I have lived in Vietnam since 2007 and I want to share my knowledge of Vietnamese in general and Sai Gon people in particular. I can be right or wrong; you can agree or disagree with me, but I still want to share.

1. Iced tee is free in most restaurants. Some restaurants have hot tea, some have both.

2. When Vietnamese drink tea or water (or other beverage), they always leave from 5 percent to 10 percent that drink in their glass. They do not drink it to the dregs.

3. Vietnamese do not take a bath in the morning, they take a bath in the evening.

4. Teenagers here love everything coming from Korea – cooking, music, hairstyle, costumes. K-pop has a big affect on this country.

5. Họ ngủ vào buổi trưa sau bữa ăn. Điều đó có nghĩa là nếu bạn lái xe từ 12h trưa đến 1h chiều thì bạn sẽ đi lại dễ dàng và đường phố thì rất yên tĩnh. Đúng rồi, lúc đó không hề có tắc nghẽn giao thông!

5. Vietnamese take a nap after lunch. Therefore, if you drive your car on the streets from 12 pm to 1 pm, you will travel easily and the streets are very quite.

6. “Happy New Year” of ABBA, “Hotel California” of The Eagles and “Papa” of Paul Anka are songs that are often chosen to sing karaoke.

7. Vietnamese wear helmets not because of their safety, they wear helmets in order not to be fined by policemen.

8. Nobody respects pedestrian crossing. We always have to pray when crossing the road or walking on the sidewalk.

9. Every family has at least two motorbikes and they put them on the ground floor. The living room is also a motorbike garage.

10. Mai Linh and Vinasun are taxi brands believed most. In the airport, everybody queue up for Mai Linh and Vinasun taxi.

11. People here will ask you about your age, your nationality and your marriage status in the first meeting.

12. Coffee here is wonderful. Everybody like drinking iced milk coffee.

13. “Nguyễn” (Nguyen) can be both first name and last name. about seven tenths of Vietnamese I met have this name.

14.  Vietnamese are basically  very friendly, genuine and helpful. Besides, they often smile.

15. The Vietnamese language is very difficult. Although you can distinguish the pronunciation, when you speak out, Vietnamese cannot understand what you are saying. An advice for you is to write down what you want to say in a paper. To me, the secret is body language.

Source: Infornet

Translated by Nguyen Quynh