HO CHI MINH CITY -- The yoga students have to walk past blue-and-green iguanas and jars of hummus at the entry to get to Hanna Nguyen's home studio. Nguyen started offering workout classes by converting the ground level of her house into a business, while the family lives upstairs. Vietnamese have done this for centuries -- work on one floor, sleep on another -- but the 21st century has brought new competition: retail chains.
Nguyen competes with Elite Fitness, California Fitness and Yoga and other big gym brands that were almost nonexistent a decade ago.
