Vietnam Senior Living, Senior Care, and Healthcare for Baby Boomers with Ron Armon

A senior living real estate developer, Ron Armin, came to Vietnam 10 years ago and he fell in love with the country, culture, the people, and the real estate.

Ron is now Managing Partner at Silvercrane Holdings. He’s developing family oriented luxury senior living solutions in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The projects are intended for high level professionals seeking an aspirational urban lifestyle, accessible to family and friends. His project team is comprised of leading real estate professionals in Vietnam and globally over now senior residence planning expert and atop financial and legal teams in Vietnam.

Ron’s global experience paired with local knowledge is a key to his successful implementation of this groundbreaking concept for a luxury senior lifestyle community in Vietnam.

You can also listen to this podcast episode on Podcast.BoomerLiving.tv

Hanh Brown: [00:00:00] Hi, Ron, how are you?

Ron Armon: [00:02:06] I’m fine. I’m very well in Hanoi right now. And getting ready for the test.

Hanh Brown: [00:02:13] Yes. Yes. It’s a Saturday, January 25th.

Ron Armon: [00:02:16] Today. I had lunch with employees in another company. I have an after I went to those in the bank on the premiere floor.

Hanh Brown: [00:02:29] when done, or that for short is considered the biggest. And Louise popular festival of the year in Vietnam. It is celebrated on the first day of the first month in the lunar calendar.

[00:02:41] DEC celebration is the longest holiday, which may last up to seven to nine days.

Ron Armon: [00:02:48] I don’t know how it’s in the Vietnamese diaspora, but here everybody’s expecting to get either lucky money or a small gift. I go around with maybe 50 envelope. So anywhere between $10 to $50. You know, can money and preferably lots of bills, not one big bill.

[00:03:12] The people are getting and people are giving. And if you could see my, uh, the entrance of my house, I have two huge trees that somebody sent me.

Hanh Brown: [00:03:21] One of the traditions of that is leasee. These are red envelopes, where money is put inside and it’s given to friends and family and children, the red color signifies prosperity and great luck.

[00:03:36] According to Asians belief, normally in the morning of the first day of the lunar new year adults and their children will visit grandparents home and they give them the wish for the happy new year. Great health and longevity. The adults will give the children these red envelopes, since that is the most important festival of the Vietnamese.

[00:03:58] The preparation for celebration begins, wait in advance. They make offerings in pray at temples about two weeks before and immediately after dead because visiting temples is considered auspicious. The homes are clean and decorated with yellow apricots, blossom, peach blossom, and many other colorful flowers on the Eve of bed.

[00:04:22] Families will cook an abundance of food on the first days of the new year everybody’s, especially kids wear new clothes and shoes and visit families and friends and enjoy the traditional pet food. Like the sticky rice cake. Many children receive lucky money in red envelopes. Another tradition of Vietnam is a tight fitting silk tunic called.

[00:04:47] It is a Vietnamese national dress for women. It is designed to accentuate the woman leaves, curves, Wist covering the entire body. Dresses are commonly made out of silk or cotton. So what are you doing now in Vietnam? In senior living?

Ron Armon: [00:05:03] Well, I arrived there almost 10 years. I come from the real estate side.

[00:05:11] I worked in Eastern Europe. I’m Israeli. I worked with, and one of the developers had the project in Vietnam and he asked me to come on him and I arrived the first time to Vietnam. And. We think they fell in love with this country. Vietnam is an amazing country for foreign investors. The government and the local authorities are friendly towards foreign investors.

[00:05:39] And one thing led to another. I left the project I started doing with one of my clients and I did my first real estate project in a nutshell. Irregular real estate. Then I did another project, which was hospitality in Cameron Bay. Very, very big development. And after I sold my shares in that thing was looking for.

[00:06:05] The new or something that doesn’t exist. Um, and me and my partner, we came into the senior living. I very familiar with senior living the way it’s done in Europe or in my country in Israel. And we decided to import this idea to Vietnam because there is no facility whatsoever for seniors. Now, of course, In Vietnam, you cannot cook it.

[00:06:32] The American style of retirement villages, because you have to make sure that you keep very strong family ties intact that you don’t take. Let’s say the elders and you move them for one pound. They’re not looking for holiday villages. So we build up a concept that will give the elders end facility, not a luxury, but high end facility will enable them to keep in touch with their family.

[00:07:04] Keep the role. Within the family and the grandparents are taking care of the grandchildren.

Hanh Brown: [00:07:10] Senior living community will be centrally located less than 20 minutes away from all the activities that the grandparents are accustomed to so that they can keep the same day to day activities. So this way you’ll be able to keep the relationship intact.

[00:07:26] Is that right?

Ron Armon: [00:07:27] Exactly. So it brought us to the decision that we need, the centrally located facility. We cannot be more than 20 minutes from wherever the elders used to live before, because you cannot detach them from their social structure. You cannot touch them, even for something very simple, like the third race or that you were used to, or the place where they met their friends, the local cafe.

[00:07:53] So they were doing is a centrally located facility that will enable the grandparents to take the kids in the afternoon. And if they bring them to the facility, they can give them swimming classes, English classes, computer assistance. That’s for the grandkids and for the parents, as you said, or the parents of the kids of the grandparents, they want to come to be more than a 15, 20 minute drive to the facility.

[00:08:23] And another thing that I heard you talk about in one of your podcasts is the need to make everybody not only involved in the decision-making process, the kids and the grandparents and the parents, but. Also to create feeling of being proud of entering to a place that actually gives them all they need in order to stay social reacts.

Hanh Brown: [00:08:51] That’s right. There is no place like home. For most of us, the feeling is less about how large or fancy or residences than about it being a place where you feel safe in, where you have created countless memories with those closest to us. We fill our homes with things that we enjoy and belongings that remind us of our loved ones and all the good times.

[00:09:12] So to move to a senior living will be more accepting when you know that your loved ones and your grandkids and friends will be there for you.

Ron Armon: [00:09:23] Yes. Look, we’re going to build a very large facility. We’re going to have 250, the independent living units. We’re going to have a hundred units of assisted living, and we’ll probably have one full floor of memory care.

[00:09:38] Now, if we’re talking about the independent living, we expect people to come over between 65 and 70. So those are people that are afforded integrated in, in some kind of society. And we still have an active role, both in the society and in the family. Now, once they move and there is another 250 people that are more or less the same age and the same socioeconomic class.

[00:10:07] This will become crystallize community. So of course, in the beginning, all their friends won’t be in the building himself on the facility. There’ll be probably in their neighborhood or wherever they left then before, but slowly and surely will become in new suicide. That’s why we even call it community, not only senior living facility.

Hanh Brown: [00:10:32] So let’s put yourself in your parents’ shoes. They live there in the same home for decades, and they’re getting older and their needs are changing. Your mom and dad are having trouble getting around, need some help with the everyday activities and probably could use some company. So if your parents know that they’re moving into a community with friends and family and grandkids and the neighborhood, you know, are similar to what they were used to.

[00:10:58] So this transition could be a celebration. So is this affordable to retire in Vietnam? And how is the healthcare and standard of living?

Ron Armon: [00:11:07] Yes, we’re doing a high-end type of facility. It’s not for the next time you will come to Vietnam. You’ll see the pieces, very vibrant country. There is already the very large middle class.

[00:11:23] I’m talking about over three and a half million households that below to the middle class. Now we are targeting the upper middle class. You know, we’re not the social security of Vietnam the day it has to be in business. Of course, we’re going to have a nursing room and the doctor 24 seven, but we’re going to have a whole area of medical consultation.

[00:11:45] Where they can continue any kind of treatment they had before. And if something comes up, we have the American international hospital, a few hundred meters from us. So it’s minutes away. The doctors that will do the consultation will belong to the hospital. They, future treatment will be done or given by the hospital.

[00:12:07] So. All in all, we’ll cover a very important aspect of security for the people that those securities that doesn’t start and end with the people that you see who rang the door. It also has to do with the fact that, you know, 100% that if something happens with somebody, take care of, and we’re doing everything in conjunction with a very good hospital.

[00:12:33] And that’s how we’ll address the medical issues. Now, again, I told you, we are starting with independent living. Unfortunately, something may have been, you may need to move to the assisted living. And once you are a member of the community, it won’t cost you more to move to the assisted living. So it’s not cheap.

[00:12:54] It’s not very expensive. We have a system where the clients put a deposit that these deposits were returned either. If they leave, of course they’ll get it, but we’ll return to their children once they leave the facility. But there is a monthly service charge. Which is probably around $1,200 for the units and may be $900 for the smaller unit.

[00:13:22] So it’s not very expensive.

Hanh Brown: [00:13:25] Independent to assisted living. Are you saying that there would not be additional charges? Yes. Wow. So you can retire very comfortably in Vietnam, about $1,200 a month. That’s us dollars.

Ron Armon: [00:13:38] Well, this is for the Vietnamese community. Funnily enough, I told you I was in the bank today, toasting the new year.

[00:13:47] And I was approached by a gentleman who is a Viet Q very much like yourself. And he asked me. If we’re going to sell to oversee Vietnamese, the first thing I told him, we’re not selling anything, we’re doing a long-term lease. And the second thing, we have such a big market in Vietnam for the first facility, because it’s, you know, it’s 250 units out of million people in ho Chi Minh city.

Hanh Brown: [00:14:12] Well, it sounds like this is the first of many.

Ron Armon: [00:14:15] but probably the following facility. We’ll address also the Viet queue, you know, the oversea Vietnamese who love to come back to Vietnam now for an American. Or the French or even Australian Vietnamese decent amount of money is very small. I think a comparable service in the U S would cost somewhere around $5,000 a month.

Hanh Brown: [00:14:41] which costs for senior living, according to the gen worth cost of care survey indicate that the national median cost for assisted living per month is about four to $5,000.

Ron Armon: [00:14:53] And then you will have support kinds of add-ons. Especially if you move to , you know, we are doing it in a country where the labor force is not so expensive. The construction costs are not so expensive and we can provide a high level service with reasonable prices. Well, the only problem is there is no agreements or government agreements regarding retirees.

[00:15:21] It’s not like in Thailand. Or in Malaysia or Indonesia that they know how to accept retirees and maybe even accept their social security benefits within the local system. So in Vietnam, those laws are not in place. Not yet, but I’m sure there will be moving there because there is the demand and there is a huge diaspora.

[00:15:46] I think it’s a few million people between Australia and New Zealand, France in the us. It’s two to 3 million people that have very strong feelings to Vietnam. They are part of the Vietnamese nation and all of them want to come and visit and maybe stay and enjoy the benefit of this country.

Hanh Brown: [00:16:05] A foreigner can get one, two, three months single or multiple entry visa to visit.

[00:16:11] They then would reapply and reenter as a visa expires. If you have a family member or family ties to Vietnam, you can be eligible for a permanent residence card, which is valid for three years. And then after that, you would need to renew your application.

Ron Armon: [00:16:27] Let’s say you work in van PT, which is the telephone postal service, and you get the pension.

[00:16:34] It’s a very low pension. You cannot pay for the kinds of services we are giving with this pension, but those people have homes which are mortgage free. There were no mortgages, 20 or 30 years ago when people both houses in the center or fortune in CTO, Hanoi, those houses today are worth maybe half a million dollars.

[00:16:59] You will be positive, really surprised when you come to your next visit.

Hanh Brown: [00:17:04] Wealthy international investors are flocking to Vietnam. Vietnam is now widely seen as a next luxury property market has spot with a booming economy. Coupled with laws that recently have made it easier for foreign investors to purchase properties.

[00:17:20] As a result, there’s been a surge of high-end real estate developments in the recent years, local demand is also continuously rising. There are more and more, which Vietnamese, particularly entrepreneurs looking to place their money. According to the firms, Seville’s Vietnam, the number of Vietnamese with net assets over 30 million.

[00:17:43] Or more search to 320% in the past decade.

Ron Armon: [00:17:48] look real estate in the center of Hanoi and watching mean is very expensive, very expensive. And again, those people who are today in their close to their seventies, their own houses. And those houses, some of them were given to them or somewhere distributed in some kind of arrangement, a post 1975, and they don’t have a mortgage on them.

[00:18:12] Those houses are free and clear. They can use a house and enter to the facility. But again, those are the city people, somebody on the countryside won’t be able to afford these type of operation.

Hanh Brown: [00:18:26] This is a fastest pace globally ahead of China in India. Most Asian businesses turn to real estate when they become successful in whatever core business they have, when their country’s wealth increases, people buy real estate because of the strong demand.

[00:18:41] Residential property prices are rising strongly. In a ho Chi Minh city, apartment prices, surge 22.7% in the first quarter of 2019 from the year earlier to an average of us dollars, 2028 per square meter. This is according to Lasell Vietnam. So likewise in Hanoi, the average price of apartments Rose by 6.8%.

[00:19:06] To the U S of $1,470 per square meter in the first quarter of 2019, according to LaSalle, Vietnam, industrial emissions, local combustion in increasing number of motor vehicles using fossil fuels are the main causes of loss of air quality in the urban and industrial areas. In Vietnam’s traffic is responsible for 70% of the air pollution.

[00:19:33] So what is your take on that?

Ron Armon: [00:19:34] I cannot tell you I like it, but you know, it’s a country that’s growing and pollution is unfortunately part of industrialization in the us and in Europe, they went through this process 150 years ago with the big factories using coal to burn everything. Here. They’re still in the process of industrialization and you have pollution.

[00:20:00] Traffic is a nightmare, but it’s a nightmare in Bunco. It’s a horrible nightmare in it’s in every country, Metro litem center of Asia. It, traffic is horrible. It’s also for us. As foreigner, as it says a charm. When I see a Vietnamese family, father, mother, and two kids, all riding on one motorbike, you know, it’s the resilience of these people, of the Vietnamese.

[00:20:30] They don’t have the money for a car, the want to go somewhere, the whole family books into one motorbike and they all go together.

Hanh Brown: [00:20:38] Motorbikes remain the most popular means of transportation in Vietnam. Vietnam has a population around 92 million while there are 45 million registered motorbikes. This is according to the ministry of transportation.

Ron Armon: [00:20:53] Yeah, no, listen, they all go together. They’re all hugging himself because there’s no way to say seatbelts. So the small kid is lagging. The father who’s driving. The bigger kid is having the small kid and the mother is hugging the two of them sitting last one on the motor bike on the back. Yes, it’s really nice to see.

Hanh Brown: [00:21:12] Western culture promotes individuality in Vietnam.

[00:21:16] The family often is with two to four generations living under one roof. There is an immediate family and the extended family. Filial piety or respect for one’s elders is a concept based on Confucian philosophy. It was the largest part of Asian Americans, cultural expectations.

Ron Armon: [00:21:36] Yeah. Still under construction.

[00:21:37] However, we already started registering people to our facility. The process we go through is first we meet the parents, the elders. Then we meet the kids, especially the first born who eventually will hear it. The house and his wife is the one who is actually assisting the mother. When we start talking on the first meeting or second meeting, the attitude is not always very positive because there is a stigma that if my kids don’t take care of me either I was a bad parent.

Hanh Brown: [00:22:15] The Vietnamese value system is based on four basic tenets, one allegiance to the family to yearning for a good name, three love of learning. And for the respect of other people, These tenets are closely interrelated and the most important factor in the value system of the Vietnamese is the family.

Ron Armon: [00:22:35] Yes, but look, I’ll give you one piece of data that will help me explain the change. The last two and a half years in ho Chi Minh city. Sir 8,000 new apartments in the high-end level were given to the buyers. Now those are apartments like in Manhattan, apartment 80 to 90 square meters, two bedroom, and the people who moved there cannot drag their parents with them.

[00:23:05] So there is a change in society. There is a change in the way women are willing to move into the husband house and become. I don’t want it to sound bad. I’m not saying it’s the servant of family, but it’s not an easy process when you have to move to your husband’s house.

Hanh Brown: [00:23:24] Vietnam is likely to see more of these upmarket retirement communities as the affluent Vietnamese baby boomers come about.

[00:23:32] Perhaps the values of the family unit has not been compromised. It’s just not under onr roof.

Ron Armon: [00:23:37] Yes. So believe me that when we meet those women are very happy.

Hanh Brown: [00:23:44] Yeah. I can imagine.

Ron Armon: [00:23:46] They’re very happy to be part of this process that they help the elders move out.

Hanh Brown: [00:23:51] So you just help their pain points, you know?

Ron Armon: [00:23:54] Yeah, exactly the pain point.

[00:23:56] But again, we are building a facility that will make the kids feel proud that they help with the parents. Move there. And it will be is it’s a selling point that the parents will be able to tell their peers, their friends look how my son helped me move to this kind of facility.

Hanh Brown: [00:24:19] turning this into a positive experience to include the family, grandchildren, and the community.

Ron Armon: [00:24:25] Yes. You know what I mean? We’re trying gun the responses. Very good. We have already, the 40% capacity on the independent living assisted living will fill itself up. So we’re not even offering it, but the moment we see the reaction and it takes, I would say six to 10 meetings with various members of the family.

Hanh Brown: [00:24:48] That is a huge commitment to consult with family members that many times to get them on board it’s necessary because you’re shifting a paradigm. Typically the oldest of the family or the son that will assist the appearance and likely to make the decisions.

Ron Armon: [00:25:05] I’m not sure. It’s the oldest making the decision.

[00:25:09] Look, there is the financial aspect as well. Somebody has to pay now. Maybe the elders have money, but it’s probably controlled by the son, the eldest son, and for him to commit to $1,200 per month, sometimes it’s not easy. Even though he sees the benefit and he knows that he’s helping his parents, but the average salary, actually, it’s not the salary, but the average household income of the middle class in Vietnam is $1,600.

[00:25:41] So to take the decision, and again, it doesn’t matter if you have the money stepped away or you have it in the bank, but to take a decision. $1,200 per month. And you know, it’s a long-term commitment. Okay. So we have to pass the first stage, which of course is the meeting with their learners. The second stage is always to meet with younger the children, without the parents, and then meeting them together.

[00:26:12] You cannot expect to have a very open discussion when both sides have their. And once we reach the third meeting, it becomes a little bit easier.

Hanh Brown: [00:26:24] Well, these are tough, tough conversations to have it involves the cultural, the financial, the health and the trust impact.

Ron Armon: [00:26:34] I agree.

Hanh Brown: [00:26:34] So how are you integrating the Vietnamese cultural healthcare beliefs, which is very holistic in conjunction with the Western medicine.

Ron Armon: [00:26:42] Very good with question.

[00:26:43] And if we did a market research where using Nielsen, which is one of the biggest markets research companies, the market research, it was in focus groups, the same way elders. Then youngers and then together, the first request for medical services was for traditional medicine because they see the traditional medicine is preventive compared to regular medicine, which is treating the problem.

Hanh Brown: [00:27:10] Yeah. It’s heavily emphasis on preventative treatment.

Ron Armon: [00:27:14] Yes, exactly. And we are incorporating it. We are incorporating Tigie, we’re incorporating yoga. We have a special genes for elders and we will address the traditional medicine. But unfortunately in the end of the day, if somebody needs a cardiologist, he has to move to Western type of medicine.

[00:27:34] You know, the attitude towards it. It’s okay. In Vietnam, they don’t look as a producer. They’re not the tradition that the Western medicine. Is something bad, but they would prefer to prevent by using traditional medicine. So we’ll have the traditional doctor. We’ll have acupuncture we’ll have of course different types of massages and different terms that we have to have.

[00:27:58] Western medicine is part of the service welfare.

Hanh Brown: [00:28:01] Well, you have a strong staff and it includes staff from the hospital.

Ron Armon: [00:28:05] We’ll have nurses. 24 seven. They will be our staff. And we have a doctor 24 seven that he will be the stuff of the hospital. He’ll have a room in the facility, the different consultation rooms.

[00:28:20] We stayed the cardiology. So urology is the special geriatric doctor. All those guys belong to the hospital. We’re not going to employ them, but they’ll come in twice a week. They’ll receive the residents for during a period of two or three hours. And the moment in additional treatment is needed. It will be given in the hospital.

Hanh Brown: [00:28:44] We’re gonna have a general practitioner physicians with specific disciplines like neurologists, gerontologists, geriatricians. You’re gonna have them available to integrate onto your senior living staff.

Ron Armon: [00:28:55] Yes, of course there is a process that we already started of them having to have a full checkup before we can actually accept, because we have to know the exact situation of the reasons.

Hanh Brown: [00:29:09] Yes, behavior acuity will become a concern when the resonance dementia declines.

Ron Armon: [00:29:14] Frankly. I don’t know. We’ll have to deal with a, probably during this year, we know what are the plans for the floor? Of course, we’ll have to prevent them leaving the premises. However, we have to address their needs, walk around the need to have an open space where they can walk and see the sun and feel the trees.

[00:29:37] But we are not ready. We said fool. Program for this. We already met a few companies, actually Singapore, that are dealing with memory care and we’ll have to hire one of them or we’ll have to have the hospital, hire them and give the services. We cannot give medical treatment and memory care. It’s already a medical treatment.

[00:30:04] It’s exactly like assisted living. It’s a big issue because there is hardly any services for people with dementia Alzheimer. And once you have somebody in the family who has Alzheimer’s dementia immediately, another person in the family cannot work anymore. It’s to stay around and keep an eye on him and treat him and take care of him.

Hanh Brown: [00:30:28] with the impaired ability to move a person with the late stage of dementia is at risk for a number of medical complications.

[00:30:35] My mom, unfortunately, is going through this right now. The complications could be an infection of a urinary tract or a pneumonia. They have difficulty swallowing eating and drinking, which will lead to weight loss, dehydration, and malnutrition. And then all of this will further increase their vulnerability to infection.

[00:30:55] So in the end, most people with late stage dementia, they die from medical complication related to the underlying dementia. So it’s a very heart-wrenching process to see.

Ron Armon: [00:31:07] Yeah. May I ask how old is your mum?

Hanh Brown: [00:31:09] Maybe 93.

Ron Armon: [00:31:11] Fortunately, my parents passed away without going through the main share or Alzheimer, but the father of my wife, it, and it was a very painful process of course, for the family, but also for him because it certain points.

[00:31:28] In the beginning, especially you could see that he feels that something is wrong and then burst of anger and things that were causing the rest of the family members. It caused them to feel very bad about everything.

Hanh Brown: [00:31:41] So what is aging mean to you?

Ron Armon: [00:31:43] Just the process, his stage in life. Being beads of the night.

[00:31:48] But every year I go to extreme reaps with a group of friends and their kids and my son and my son-in-law. I already have a plan for this year and a plan for the following year and a few other plans. And two years down the road, that’d be 65, but I need this outdoors activities. And these parts of my life for the last 40 years, of course I’m insured, but I don’t check my age on a daily basis.

[00:32:14] And I feel when I am extremely excited doing new businesses, and then from time to time, I see myself in the mirror and definitely I’m going through a process, but you are asking me a very difficult question. What is aging? What is age? I don’t know.

Hanh Brown: [00:32:32] Well, for me, I think aging starts in the womb and it goes to your last breath.

[00:32:36] And in between that time, what you do with regard to your physical, psychological, and social will determine the quality of life that you’re getting.

Ron Armon: [00:32:45] I don’t think there is any other way. You cannot wake up in the morning. And say, okay, I’m now too old to go from Marie. I’m walking and running, but very fast and I’m doing it for the last 40 some years.

[00:32:58] I’m tired. I’m pushing myself a little bit more. If I have some kind of injury, I moved to other sports for a few weeks, but I cannot stop doing it. And by the time I come back home, I take a shower immediately. I’m in the computer and then I go to the office and then it’s part of my routine. I don’t change anything then.

[00:33:18] Of course now the Holy days are coming. I making sure my kids and my grandkids will be in our house. I’m divorced so I can take days off whenever I want. So I’m staying more at home when I managed to bring everybody in, but that’s it all the rest dealing change. And I hope it won’t.

Hanh Brown: [00:33:38] I personally think as we approach the later third or fourth part of our lives, what’s really important is our health relationship, our spirit, and our financial means to have the lifestyle that we are accustomed to.

[00:33:53] And you are so blessed to have all of that. Well, I really appreciate your time to connect with me and allowing us to have this conversation.

Ron Armon: [00:34:01] I’m going to think about what you asked a terrible question is age for you. What is the aging process? I have to think about it.

Hanh Brown: [00:34:11] Yes, please come back and let me know.

Ron Armon: [00:34:13] many times I have exactly the opposite dilemma.

[00:34:16] You know, I remember myself being nine years old, 10 years old. There was a big war in Israel. And I had Myers soldiers and I discovered the old city of Jerusalem. It was a kid, I was 10 11. And with the friends, you know, we roamed around all kinds of places. And we discovered this when in a way, my memories of myself and my surrounding were clear.

[00:34:45] I have very little memories of when I was six year old or seven, 10, 11 year old. I remember what I wanted to be and what kind of childhood was, and what was my relation with my parents, my amazing parents. And sometimes I think about these 10, 11 year old kids. How he would look at me today. That’s why I have actually the opposite equation.

[00:35:13] I’m all the time going back to this 11 year old kid. And for me to look at soldiers, to look at friends of my parents and I categorize them and I put them in certain boxes. And I wonder how this 10 year old kid would, what kinds of books he would put me. Me and my family.

Hanh Brown: [00:35:31] You have a great perspective.

Ron Armon: [00:35:33] Yes.

[00:35:34] But I’ll think about it. And I’ll tell you what my conclusion is.

Hanh Brown: [00:35:38] My aging process as well. My husband and I, we have three adult children. Two are at the university of Michigan studying engineering and medicine. And then my daughter is 22 and my son is 20. I have a baby who is 17 and a half. He’s at home in high school.

[00:35:55] We’ll have one more year before he goes off to college.

Ron Armon: [00:35:57] That’s nice. My kids are older. My eldest is 32. My son is 28 and my youngest is 24.

Hanh Brown: [00:36:06] Okay. So your youngest is like my oldest.
[00:36:09] Ron Armon: [00:36:09] Yes. And I have three wonderful granddaughters.

Hanh Brown: [00:36:15] So are they in Vietnam? And do they come and visit you?

Ron Armon: [00:36:19] I’m three to four weeks in Vietnam.

[00:36:21] And then I go for a week to 10 days to Israel. My wife spends maybe six months a year with me here. We have a summer house in Finland. My wife is from Finland originally. So in June, she moves to Finland. Instead of going to Israel, I stay with her in Finland. My eldest daughter lives in Finland and my two granddaughters are in Finland.

[00:36:44] So it’s not transatlantic, but I’m doing those half world flights, 12 times a year. I go to Finland two or three times a year. I go to Israel eight to nine times. I am on a daily basis. We have, um, communication, the whole family, not only in a WhatsApp group, but I know exactly where my son started this day-to-day.

[00:37:07] How is his daughter? We talk were very communicative. Life is moving more technology. It’s part of the younger generation, much more than it’s part of my generation. I prefer not to watch TV because I fall asleep. Once I start watching TV, I prefer either to read or to finish something that they named finish it, but I rarely sit in front of the TV and my granddaughters, they see TV at least two hours a day.

[00:37:36] I don’t like it, but the three-year-old, she speaks English. She understands English, you speak fluent, Spanish and fluent. And she three years old, she knows how to upload something from her father’s tablet into the TV. I don’t know, even know how to connect them. Three years old, then she can do it.

Hanh Brown: [00:37:56] Yes. It’s wonderful to see your kids thriving, contributing to society, making an impact.

[00:38:01] And I’m thrilled that they’re making good choices.

Ron Armon: [00:38:04] No, no, it’s listen. I understand that completely. Any of my kids, they don’t even have to Excel when I feel they’re doing the right. Where could the right. They take the right decision or they present something. Properly when we have big gatherings and my son is talking and taking over the conversation.

[00:38:23] I love every moment to listen to him, build up theory and defended. There is an Israeli company they’re going to work with us. It’s called title. T a Y T O they have far away in the agnostic system. In other words, you come home and you’re not feeling good, or you have an ear, a, could they have a special machine?

[00:38:46] I mean, it’s a camera. Basically. They can enter it to your ear without causing it’s a camera that zooms in to your ear. It can zoom into your throat. It takes your blood pressure. It takes your temperature and it connects to the doctor. In the moment you’re not feeling well. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a doctor in the thing in Michigan or the next available doctor is in California.

[00:39:12] We’re going to use them. They have both cameras, movement, sensors, and it can be voice activated, which is also very important.

Hanh Brown: [00:39:21] I will come to Vietnam and I will make plans and I’ll let you know.

Ron Armon: [00:39:25] I’m sure it’s going to be a very emotional trip for you.

Hanh Brown: [00:39:30] Thank you so much, Ron. I appreciate our conversation and I look forward to talking to you again.

Ron Armon: [00:39:36] You too, have a nice day.

Ron’s Links:

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-armon-48b1a244/

(ALMA Resort) http://alma.vn/en
ALMA is a high-end resort developed exclusively for families, invested and operated by Paradise Bay Resort Limited Company. With the role of the pioneer of vacation ownership in Vietnam, ALMA offers superior vacation model which fulfills the demand for relaxing of family generations. ALMA is one of very few resorts in Vietnam to be developed and operated in accordance with the international standards of vacation ownership in the world, in terms of scale, luxury and amenity. At ALMA, we seek the smartest and the most modern solutions to preserve the core values of life, that is, love and bond among family members.

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Silvercrane Holdings is developing family oriented luxury senior living solutions in Hanoi and HCMC. The projects are intended for high level professionals seeking an aspirational urban lifestyle accessible to family and friends. Our project team is comprised of leading real estate professionals in Vietnam and globally, a renowned senior residence planning expert, and the top financial and legal teams in Vietnam. Our global experience paired with local knowledge is a key to our successful implementation of this groundbreaking concept for a luxury senior lifestyle community.