You guys know that I often make videos about my pet peeves in Vietnam,
things I find odd in Vietnam,
or things I can't understand about Vietnam.
Because of this, some people might think I've got a really negative attitude about Vietnam,
but that's not actually the case.
To prove it, in this video I'm going to share a few things that I like about Vietnamese people and their country.
The first one is . . .
By now, most of you know that I've got a wife and a little baby.
Oh shit, those photos aren't right.
Too late now.
Having a baby changes your life completely,
but my wife and I have tried to continue doing some normal adult things,
including eating out fairly regularly.
Eating out with a baby is not easy, though.
We usually try to put him in his little stroller, but . . .
he only lasts for about 10 or 15 minutes before he starts . . .
So then one of us will pick him up and try to hold him while still eating,
but then he starts reaching over and trying to grab our bowls and our chopsticks and our napkins.
It's a pain in the ass.
But we've had a kind of amazing experience in so many places where we've gone to eat,
which is staff in the restaurant coming over and sort of clapping for him and entertaining him a bit
and even picking him up and carrying him around the restaurant for a while.
which gives me and my wife a chance to just relax and eat.
We made a trip to Da Nang back in early December, so, of course, we were eating out for every meal,
and almost everywhere we went, some of the restaurant staff, when they had a free minute,
would come over and pick him up and carry him around for a while.
It was so nice, and it's something I can't recall ever seeing happen in America,
and I think there are a couple reasons it doesn't.
One is that Americans can be really paranoid about safety,
especially when it comes to their kids and strangers.
So, I think a lot of them would be kind of suspicious of some strange server in a restaurant
wanting to pick up their baby and carry him around the restaurant, like . . .
What if she doesn't know how to hold a baby and drops him?
What if she's planning on kidnapping the baby?
Another reason I think it doesn't happen is Americans can be really uptight about work
and always looking busy.
Like, even if you truly have a free minute in your job,
you're still kind of expected to look like you're working.
Especially in restaurants.
I imagine most managers in American restaurants would say a server never has a free minute in their shift.
There's always some kind of work they could be doing.
And I understand that perspective in a way,
and I also understand that servers in American restaurants are trying to work hard to get tips,
but I still think it's really nice that restaurant staff in Vietnam feel like
they can take a minute to hold a customer's baby.
Speaking of this leads me to another thing I really appreciate about Vietnamese people,
which is simply that they very openly love babies.
Now, that might sound to you like an odd thing to say—
I mean, who doesn't love babies?—
but you would be surprised how many young Americans,
like people in their 20s,
say they never want kids and they don't really like them.
Especially among young, college-educated, urban Americans,
it's often considered kind of cool to say that, like . . .
Nah, bro, I don't want kids.
I'm just going to focus on my career and keep traveling, partying,
doing whatever I want, whenever I want for the rest of my life.
Now, most of those young people, when they get a bit older, they change their minds,
but I still hate the attitude that it's some kind of cool rebellion to say you never want kids.
I've never encountered that attitude in Vietnam.
I still remember when I was doing my CELTA teacher-training course here—
so, this was right when I arrived in Vietnam—
and one day all of us teacher trainees were doing short, one-on-one conversations
with the Vietnamese students in our class, to get to know them.
And we were supposed to ask them about things like their lives, their plans for the future, their dreams,
and I asked one girl—I still remember her name, Chau—she was probably about 21, 22,
I asked her, "So, do you want to have kids someday?"
I wasn't asking if she wanted to have kids with me, it was just in general.
And she just smiled and said, "Of course."
And I thought to myself in that moment, "Yeah, she's right, 'Of course,'"
but that is not an "of course" question for someone that age in the US.
You'll hear many who say:
"Nah, I don't want kids."
So I really appreciate that young Vietnamese people, male or female,
don't consider it cool to say they never want kids or don't like them,
and when they meet someone else's little baby, they're not afraid to show they love it.
Speaking of kids, another thing I really appreciate about Vietnamese people
is they tend to have a more relaxed attitude towards kids and alcohol.
I mean, I still don't know if Vietnam even has a legal drinking age,
because any time I ask my students, some of them say:
Yeah, of course there's a drinking age. It's 18.
And then some others say:
Nope, no drinking age at all.
And then others say:
Yeah, there is a drinking age, but no one gives a shit about it.
I don't know what the answer is,
but it's clear that any kid in Vietnam can just go to a store and buy beer or liquor.
In the US? Never!
The drinking age there is 21.
21 years old!
And any place that sells alcohol always checks your ID.
And if you have a store and you get caught selling alcohol to anyone younger than 21,
you could actually go to jail.
It's insane,
and if you were to suggest to Americans that they just let kids of any age freely buy alcohol,
I can't say most of them, but a lot of them would react like . . .
But what if my little boy gets drunk and falls out of a window?
Or maybe . . .
But the children will all be alcoholics before they reach middle school.
There are a lot of Americans who don't succumb to that kind of hysteria,
and they'll let their kid have a sip of beer, or let an older teenager have a glass of wine with dinner,
but still, American culture is constantly telling kids:
And I actually think that message creates more problems than it solves,
because teenagers end up seeing alcohol as this forbidden, tempting, rebellious thing,
so then, if they can get their hands on it,
which they often can, either by having an older sibling or acquaintance buy it for them
or by just stealing it from their parents or from a supermarket,
when they get their hands on it, they want to really do it up and get
And that actually can be dangerous,
when they get super drunk and then get behind the wheel,
or just drink to the point of having alcohol poisoning.
It seems that teenagers getting dangerously drunk
is actually much less of a problem in Vietnam than it is in the US,
even though Vietnamese teenagers have much freer access to alcohol,
and I think that's largely because Vietnamese kids get introduced to drinking alcohol gradually,
when they're still young,
and so, alcohol is just a normal, unprohibited part of life.
So, keep letting your kids buy beer, Vietnam.
It's the right choice.
I think we would all agree that life in Vietnam isn't always super convenient,
but take a minute to look at this.
Here's me buying some medicine at a pharmacy.
The time?
9:29 p.m.
Here's my wife looking at some make up and stuff.
Time?
9:54 p.m.
Here we are buying some flowers.
10:35 p.m.
If you ever go to live abroad, don't expect that.
You'll be surprised how early a lot of businesses close.
5:30, 6 p.m., somewhere around there.
A few of them stay open fairly late, but not nearly as many as in Vietnam.
And I appreciate businesses staying open late
not only because it's convenient for me when I want to buy flowers at 9 p.m.,
but also because it's just nice to see some life and activity out on the street in the evening.
In a lot of American cities, if you go out on an average street at 9 p.m.,
things are just closed up and dark and kind of sad.
Every Vietnamese city I've been to is just more fun than an American city of comparable size.
And another part of that fun, in addition to shops staying open late,
is that Vietnamese people seem to have more demand for, and thus more places providing,
cheap, non-alcohol-related nightlife.
What I mean is, if you go out in the US, your choices after dinnertime, other than just going home,
are basically either to go to a bar or nightclub,
or to go see some sort of organized entertainment,
like a movie, a concert, stand-up comedy, something like that.
Now, those choices exist in Vietnam, as well, but there are other options, too,
for the times when you don't feel like drinking in some loud, dark bar,
or you don't feel like shelling out a bunch of money to sit and be entertained.
Simple things like cafes that stay open late.
You can sit, have a drink, chat, and it's a bit more low-key than going to a bar.
Or something I like even more are the walking streets around Hoan Kiem Lake, or on Nguyen Hue,
even though I haven't been to that one. It looks cool, though.
Or night markets, as well.
They can be pretty crowded, but they're fun to take a walk through once in a while.
Or just these little pockets of life that you find here and there,
like groups of older people dancing or doing exercise.
So charming.
People in America just don't do stuff like that much in the evening.
In cities over there, if you try to find a fun, safe, free place to just walk around later than, like, 8 p.m.,
You're probably going to come up empty-handed.
One more thing I really enjoy about evenings in Vietnam
is that you guys put lights up on the street at almost all times of year.
Now, I know a lot of the lights you see, like the ones on these trees,
are there to attract people to a business.
But, as ways of attracting people to a business go,
lights on trees are pretty tasteful and nice to look at.
And something I like even more, which isn't commercial at all,
are all of the overpasses with changing colored lights on the underside.
What a nice idea.
I think a lot of foreigners visiting Vietnam might assume that those colored lights are for some special occasion,
but nope.
They're just like that every night.
Or the bridges in Da Nang.
each one is lit up so differently and creatively,
and they're like that every single night.
We Americans light up our bridges a bit, but we don't do anything too special.
It's just not part of our mentality, I guess.
I think a lot of people over there would see it kind of as a waste of time and money.
And I especially can't imagine an American looking at an overpass in a city and thinking:
Yeah, we should put some nice colored lights on that thing.
But a lot of Vietnamese people evidently do think that way.
The lights may not serve any practical purpose, but they make the city a more fun place to be,
and I think it's worth it.
One final thing I appreciate about Vietnamese people
is that you guys tend to have . . .
a certain sort of natural comfort with physical contact that Americans don't.
Now, again, that might sound to you like an odd thing to say, since . . .
Americans and Westerners in general typically show physical affection a lot more than Vietnamese people do.
Like, any time I make a trip home, pretty much every relative I see, it's a hug.
And when we say "goodbye," another hug.
My wife actually commented on this when we made our trip there last year.
If you're new here, you'll often get hugged.
I've never observed that kind of hugging in Vietnam,
but Vietnamese people seem to be more comfortable with casual touching among acquaintances.
Let me give you an example.
I remember when that CELTA teacher course that I mentioned earlier finished,
all of the teacher trainees and the Vietnamese students went out to sing karaoke,
to celebrate the end of the course,
and I ended up sitting, like, in the corner of the two couches.
And there were a few times that someone on my right wanted to talk to someone on my left, or vice versa,
but, you know, it's a karaoke place, you've got to get really close to be able to hear somebody,
and the Vietnamese students would just totally casually put their forearms down on my knees,
and lean across me to talk to someone.
It was surprising to me, but also kind of adorable, like:
"Oh, okay, go ahead."
And there have been a lot of other times that I've been eating with a big group of people,
and everyone's sitting on the floor.
And as more people keep on coming in and sitting down, we all kind of have to crunch together,
and then, like, my knee, sort of ends up overlapping another guy's knee,
and we're kind of bumping elbows and stuff,
and people here seem pretty cool with it.
Americans tend to be much more rigid and uptight about their personal space.
Planned touching is okay, like hugging, shaking hands,
but incidental touching tends to make Americans, especially American men, react kind of like:
"Hey, let's, uh, keep some distance between us, shall we?"
I've found that Vietnamese people are just generally better than Americans are
at dealing with being in close quarters with other people.
I guess when you grow up in a country as crowded as this one,
you just kind of have to be.
Hey, this video was made with sơ-pốt—
Shit.
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SUpport—
Shit.
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See you next time.