DATE: Monday, August 25, 1997               TAG: 9708230297

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: SMALL BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   97 lines

VIETNAMESE FIND AMERICAN DREAM IN NAIL SALONS PROLIFERATION OF THE SHOPS GIVES THEM CHANCE TO START OWN BUSINESSES.

When Holly Thach immigrated to California from Vietnam 20 years ago, she had no job, no degree and spoke little English.

What she did have was a flair for working with her hands and a desire to be her own boss. So she enrolled in classes to become a nail technician.

Eight months later, Thach was a licensed manicurist. She moved to Virginia Beach, where she worked 14 hours a day, six days a week in the salon of another Vietnamese immigrant.

Within 10 months, Thach had saved enough money to open her own nail salon. She now runs Holly's Nails in Chesapeake's Great Bridge.

``When I got here three years ago, mine was only the second (nail) shop in the area,'' Thach said. ``Now there are 10 or 15.''

The fashion nails craze, which began in California 20 years ago, caught on in Hampton Roads in the last decade, Thach said. And prominent among the entrepreneurs to capitalize on the trend has been the Vietnamese community, local industry observers say.

The nail business presents fewer obstacles to newcomers than other fields, industry observers explain. And many Vietnamese families have provided jobs for relatives by training them to work in their own salons.

Vietnamese manicurists now own one-third of all the nail salons in the country, said Linda Lewis, executive editor and associate publisher of Nailpro magazine, one of two leading nail industry trade publications.

Industry watchers like Lewis don't know how many of the more than 200 salons in Hampton Roads are Vietnamese-owned. But Christopher Truong, owner of Glamour Nails in Greenbrier and part of an extended family of salon entrepreneurs, estimates Vietnamese manicurists own up to 80 percent of the nail salons here.

Nailpro Magazine recently awarded Truong the honor of top nail technician in the country.

In the last decade, nail salons have appeared to open up ``on every corner,'' said Leslie Asfari , director of Off the Top Hair & Nail Academy in Virginia Beach. Once, manicures were performed only at full-service beauty salons that also offered hair styling, tanning, facials and other services. But the beauty business has prospered enough to support separate nail salons and tanning salons, Asfari said.

Many of these smaller shops offer less expensive rates than full-service salons and often cater to customers who can't afford the time or cost of an all-day spa, Asfari said.

Vietnamese salons are so numerous that Nailpro last month launched a Vietnamese language edition. While many Korean manicurists also have recently moved into the nail industry, no other single ethnic group has entered the market with as much zeal, Lewis said.

Opening a salon requires less start-up capital than many other businesses. Nail technicians can open their own shop for only $10,000, Thach said. Opening a restaurant can cost five to 10 times as much, she said.

Polishing nails also requires fewer language skills than working in an office or fast-food restaurant, said Phuong Tran, who runs Oriental Nails on Military Highway in Chesapeake with her husband, Long.

And learning the trade can take less time than other trades, Long Tran said. ``For (nail) technicians, six months.''

Nail technicians train for at least 150 hours at a licensed school, Asfari said. After passing a training course - which can take six to 10 weeks, - students must then pass a State Board of Cosmetology exam, Asfari said.

Successful nail salon owners haven't kept their secrets to themselves.

Vietnamese salon owners often introduce family members to the profession, Truong said. His family has contributed greatly to the local nail industry. He learned the trade from his sister in California. And six of the 12 children in his family own nail salons, Truong said.

As immigrants brought family members to their new country, they also brought them into their businesses, said Kim Nguyen, who learned the trade from her sister in California. Nguyen owns Chic Nails in Ghent.

Outreach workers also have encouraged immigrants to learn the nail business.

As a former employment counselor at Refugee and Immigration Services in Norfolk, Nguyen often advised Vietnamese newcomers to pursue a nail technician's certificate. The refugee service - which helps resettle refugees by helping them find American sponsors, apartments and jobs - even helped put together manicure training courses.

Such informal networks of established immigrants and family members have helped to promote the nail industry, Nguyen said.

The region's Vietnamese population is growing rapidly. There were nearly 27,000 Vietnamese people in Hampton Roads in 1990, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That's more than twice the number of Vietnamese residents who lived in the area in 1980. University of Virginia demographer Donna J. Tolson, who studies population patterns, said immigration has continued at a strong rate since 1990.

Vietnam has no tradition of manicure work, Thach said. But many people from Southeast Asia pride themselves on their handiwork, she said. MEMO: Asian-American businesses find a home in Chesapeake D10 ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

MORT FRYMAN

The Virginian-Pilot

Vietnamese immigrant Holly Thach, above, worked as a manicurist in

Virginia Beach before saving enough money to open her own nail

salon, Holly's Nails, in Chesapeake, top photo.

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