Tata Max, My Son Nico Become Instant Millionaire

 

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Amused by this 2002 column of the late Max V. Soliven - the quentessential opinion writer during my younger years -- how he became an instant millionaire. Upon reading it I hailed my son Nico to come in my library and asked him how he got hold the 13 million Laotian Kip when he went to Laos last January.

Here's Soliven -- the Maestro in Journalism subject of the late Senator Ninoy Aquino and Speaker Joe de Venecia in Ateneo --:

"It’s easy. All you have to do is fly 1,627 kilometers from Manila to Ho Chi Minh City (which everybody here still calls "Saigon", except for government officials and official documents). It’s a two-hour flight by private jet to Tan Son Nhat Airport. Anyway, Philippine Airlines flies down here three times a week. When you get into town and check into your hotel, exchange US$100 at the cashier’s desk (or at the money changer down the street). Immediately, you get handed Dong 1.53 million. Voila! You’re a millionaire – in Vietnamese Dong. That’s the local currency".

Nico told me that when he went to Laos -- formerly part of Indochina with Vietnam and Cambodia under the yoke of the greedy French colonizer --, he exchanged at the money exchange there his U.S $600 with KIP 13 million.

"Ano uli ang pangalan ng currency ng Laos, Teng?" I asked him.

"Kip," he said.

"Parang bastos naman ang tunog, "Kipyas! hihi," this malicious geezer -writer retorted.

Here's Soliven again:

" In time, you’ll be able to figure out how far your tourist dollar goes. A buck gets you 15,300 Dong. Dong 200,000 equals roughly $18. A million Dong is equivalent to about $70.

Can you expect to pay more for what you buy? Of course. You’re a tourist. You must bargain fiercely. But they deal with you here with pleasant smiles. There are many wonderful souvenirs and works of art to purchase within a two-block radius of your hotel. The Vietnamese, so formidable in war, are also the world’s most consummate artists: They paint, lacquer, do terrific silverwork (though much of their craft comes from Cambodia), ceramics — you name it. They can fake almost everything to perfection, too – including fake Zippo lighters with the emblems of American regiments and units, as if they had been captured by Viet Cong (their Dads) or North Vietnamese Army soldiers on the battlefield".

Photos of Nico (a graphic designer of a U.S company in the Mainland) below when he visited Laos. I mull to go to Vietnam instead of Laos and Thailand and visit those historic places - like Dien Bien Phu, Khe Sanh Combat Base, Hue (for the Battle of Hue during the Tet Offensive), the tunnels, and others when the humiliated French and U.S military juggernauts tangled with the pajama clad, old tire made sandal wearing, and Russian and Chinese AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle wielding chink eyed tiny Vietnamese soldiers called NVA (North Vietnam Army as what Saluyot man Tata Max of Ilokoslovakia said) or Vietcong.