Vietnam: Fast Forward

These fields

have witnessed the horrors of humanity.

Ravaged by millennia of conflicts,

Vietnam seemed perpetually consumed by war and instability.

But remarkably, in the span of one generation

since its reunification,

Vietnam has managed to overcome its existential struggles

to rejoin the world stage.

Known for magnificent landscapes,

including the mystic waters of Ha Long Bay,

limestone mountains of Ninh Binh,

and rugged terrains of Ha Giang,

Vietnam now boasts dynamic cities

that rival metropolises around the world.

Driving this resurgence, we find the Vietnamese people,

seventy percent of whom are under 35 years old.

Thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of a new generation,

Vietnam now ranks amongst the fastest growing economies

in the world.

My name is Shareef.

I'm an avid traveler on a quest to showcase

positive developments in emerging countries.

I'm fascinated by Vietnam's evolution over the past decade,

and I'm eager to find out what's behind the energy

and excitement of the Vietnamese people.

I set out to explore the country,

meeting people from exotic neighborhoods in sprawling cities

to the most remote rice paddies and tea fields.

Join me on this journey

as we fast forward to modern day Vietnam

to learn more and get inspired

by remarkable people from all walks of life.

- So I'm Vietnamese American. I was born in Vietnam,

and when I was ten years old,

my whole family moved to the US.

And so growing up in the US,

I actually didn't know much about Vietnam at all.

And it wasn't until after I ran into the story of Ho Chi Minh.

It's the break of dawn,

but I'm already dodging heavy scooter traffic

as I meet Thu Nguyen, a thriving entrepreneur

who takes me on a jog around Ho Chi Minh City.

It's the most populous city in Vietnam

with over nine million people,

that's the size of London or New York City.

Previously known as Saigon,

in 1975 it was renamed in honor of Ho Chi Minh,

leader of Vietnam's revolutionary movement for independence.

When he was 22, he left Vietnam.

And, you know, he worked as a cook on a boat

to go to Europe because he wanted to know

what the hell these Westerners were talking about

in terms of freedom and independence.

And then eventually after 30 years he came back to Vietnam

and fought for Vietnamese independence.

So, when I read about that story,

then I became more inspired to learn more about Vietnam

and to ask the question:

"How can I contribute to Vietnam?"

That was when I started learning about Vietnam,

about Vietnamese people, how beautiful the country is,

and how amazing and honest and kind

and hospitable the people are outside of the big city.

In Vietnam, I think the statistic

is that about 50% of Vietnamese households

have small businesses.

And that is how they survive,

that's how they make their money.

If you look back in history,

Vietnamese have always been struggling

and fighting for our independence, right?

So that's naturally in the desire of Vietnamese people,

I feel always. It's that we want to be independent.

So that, being an entrepreneur you get to control,

you get to be in the driver's seat,

you get to do things on your own terms.

I think that those who want to start a business,

first of all, they want to do the things they like

to satisfy their passion.

They want to create their own career on their own feet.

Looking for some Vietnamese Zen,

I visit a specialty tea house in Hanoi,

founded by Tea Master Champion Hung Nguyen

and his wife Hai Yen.

Our tea path was very interesting

There have been many failures

but we got a thing.

In the meantime we had a stronger urge,

a desire to achieve what my mind envisioned.

We thought it's just in time

because we also do believe in the magical things in life,

it sounds a little bit invisible.

Like for example, the laws of attraction,

like listening to the signs from the universe.

Hello everybody,

I will conduct a sharing session about the beauty of Vietnamese tea for you.

And before starting the tea ceremony today,

I will do a small treatment to balance your body and mind.

In the morning, around 4:30,

I wake up, drink a cup of boiled water,

and exercise.

After that I lit up the fire.

Cook for the pigs, the dogs, the chickens, and for me.

That's the morning. Then I start gardening.

Gardening, taking care of trees, working on the field.

These tea plants... have been here for hundreds of years.

But since I'm here, I always drink from this fresh tea.

- Do you remember since when, what year was it?

- I think... since I was a child, I have seen this tea plant.

But this garden...

we are from the Youth Union, we came here since 1972.

I came here to dig this ditch, and like the elders, we cultivate.

They grow plants.

Then later I bought this land and I took care of them.

When did you take over?

- When the agriculture reform took place, each household managed some land.

I bought it from the family who managed the land here.

In 1996 I came here. It was wide open.

They abandoned it, it was widely vacant.

In 1975, the newly united

communist government of Vietnam

implemented a system of collectivized farm cooperatives.

Over time, the country gradually moved

to a system of individually owned farms,

and Lien Nguyen used the agriculture reform

to not only build a thriving tea farm,

but also a lifestyle I personally wish for.

I didn't decide to move here.

I came here to build a farm, a business.

I wanted to make money to provide for my family back home.

I came here to plant trees but then I enjoyed living here more.

Because I'm surrounded by nature.

When we love trees, they love us back.

When we love something, it loves us back.

Living like this, it's peaceful.

In here, it's quiet.

I protect the environment.

When I'm tired, I just look out the flower garden with the birds and butterflies.

It makes my body feel comfortable.

When my mind is clear, I work more efficiently.

- This already splits, one bud into two leaves.

This branch will continue to grow. It will grow two branches.

- Every day I drink four or five cups per day.

I feel like really hard for me, you know, to stop it

because I think I got a bit addicted with coffee.

So I fell in love with coffee when I was like four years old

but my great-grandparents were the first generation

that led us to love coffee.

Why coffee?

- Since like 1980, the coffee become more popular,

so, you know, a lot of farmers started to cultivate coffee,

especially in our area we have like 99% growing coffee.

In general, like coffee globally in Vietnam is the second largest.

That's right.

Over the last 30 years,

Vietnam went from producing very little coffee at all

to becoming the second largest coffee producer in the world.

Rolan Colieng and her brother Du Lick Moul

are part of a growing movement of farmers in Vietnam

who specialize in premium varieties of coffee.

- We only grow Arabica coffee so for this coffee is

preferred high elevation, also cool climate,

compared to Robusta coffee growing in low elevation

and warmer climate as well.

Most coffee grown in Vietnam is Robusta coffee, which is more than 95%,

but Arabica coffee is only 3 to 5% so it's premium quality.

-Arabica coffee? -Yep.

The flower lasts three to five days

and then it becomes a tiny berry like this as you can see.

It takes the berry eight months for it to grow from green to red, or

from green to yellow depending on different varieties too.

So this is cascarati,

the first layer of the cherry outer skin, we use this part to make a tea, cascarati.

Oh, okay. One bean.

- We have to prepare 200 grams of the green bean

and when the bean is already dry so actually very hard like a rock

so you don't have to worry you're going to break the bean.

Going to sort all defective bean,

the broken bean, also the bean is very small.

- Like a broken bean, these are gone, the small bean

so you are hand picking all of these off.

- So those beans, low quality, will go to instant coffee.

- Next time you drink instant coffee, you know that,

that's instant coffee right here.

- So the more you roast coffee, some flavored coffee will get burned,

so darker roast is more bitter.

And this is medium roast, balanced acidity and bitterness,

so people prefer medium roast more.

It's good for like Espresso,

American or French Press.

And this one is light roast, this keeps the most flavor

of your coffee and easy to tell how good is your coffee

if you roast it light than a medium or darker roast.

- So actually, six years ago this area

was completely with the coffee plantations

so we were so excited to continue work,

so we worked so hard, like all day and night

we're working really hard to help this area grow up,

especially keeping all of this coffee alive.

With our cooperative,