese brands have been "stolen" in foreign markets, causing businesses to spend a lot of time and money to get them back. However, the risk of losing the Vietnamese brand is still looming because many companies still do not really care about this issue.
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https://preview.redd.it/1509qti2cvub1.jpg?width=850&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=29c9500727f103648a48c7b8ac99f44397b0f72b
It's mine, but if I want to sell it, I have to ask for a foreign license
Recently, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Luan, Director of Meet More Company - specializing in exporting fruit coffee, said that while surveying the retail market in Australia, he discovered a supermarket bearing the Co.opmart logo. Many Vietnamese people in Australia mistakenly think this is a Vietnamese brand so they come to support it.
Regarding this incident, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thang, Director of Co.opmart Supermarket operations, affirmed that up to now, the unit has not invested in building a supermarket and has not franchised the Co.opmart Supermarket brand. opmart for any foreign investors.
"From this incident, we will proceed with the registration of foreign trademark protection to preserve the Vietnamese enterprise brand" - Mr. Thang shared.
But not only did a supermarket in Australia use Co.opmart's brand logo image, but many Vietnamese brands were also "stolen" abroad. Mr. Luan said that previously at the largest wholesale distribution system in Australia, Costco, customers could easily see instant pho packages with the pho brand and the words "Vietnamese Style Noodle Soup" but under each pho package was written is “Product of China”. Similarly, in the US, the pho brand was also registered by Thailand.
“Thus, the pho brand in the US or Australia is no longer Vietnamese. In other words, if Vietnamese people want to sell their pho brand products in Australia, they must be allowed by Chinese businesses, and in the US, Thai businesses must be allowed" - Mr. Luan said.
The company leader also warned that many of Vietnam's strong products will be taken away by foreign countries. Therefore, companies need to have solutions so that the brands associated with Vietnamese products are not taken away in the future.
Many famous Vietnamese brands have been "stolen" in foreign markets.
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There is a situation of brand hunting for resale
Mr. Luan warned that currently, in some markets, there are teams specializing in searching for famous or starting to become famous brands that are popular with the market to register for protection and resell the trademarks to other businesses.
“Recently an individual in China offered to buy back the Meet More trademark and they also showed proof that it was registered in China. However, they did not expect that we were one step ahead when we registered for trademark protection in the Chinese market. We are currently waiting for Chinese authorities to issue a certificate of trademark protection for the Meet More brand in this market" - Mr. Luan cited.
Also according to Mr. Luan, in 2019, after successfully selling the first batch of goods and preparing the second batch to enter Korea, the company applied for trademark protection in this country. But the company was surprised when the Korean trademark office rejected the application on the grounds that the company's fruit coffee brand had been previously applied for registration by another unit.
“Immediately the company asked a lawyer to get involved and found out that it was the unit they were cooperating with in Korea that had pre-registered. In the end, the two sides had to sit down to negotiate, and a few months later they agreed to withdraw the application. At that time, the company continued to carry out procedures to protect its coffee brand" - said the leader of Meet More Company.
Mr. Nguyen Trung Dung, General Director of DHFoods Joint Stock Company, also recognized that trademark protection is a vital issue for the company when exporting to the world. Therefore, right from the time of exporting the first few shipments, the company began registering for trademark protection. Currently, the company's spice products have registered for trademark protection in European and American countries... The cost of registering for protection abroad costs from several thousand USD, depending on each country.
“We cooperated with a legal consulting unit to register for protection so we did not encounter any difficulties. Currently, the company is continuing to register for protection in other potential markets" - Mr. Dung shared.
In 2022, the National Office of Intellectual Property resolved 1,311 complaints, of which accepted the reason for claiming protection for 937 national trademark applications and 67 international trademark applications.
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Register as soon as possible
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Lawyer Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, Vision & Associates Company, said that because of the territorial nature of intellectual property rights in general and trademarks in particular, it is best for businesses to identify key markets when selling abroad. . At the same time, it is necessary to file a trademark registration application as soon as possible.
“It is best for businesses to register their trademarks before goods are sold in that market. At the same time, businesses need to register as soon as possible because it will take some time to register. For example, in the US and Australia, it takes about one year from the time the registration application is submitted to the time the trademark protection certificate is granted. In Vietnam, the time is about two or three years longer," said lawyer Ha.
Sharing the same opinion, lawyer Nguyen Minh Huong, Head of A Hoa Law Office, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Intellectual Property Association, recommends that mandatory trademark registration be planned by businesses and the implementation of filing procedures. Registration applications need to be considered before doing business. The purpose is to ensure that when a product or service is supplied to the market, the enterprise has a trademark registration certificate in hand.
See details at PLO.vn