The big OE - Vietnam-style

By IRENE CHAPPLE

Why does a New Zealand lawyer end up working in Vietnam when most of his colleagues on their "overseas experience" head straight for the legal lures of London?

KPMG Legal's Dylan Mackenzie, a 27-year-old with four years' experience in mergers and acquisitions, has left Wellington to become a tax adviser at the company's office in Ho Chi Minh City. It is part of a regional practice based in Thailand and bloated by the recent purchase of former accounting giant Andersen.

But at the time the offer cropped up, Mackenzie was looking at going to London.

The English capital, paved with pounds and lit with the lure of globally recognised experience, is well-trodden by young Kiwi lawyers on OE.

Legal periodicals constantly preach the virtues of overseas work, and New Zealand lawyers, particularly with commercial and corporate experience, are in high demand.

However, "the UK experience didn't really interest me", Mackenzie admits. "People were doing the London thing - I was looking at going to London.

"But then the Vietnam opportunity came up. One of the reasons I decided to go there was it is a great opportunity to work and live in a totally different foreign culture."

Mackenzie's nickname, Beatnik, and a possible claim to the longest hair of any male lawyer in New Zealand, might have pre-empted the decision. "I've always been interested in Asian culture," says Mackenzie, who travelled through Vietnam, Hong Kong and China during his last year at Otago University.

"I had heard great things about Vietnam; it was just more raw than the average overseas experience.

"I was trying to get a feel for how things were in their natural state - it is a bit easier to get off the beaten track."

Mackenzie likes it that way: he has recently been tramping in the South Island.

Vietnam, which underwent dramatic growth during the mid-1990s, was knocked back in the Asian crisis of 1997. The economy has slowly recovered, and Mackenzie says much of KPMG's work is dealing with multinational corporates.

Many of the firm's clients will speak English, a relief for Mackenzie, who has not yet learned the language, and who is aiming at the "immersion approach".

He has already learned some vital tips: "If you go into someone's house and say, 'I really like that rug', for example, they are obliged to give it to you. But then they'll probably turn around and say, 'I really like the pack you've got on'."

And in the more formal environment of Asian business dealings, Mackenzie might even be tempted to cut his hair.

"It's very traditional over there. And I might because it's very hot."