Job Discussion Forums

vabeckele · Joined: 19 Nov 2010 Posts: 439

I just couldn't resist it.

I am in Hanoi and I just find it really difficult to walk around, anywhere. I would love a sidewalk or pavement to walk on.

How an answer to a question I ask cannot be answered directly, I always have to dance around the issue, and I still walk away with more questions.

isabel · Joined: 07 Mar 2003 Posts: 510 Location: God's green earth

Too many whinging westerners?

vabeckele · Joined: 19 Nov 2010 Posts: 439

Not being able to take a book AWAY from a library (national lib. in Hanoi), you have to read it there - I wanted to read a book on, 'Vietnam: cultural relativism in an authoritarian state'.

I'm With Stupid · Joined: 03 Sep 2010 Posts: 432

I guess I have to post on this, since I posted on the positive one.

- the noise.
- being asked if I want something all the time.
- the customer service - there often seems to be no middle ground between not acknowledging you exist or breathing down your neck all the way round the shop.
- the noise.
- lack of decent music/clubs.
- unreliable products - for every massive bargain you get, you'll buy something that falls apart as soon as you get it home.
- the noise.

isabel · Joined: 07 Mar 2003 Posts: 510 Location: God's green earth

emmett grogan · Joined: 14 Nov 2007 Posts: 45

"Motorbike? Where you go?" every 30 seconds.

isabel · Joined: 07 Mar 2003 Posts: 510 Location: God's green earth

kurtz · Joined: 12 Mar 2008 Posts: 518 Location: Phaic Tan

mark_in_saigon · Joined: 20 Sep 2009 Posts: 837

here we are, we should be at least interested to see each other and chat, if not automatic friends. Instead, I find the natives are far more friendly to the westerners than our own fellow expats. Seems many of us enjoy the adulation so much that we wish it would never be shared with other westerners, and so we always are looking for a reason to not like each other and wish we were the only westerner in the nation.

I guess I can understand that, but cannot really understand why we would then come on a board for expats and demonstrate this self hatred. Seems to me if you did not like your own people, you would just stay away from them.

skarper · Joined: 12 Oct 2006 Posts: 477

I for one would appreciate a circle of westerner friends to chat with and occasionally have a drink.

But given the downright creepy nature of some expats prowling SEASIA I'm very reticent about making casual contacts with passing foreigners. I'm also busy and value my privacy. I think this is natural among expats who've lived a while in Vietnam - if they were outgoing mixer types they'd have left long ago.

vabeckele · Joined: 19 Nov 2010 Posts: 439

What Mark and Skarper, wrote

mark_in_saigon · Joined: 20 Sep 2009 Posts: 837

Prof.Gringo · Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 6:23 pm Post subject:

I really like how so many VN men are cowards, pure and simple. They will provoke a fight, but as soon as they realize they are about to get beat down they either call on their buddies for help (they like that 10-1 mentality) or they pull a knife... Shocked

Tigerstyleone · Joined: 26 Mar 2010 Posts: 181

I think it's corruption.

isabel · Joined: 07 Mar 2003 Posts: 510 Location: God's green earth

I like the joy with Christmas MOD EDIT

I enjoy so much about Vietnam. I really like westerners who take it in stride. I do have a good time with both westerners and Vietnamese who are not either naive nor cynical about things here- but find Vietnam worth the effort.

I look forward to Tet. Great fun.