episode-4

Searching for a property, we looked everywhere in Hanoi.
The deciding factor was a super lovely smile with double eyelids.

Let's rent a house in Vietnam for a cafe and an office of Sennensha Vietnam.
Let's make the house for the resident staff to live together. Let's set up a cafe and a company and live as citizens of Hanoi. Let's try to make citizens to accept us as inhabitants of this city, not as foreigners.

It took me so long to find this property.
I have seen a lot of tenant buildings where many Japanese companies are located and apartments where Japanese people always live.
And cafe properties, too.
Probably, various "preventing troubles" that may occur in the process of running the company.
So you will feel safe. These things are reasonable, but rent payment should be acceptable. The same applies to apartments. It is too expensive from the Japanese sense and market. I want to keep the cost of rent as low as possible. I can't get these thoughts out of my mind.

When it comes to cafes, the size of the property and existence of a parking area are important. A good property should be visited in the morning, in the day time and at night. You need to visit at least three times.
Check out the surroundings and at the same time go into restaurants, talk in person with people doing business on the streets around, Also, go into cafes near the property and chat without telling that I’m going to run a cafe. It' s also quite difficult for the Vietnamese university student as a translator. In the end, I ask a few Vietnamese acquaintances. There is whole lot of problems, I sigh “The beginning is everything!”,“Stick with it!” I thought but I was getting really tired.
Once a month, I enter Hanoi as a tourist. This was the third time for me looking for a property.
More than three months already passed.
I need to decide quickly, otherwise I will not be able to proceed with the preparation for setting up my company in Hanoi.
I walked the streets of Hanoi from east to west, north to south.
The property was found accidentally.

I was told that there is a vacant house near Mr. and Mrs. Tuấn, who had taken care of us when we started our business in Vietnam.
It seemed to be an ordinary house, but it was used as a beer storage.Could it be used as a cafe, a company office or a residence? I don't know what to say. Would it work if we remodel it?

I visited Mr. and Mrs. Thien, the owners of the property.
I asked them one thing before to discuss details. "If you say you are a homeowner, you become like a parent; if you say you are a tenant, you become like a child.”
We have such an old saying in Japan. “Do you understand it?” I told my Vietnamese interpreter to ask them. Hope that he translated it right.
What they see? There is a big Japanese man over 100kg and over 60 years old who has a stern look, in front of them. His face is dark as a result of sunburn.He is wearing a T-shirt and short pants. And sitting on a small reinforced plastic chair which is common in street cafes in Vietnam. He is really tired searching for a property.
It took them for a while, then they looked at each other and gave me a “lovely smile.”
That “lovely smile” was a key.
The rent was very reasonable.

The wife has very good voice! I would like her to sing Jazz someday. She says, that she’s been working at restaurant and made her voice there. That’s about it.
She said “Welcome!” million times and became hoarse a lot of times.
Her voice has been created by repeating of it. The husband is “Gentleman”, and that’s all that matters.