Foreigners’ Lives in Vietnam: A partial ethnographic exploration

Background

Through the ages, migration and cultural exchange have been lodestones of the civilization and society in Vietnam. The region witnessed constant cultural exchanges in three directions – between northern migrants from northern Chinese kingdoms and the locals in the Delta, between the mountain tribes to the Delta’s west and northwest and the Delta, and between the Delta and Champa – areas south of it. ¹ Vietnamese have received western foreigners who have contributed to the development of the economy and Vietnamese culture. A famous episode would be Father Alexander Rhodes who used Latin alphabets from Portugal to translate the bible for Vietnamese use. In the 20th century the Vietnamese nation adopted this set of alphabets and ditched traditional Chinese characters and the Nom script (adaptation that combines Chinese characters with Vietnamese pronunciation). Ironically, in the name of national survival and identify reinforcement against colonialism, a foreign language played a very important part in the universalization of basic education.

Doi Moi (reforms) was the closing of the chapter of a securitized, war-based economy and society and the opening of a new chapter of an open society for interaction with the world through social and economic activities. The process of meeting, learning about, and accepting foreigners is uneven and started slowly. A foreigner of Indian ancestry, eg. reported visiting Dien Bien Phu in 1993 (6 years after Doi Moi began) and was surprised that nobody had ever seen an Indian, dark skinned and all, in the region. ² During the war, foreigners from non-friendly countries were largely prohibited from living in Vietnam. Because foreigners are considered guests and Vietnamese hospitality needs to be shown, foreigners are assumed to want the best of services and goods Vietnam can offer. Foreigners had to live in special quarters, given special attention, and provided with the best goods and services available. Before there were supermarkets, foreigners in Hanoi had to buy specially imported goods (licenses were needed) if they missed groceries unique to their countries. Vietnam was a hard posting for foreigners.

Three decades late in the 2010s, increased levels of the foreigners’ role in the economy brought necessary adjustments to welcome foreigners. Now, foreigners in Vietnam live anywhere they want except in certain minority areas in faraway provinces, by the border. Foreigners’ expertise is greatly needed in this emerging economy, and the attitude towards foreigners, as well as goods, services, and living environment for them have also improved.

Over the last 40 years, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has also seen a significant amount of immigration for reasons of its economic growth and people-people relations, such as business relationships, friendships, inter-marriages, and the shaping of neighbourhoods friendly to foreigners. Urban, rural, as well as social landscapes have been altered by foreigners’ presence and needs.

The ideas for this special issue of this journal springs from the need to understand how foreigners’ lives are conducted in the Vietnamese environment. The larger question is how has the Vietnamese environment accommodated foreigners? By “environment” it is meant the arrangement of living conditions and living space (including health care, education, leisure, services such as banking, consumption), and the ease of operating in Vietnam, generally. Underpinning these material phenomena would be seen the general attitudes of the state and society of Vietnam towards foreigners.

A conceptual non-beginning

The obvious criticism of this series of articles would be the absence of clearly defined conceptual terms, and theoretical underpinnings. That would be missing the purpose of this Special Issue: That is to provide ethnographical and anthropological material so that the conceptual work and theoretical follow-up work could have a strong foundation. It is therefore not the intention here to discuss concepts or theories. However, Phan Thi Hong Xuan et al (1) showed that the Acculturation approach and Rational Choice approach have informed their work. The reader would do well to explore these concepts beyond the limited length constraints of this special issue.

Lower range of questions

Nevertheless, several questions motivated us. In particular, we sought multifaceted answers to the question: How has foreigners’ lives in Vietnam been, and how have they impacted on Vietnam’s society? From a meeting of researchers interested in this project and were doing work, we identified urbanization and immigration into Vietnam as two key developments to watch. The following is the editor’s reflection on the contributors’ work.

Social impact of foreigners’ presence in Vietnam

The social impact of the influx of foreigners on contemporary Vietnam has been manifold. Nhut’s paper shows state management evolving to include foreigners in their stable of policies to make sure foreigners are inducted to the Vietnamese way of life. This include understanding what Vietnam’s shared values are (through the activitiy of Flag-raising ceremony, eg.), or inviting foreigners to sharing sessions within the community. Engaging with foreigners show a deep concern about how foreigners could impact on the local community through various ways – one of these concerns is ideas and action by foreigners that the state may find detrimental to its security; or ways of life that need to be integrated with the local ways.  It is a part of the mobilization method that socialist societies use to align diverse elements of society, for them to be activated to support the regime through understanding and participation. The idea that a cohesive society would have less social conflicts has been a feature of societies that emphasized unity and an autonomous state – one that is not challenged for power by society – that was seen in countries such as South Korea (until 1980s) and in Singapore (even now).

Hung and Thanh’s paper pointed out foreigners do have a need for higher standards of living, and they could afford to pay more. Their paper shows that as early as late 1980s the Vietnamese government had already planned to have new urban areas that are detached and different from the way their urban areas of old felt and look like. In fact, the design of the Phu My Hung township was unprecedented and still has not been emulated elsewhere, 20 years later in terms of scale. The layout of the town acknowledged the needs to cater to foreigners’ preference in urban environment – clean and wide streets, orderly behaviour, hygienic and organized ways of living from the removal of trash to the operation of schools and markets. The case of Thao Dien analysed in the same paper however also shows a certain tolerance by foreigners for a less orderly way than that found in PMH.

Coming together, Staying together

In 2022, Ho Chi Minh City has a total of 2,927 marriage cases involving foreign citizens (Phan Thi Hong Xuan et al. {1}). This is a significant change from pre-Doi Moi days, when Vietnamese would have found it difficult to obtain a passport to travel, let alone marry a foreigner. Then, few foreigners had a visa to visit or stay in Vietnam. The couples interviewed in this work had found love in their Vietnamese working environment.  Back in Taiwan, it would not have been easy to find double incomes, and the lower costs of living in Vietnam as well as opportunities to invest monies for returns have attracted these couples to settle down in Vietnam than to move to Taiwan, as was often seen in the early years of Doi Moi. An added but important incentive Is the availability of international schools for their children, while staying in Vietnam means that the Vietnamese spouses can be in closed proximity with their own families.

Phan Thi Hong Xuan et al (1) and (2) arrayed various decisions within the family to show how families negotiated the differences between cultures and the values in family upheld. The medley or combination of languages (English, Mandarin, Vietnamese) in such families is fascinating, such as when the research delves into the rational choices of language for communication, choices that vary with situation and people. These two articles also discussed the issue of cultural identity of descendants.  

Foreigners’ experience

This special issue does not contain a paper dedicated comprehensive to the Vietnam experience of foreigners. What can be scanned from the internet shows Vietnam has the usual advantages of developing countries, such as low costs of living and the relative ease that foreigners may have in finding quick jobs ³ and an environment where English is used, even if minimally.

Vietnam needs work to become an outright attractive destination for migration and expatriates. Internations (Expats Essential Index) conducted regular surveys of expats’ views about their host countries, and in 2023 it ranked Vietnam 46th overall, out of 52 countries assessed. Common issues that foreigners have included red tap regarding visas, lack of e-government services, difficulty in opening bank accounts, air and noise pollution, the need for more respect for public and common spaces, public law and order including traffic. The difficulty of learning the language was also often cited. In another survey conducted earlier in 2019, 60% of expatriates reported culture shock. “The top three causes of the cultural shock as voted by candidates were language barrier (29 percent); conflict between perception and reality in terms of environment, local culture, relations (27 percent); and lack of understanding (18 percent).” ⁴  Some also reported about annoying neighbours that have strange habits. 

Peter Spence, British IELTS teacher, said: “My wife and I moved to Vietnam roughly three years ago, firstly to Hanoi and then to Saigon. In Hanoi, what shocked us most were the rules of the road. People ignore traffic signs and regulations, drive on the pavement, and show little regard for other road users and pedestrians.” ⁵ Another expatriate says the same and noted that Vietnamese seem not to tolerate criticisms about such matters. ⁶

The picture for foreigners in Vietnam after these last few decades is also not a totally bad one.  The same Internations survey says foreigners in Vietnam enjoy a high level of satisfaction with their finance (ranked 1st), and they experience friendliness (5th) as well as adequate levels of work-leisure balance (6th). Eighty-five percent of the surveyed expressed satisfaction with life in Vietnam, while the global average was 72%. ⁷ The number of foreigners living in Vietnam will increase so long as economic activity sustains, but it is not clear whether any of the foreigner experience issues would be overcome in a short time.

Conclusion

The experiences of foreigners in Vietnam in the modern era after the country’s opening up collectively tells a story of adaptation, and acculturation by Vietnamese and foreigners. Vietnam stepped up to change their cities for adapting to the western ways of life, altered its urban landscape, encouraging people to learn foreign languages, as well as permitting Vietnamese to marry foreigners and the setting up of schools teaching foreign languages, congregation of different nationalities into towns and the consumption of their culture.

David Koh
David KOH is currently Senior Lecturer at the College of Arts & Sciences, VinUniversity. The views of the author/s are their own and do not represent the views of VinUniversity or of the institutions that the authors of this volume come from.

Banner: Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam – December 6, 2022: People stand in line to cross the border control area into Vietnam in Tan Son Nhat international airport. Photo: Nelson Antoine, Shutterstock