青芒果樂園

Inside the store, Oanh Tran, 50, was introducing DVDs to a customer in Vietnamese. A couple of customers were standing by the counter and waiting to talk to her. Her 23-year-old son, Tan Dip, was looking at the computer and clicking the mouse in the office. The store was busy.

“We have some customers known for a long time, they just come stop by not even buy any stuff,” Dip, said.

The Dips started the Vietnamese CD and DVD store, Linh music, at south Minneapolis in 2003. When the business first started, it was the first Vietnamese CD and DVD store in Minnesota.

The owner, Dip, and his family came to Minnesota from Vietnam in 1997. Tran first worked in a nail salon. The job kept her interacting with chemicals for long hours. After a couple of years, Tran wanted to quit her job in the salon and change her track.

“The whole family supported her because we thought that was bad for her health,” Dip said. “So we used the money that we’d saved up to open the store.”

The family bought the business from the former owner. When they started organizing the post-opening works, they had absolutely nothing. The Dips put their money to invest the store.

“We flew to California and put ourselves in front of big companies and talked to production lines in order to get more lines for the store,” Dip said.

At first, there were only two companies providing CDs and DVDs. Now, they are working with more than 10 companies. Besides CDs and DVDs from California, they also have special orders from Vietnam in the store. They sell airplane tickets and provide money transfer for customers as well.

“We have thousands of CDs and DVDs in our store,” Dip said.

Dip started the business while he was in Normandale Community College and Tran was the only one running the store. When he had spare time, he came to help his mother.

Tran said that she likes to work in the store. “It is easier than to work in nail shop,” she said.

After the store got on track and got busier, Dip dropped off from school to put his whole energy in the store.

“I want to help my family, I don’t want her to be too tired,” Dip said. “I also want to help our community.”

Dip said that most Vietnamese spend most of their time at work. “They need something to do after work. For traditional people and people who just come to the U.S. and don’t speak English or understand American culture, the CDs and DVDs are their food for thought,” Dip said.

He said that he was happy his business could help the Vietnamese community by providing needs that people didn’t have.

Vin H. Ma, 39, stops by the store about twice a week to check out new arrivals. He likes to get some entertainments from the store.

“The CDs and DVDs made me remembering the home,” he said.

Anderson的評語說他覺得我沒有get out of my comfort zone是美中不足的地方

可是............

教授，我明明就不是越南人阿(舉手) = ="

他們講什麼我都聽不懂耶.......

不要看我們都黃皮膚就這樣扣我兩分嘛....(泣)