Vietnam-based TV producer Gabrielle Nain facing pandemic in new home

Moving anywhere new will offer some unique challenges, and Vietnam is no exception. Gabrielle Nain was born and raised in Spanish Town, Jamaica, though today she makes her home in the Southeast Asian country of Vietnam. Nain tells The Gleaner that being an expat in Asia can be seen as “a privileged life”, but that changed somewhat overnight with the pandemic.

“It has been eye-opening,” she shared. “We have experienced different stages of restrictions here, including the borders being closed for almost two years now.”

Nain picked up the travel bug in 2018 and yearned to experience another side of the world, she said. Eventually, she picked a place on the map at random, saved her money and left for Vietnam with not much of a plan in mind.

“I did a teaching course, received an on-site certificate, got to know the country although I still don’t know the language – it’s actually one of the hardest to learn – and I ended up teaching English. Majority of Vietnamese people don’t speak English, but that’s the beauty of Google Translate. At first, I was living in Hanoi, then in Cambodia, where I did event management. Now, I am based in Ho Chi Minh City, which is a corporate area,” she said of her explorations.

Nain was able to find a mix of professional opportunities, including her current job as a marketing specialist for the Best Ever Food Review Show YouTube channel, where she also doubles as one of the show’s producers.

“I studied hospitality and tourism management, and while in Jamaica, I was working with the West Indies Players Association. I did not think I’d do this job while I was living in Jamaica, but I have always been fond of TV and film but never saw myself in the middle of it. It was one of those situations where five years from now, you have no clue where you’re going to be, and here you are now,” she said. “It has been pretty rewarding as a team growing exponentially year after year and keeping it going to different countries … Jamaica will hopefully be included. With our host, we are using food as a vessel to understand different cultures and people.”

INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS BLOCKED

Best Ever Food Review Show is one of YouTube’s leading food and travel channels, with over seven million subscribers. Still, the dynamic has changed as the host and producers have left Vietnam to record the videos overseas. At the same time, Nain handles sponsorships and digital media remotely, fearing that if she leaves her home there, she will not be allowed to return, she explained, as international flights are blocked.

“Recently, the measures here are more on the extreme side, and not as effective because of several reasons. One fact is that in my city, the spread is at a point where it would be almost impossible to contain. We’ve had about four lockdowns, and I have been working from home since June. The cases were in the thousands when we started and continued to grow, and it got stricter and stricter,” Nain said.

She continued, “They even restricted visits to the supermarkets, and the military deployed thousands of soldiers tasked with delivering basic food items to every house, but remember, the foreigner type diet is different from the Vietnamese native, so I knew the package wouldn’t really be for me, which posed difficulties for me, a vegetarian. Luckily, I stocked up food everywhere in my apartment. And I live in a medium zone, not a red zone, so I haven’t received a package, so I don’t even know what it looks like.”

Outside of the pandemic panic, Nain paints an appealing portrait of life in Vietnam.

“Food depleted within two weeks; within my apartment complex, we had a Facebook group, and a lot of people were vendors and sold different things, so, throughout my time here, we were able to get food in [the] house. If anything, this whole lockdown has taught me [about the] generosity of people here. It has helped me maintain a positive attitude because it is difficult, next to living away from family, managing the challenges. There has been a table where people drop off extra items to take for free. They were donating across the city; it was so inspiring to see us more together than anything,” she said.

“As it relates to people travelling outside of Jamaica, young people, if there is an opportunity, please do it, not to contribute to brain drain but to build your character from experiencing new things and understanding the world a little more. Knowledge can’t hurt. Take any average Jamaican here and bring them here; they will conform. It’s a mindset thing of what we can accomplish. It becomes a sort of survival of the fittest,” Nain continued.

stephanie.lyew@gleanerjm.com