Culture Shock: 25 things I find weird about Vietnam
In honor of the best facebook chain note of all time here are 25 things that I find odd about Vietnam
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How little they know or care about the Vietnam war. I have not experienced any awkward conversations involving this topic, most Vietnamese don’t really seem to give a care and far from hating Americans, they go out of their way to be our friends. George explained this is probably because the history of Vietnam is so long and filled with conflict, most of which was against the Chinese, that no one really cares about a 10 year war that they won.
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How much the kids, especially teens, like English. Basically anything written in English is cool. I had heard about this before I came here and had dealt with the flip side to this back home, the kid that is WAY too into Japan that has something written in Japanese written on his car that literally translated means something stupid like “Very Strong.” But here it is English, perfect example; today at the supermarket I saw a boy of probably 16 wearing a shirt that said “cuddle bear.” He looked well off and the shirt was new, while that would get you laughed at in America, here it is cool.
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Chinese restaurants and how there aren’t any; Jimmy Buffet once wrote a song about wanting a cheeseburger in paradise, meaning the Caribbean. I have been to the Caribbean and I can tell you that half the time that is about the only thing one the menu at many restaurants. Here not so much. But more than a burger I would like some damn Kung Pao or general Tso chicken, it is impossible to find here, they don’t even have the sauce to stir fry it yourself. I used to eat Chinese at least 3 time a week back home, I could even make a damn good stir fry, but not here.
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No Tipping; also no saying thank you. The only time you tip or say thank you is when someone REALLY goes out of their way. For example when I got the pipe from Chew-Key, that merited a thank you. As far as I am concerned this makes things better, in America waitstaff has become too dependent on tips. After graduation I took all my friends in Traverse out to the as I had just got a lot of money and they, for the most part, are dirt poor. But as I am standing at the bar waiting to order a round, there were at least 3 employees behind the bar, looking at me and complaining about how people tip and how they are rich and don’t know how it is. I had to wait at least 3 minutes while they had this conversation before someone took my order. Hmm maybe your low tips might have something to do with you ignoring someone who is about to drop $80+ at your establishment. I get much better service here even when I am spending $5 or less and they don’t expect a dime.
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How little things cost. A grand total for me in a day, rent included, is almost never above $20. Beer here is rarely more than a dollar a bottle, even the good stuff like Tiger. If you spend $5 at a restaurant, that is a lot. I bought a tailored suit that would have been at least $700, in the states for about $150.
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How easy it is to get a good paying job, as an English Teacher anyway. Here is how an interview goes; Do you have teaching experience/certificate? Is $16 an hour OK? when can you work? If the answer to one and two are yes, and both parties agree on number 3 the job is yours. Then because you make as much in an hour as you spend in a day, you get to live like a king if you want to.
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Personal space; This has probably been the biggest one. Not necessarily because personal space doesn’t really exist in the Vietnamese world, that is easy enough to accept, it is that the idea is complete bassackward from the US. For example, 2 men or women can share the same bed and this is normal, also during conversation it is not uncommon for a guy to touch you leg to get your attention, and of course in traffic no one has any personal space. But aside from younger couples, people don’t hug here. Seriously, I have seen more people grotesquely making out than I have seen people hugging. After I gave me sow baw girl the flag I tried to give her a hug and she didn’t know what the hell I was doing. This extends to children as well, the entire time I was visiting the mountains I did not see one kid hug an adult or vice versa. It is really weird and actually kind of sad.
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Affirmative Action; it actually exists here and anyone who is for it should take Vietnam as the best example of why it is a bad thing. People here have to pay for their kids education all the way through school (a “public” school here is like one in England, you have to pay… a lot), except if they are a minority. In addition to this privilege, and that is what Affirmative Action is, a privilege not a right, minorities here receive many others too. This was done to keep the minorities happy so they won’t cause a ruckus. The problem is that this makes the native Vietnamese extremely jealous and pretty much racist against the minorities because while a poor Hmong kid gets to go to school, a poor Vietnamese kid has to go to work as soon as he/she can. Kinda like how a poor white kid is treated differently than a poor black kid by some admissions offices in the US despite the fact that neither has had to face the horrors their ancestors did and neither has connections in the upper class. The government figures there is less of a chance the native Vietnamese will do anything about it so they can have this policy, but the point is that affirmative action creates racism, and this is how.
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Liquor; I think I have mentioned this before, but when I have a house I wan a room devoted totally to liqueurs from the world and want to win at least one by solving a riddle or logic game, anyway, in Vietnam may exist the weirdest liqueurs of anywhere in the world. What they do is instead of fermenting things like apples, they just put them in a jar of sticky rice wine, which is usually pure crap, to give it flavor. But here is the thing, it is not limited to fruit, they put Animals in there… like wasps, cobras and Komodo dragons, which I believe are endangered. Let me be very clear about this, you can go into a shop here and buy a bottle of rice wine with an endangered species in it. I am still trying to get the guts to try this and when I do I promise it will be documented and I highly doubt I will have more than one shot.
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Beer; I do have to admit, the beer here is not as good as the micro brewed back home and I am truly saddened because my favorite seasonal, Trader Joe’s Winterfest (7.5% and only about $5-6 for a 6 pack) is out right now and there is no way to get it. But what is really weird about beer here, other than the very low price, is that you cannot buy a 6 pack in most stores. The cans must be bought individually.
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George and I don’t fight; Well we never really “fought” but our relationship used to resemble “The Dude” and Walter from “The Big Lebowski” here not so much. I think it probably has something to do with the fact that he speaks the language and I don’t.
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The crazy superstition; more than heaven and hell these people believe in good luck and bad luck. Certain things will bring you good luck and certain things will give you bad luck. You avoid the things that bring you bad bad luck and do the things that bring you good luck. The dumbest one I have come across is the marriage thing, if your lunar zodiac signs do not match up, the parents won’t let you get married, or at the very least will react like people in America used to do when a Catholic married a protestant.
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The willingness to “sell out” you don’t see many people majoring in humanities or other “social sciences”, other than economics. Perhaps, this is because they have gone so long without money that they are willing to sacrifice happiness for a profession that makes money and a better life.
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How safe it is; Despite being in three accidents in the last two weeks I have never felt as though I am unsafe. Perhaps this comes from having lived in cites like Saginaw, Chicago and visited Detroit quite a bit while living in Ann Arbor. While there is gun control, the police actually do their job when there is violence and people have a general respect for each other, despite living in poverty, unlike the residents and police of the south side of Chicago who think it is cool that they are in gangs and can have no problem killing children in the crossfire, and that community and city that refuses to acknowledge that this is a serious problem. If a gangbanger here did something like that they would be hunted down and killed, if not by the family by the cops. No trial no nothing, you kill someone with a gun you are royally screwed. Which leads me to my next few points.
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Lawsuits and how they don’t exist; I had the hardest time explaining lawsuits to one of my classes. Here if someone does something to you, you take your beef to the police and they deal with it. There is no mucking about in court. If someone spills coffee on you at a restaurant you might yell and scream but the government is not going to make the restaurant pay you a million dollars and the case sure as hell won’t go to court. International law is another matter but that is dealt primarily through the government and they decide if it will make them look bad or if the situation will improve their view of the world as they are a developing nation and want foreign investment.
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How little the cops care about foreigners, especially Americans. I have had many friends go to Africa and heard many stories about cops and officials in those countries will shake down foreigners for money whenever they can. I personally have not yet experienced this. For example, one day I was driving and did something illegal, turned left on a red onto a one way. A cop “pulled me over. Meaning he ran out into the street blew his whistle and shook his baton. Since my visor was down he couldn’t tell i wasn’t native and stat yelling in Vietnamese. I lifted my visor and said “I don’t know what you are saying man” He looked at me for a second and waved his baton and said “just go” so I took off.
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Racism and lack of political correctness; I love it, I really do. America has become a nation of offended people, most of whom have no reason to be offended, see this site for what I mean. Also political correctness, which I have a huge problem with. If I say a black person is black, instead of “African American” that is politically incorrect, regardless of whether or not I mean it as an insult. On the racism bit, I rarely hear racist comments in America, though the American Culture Department of the University of Michigan thinks it is as rampant as ever, even though we have a black president. Here you here it all the time, no one has a problem expressing they think that Indians, dot not feather, are dirty and rude. No clarification that there are exceptions. For the most part these are Vietnamese and Europeans (like the Dutchman from the mountain adventure). Political correctness doesn’t exist especially in descriptions of people. If you are short, you are not “vertically challenged” if you are fat, you are not “bigger” or thick. Me Sow Baw Girl is certainly not fat by American standards, but is by Vietnamese. So we affectionately call her “me sow beao” (say it like scott beao) or fried noodle fattie. She thinks it is funny. Dear Americans, stop being pussys. Oh wait that is sexist… Oh wait I don’t care.
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BALCONIES! I love balconies, they are so hard to find in the states but the are everywhere here and they look a lot cooler, I guess the French did do something right after all.
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How the recession has actually helped the country; This is not much of a shock so much as it is enviable. Everything here is cheap beautiful and they want tourism. There is an emerging class here that now have money to buy goods and services and spoil their children. Money is coming in because things are cheap and the lifestyle is improving. It reminds me of America in the ’90s sometimes.
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Cleanliness; These people are obsessed with keeping things clean. The streets are swept 24-7. It rarely smells, aside from a few subpar bathrooms. The city of Hanoi looks much better than most major cites in the states, probably due to the lack of “big box stores” and urban sprawl. The parks here are as nice as the ones in Chicago and the Temples are much prettier than most American churches. All the kitchens and houses I have been to, including the one in the mountains are spotless. Even the motorbikes look nicer than most American cars and are rarely more than a few years old. I can honestly say Ann Arbor is a dirtier city than Hanoi.
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Aging; People her age magnificently. The security guard assigned to my class asked what I thought his age was I said 35, he responded “my daughter is almost 35. maybe MSG isn’t as bad as some would like you to believe.
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Rats; Here they are like squirrels back home, at first I acted like I do with rats in America and I was always disappointed that I was the year of the rat and had to be constantly reminded of this fact because of my addiction to Chinese food and the placemats that accompany all of them. But here I am actually starting to think it is alright.
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The Music; the only things they seem to like is Techno, Britney Spears and crappy British pop groups. I say classic rock and they look at me like I am crazy… and don’t even get me started on bluegrass.
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Kids in vehicles; it’s not the traffic I worry about so much as the kids in traffic, these people put their kids on motorbikes and their legs can barely fit around the seat, and sometimes they put the kids in front of them on the motorbike, so if they are in a accident the kid gets squashed. Today I saw a kid in a range rover standing up in the front seat holding on to the dash… really.
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The lack of beggers; maybe this has to do with the sense of family, maybe it is because it is easy to get a job or whatever but there really aren’t many beggers out. Not that they don’t exist, and most of them make a killing on tourists, probably more than many people with legitimate jobs, but still there just aren’t that many especially when compared to Ann Arbor and Chicago. I don’t give them any money.
