Westerners living in Vietnam

It is rare I give a Double Tsk, Tsk, but you force my hand...

..you poor, (ignorant?) fool...

How can I ridicule thee..?   ..let me count the ways...   (???)   ..but wait..!!   Aha!  You just want me to bite, you clever bear.   Any (every?) expat with (any) modicum of experience here knows full well how expertly even the children see us as we really are.    How else can they play us for the fools we are?   For we have become citizens of sophistry.   Their reality is real.

..and we all know you are not that naive...   Even b(e)arely.

So yes, she will know.   They always do...               Tsk, Tsk...

I expect Better from the Bear...        Tsk, Tsk, Tsk....       

I'm afraid it's the way things are here. In the West we have laws about all kinds of things, here the main law can be best described as Caveat Emptor.

I have a friend here, he is Vietnamese, but he was brought up and educated in Hungary. He looks Vietnamese, he speaks Vietnamese, he knows the Vietnamese inside out, but his thinking and education are very western.

I wont quote him here, but I can tell you that if a westerner voiced some of the opinions he has shared with me about Vietnam and its people, he or she would be shouted down and banned for being racist.

But he only speaks as he finds.

Bazza139 wrote:

I expect Better from the Bear...        Tsk, Tsk, Tsk....       

Hey Bazza.....I got the third Tsk.😀

You could be right Bazz.   Yogi might have to come up with something better.

That plan I hatched is coming unstuck.    Ya see, Boo Boo is back in town , and he's allergic to Zinc cream.
And to make matters worse he insists on riding his mono-cycle to the beach.   Grrrrrr.   And he's always yelling out " hey Yogi , wait for me."      So staying incognito won't be easy.

When the "old duck" sees us she'll smell a rat......and Donald & Ted won't even be coming with us.  Ted's not around anymore.......Donald got the Nomination.    They say the second rat always gets the cheese.

The ward police have been a big help.     They're putting up signs.  "Don't Feed the Bears". 😉

Have a good day people.

Welcome back Yogi! 

eodmatt wrote:

I'm afraid it's the way things are here. In the West we have laws about all kinds of things, here the main lawman be best described as Caveat Emptor.

I have a friend here, he is Vietnamese, but he was brought up and educated in Hungary. He looks Vietnamese, he speaks Vietnamese, he knows the Vietnamese inside out, but his thinking and education are very western.

I wont quote him here, but I can tell you that if a westerner voiced some of the opinions he has shared with me about Vietnam and its people, he or she would be shouted down and banned for being racist.

But he only speaks as he finds.

Good morning Matt.

Funny isn't it.  We can say what we like about our own, but comment on someone from the other team and its viewed as denegrating or racist.

Some of the very good black comedians can "take the p*ss " out of their own people and the audience clap and cheer.   A white guy does it, and there's  stunned silence.

I am a member of another - military - website and one of the members is white, but everyone thinks he is black. I only know different because I met him IRL

He is the living proof of what you say.

Just stop this thread now, tooooo many clever expats lived Everywhere in the World seems like ,omg ...

Bottomline is not the Price in market - fact : They try to steal from you giving back change cause they know how stupid their moneybills are and even expats has trouble with it ... They are theives ... End of !

eodmatt wrote:

I am a member of another - military - website and one of the members is white, but everyone thinks he is black. I only know different because I met him IRL

He is the living proof of what you say.

Yo baby, how's all you homies doin.......ya chillin.

Jimlove wrote:

Just stop this thread now, tooooo many clever expats lived Everywhere in the World seems like ,omg ...

Bottomline is not the Price in market - fact : They try to steal from you giving back change cause they know how stupid their moneybills are and even expats has trouble with it ... They are theives ... End of !

Hey Jimmy, welcome to the show.

If you come to Nha Trang ,..you can follow Yogi around.   Did you read earlier that Yogi gets free food. 😉

If you borrow Boo Boo's mono-cycle and follow Yogi you'll be able to pick up the scraps for free.

Whenever Yogi approaches a food vender I don't need money.....
They usually just throw some food at me ,,and then start hitting me with a broom. 

Poor Yogi gets treated like an animal. 

If your quick enough you'll grab that food up off the ground while Yogi makes his retreat.

Jimlove wrote:

Just stop this thread now, tooooo many clever expats lived Everywhere in the World seems like ,omg ...

Who died and made you God of the Internet?  Yogi and his friends have been entertaining us for a while.  Who are you to say he must stop?  If you don't like it, don't read what they post, and I promise we will not read what you post.

Oh, c'mon!      Stoppitt!!

  ..why can't we enjoy his paranoia too..?         

You too Yogi!

..although I'm just as guilty too, for feeding the animals...       

Yogi007 wrote:

What's that old saying ...
Watch, listen,observe,assess ,ADAPT and hopefully survive in your new environment.

I walk a lot here. I walk past hundreds of small markets, people sitting in the hot sun selling a few pieces of fruit to make a few pennies to feed their families.

Quite often the old ladies at the market here "get" me for a few dong.   Big deal....when their 5 year old kid is sitting beside them helping to put the onion in the bag do you think I care where that few dong is going.  A whole 20 cents maybe.

In my country we have a social security system .      I wonder how it would be back there if there wasn't that system in place.    I'd say the Desparate and penniless would spending their last dollars on a balaclava and baseball bat and coming after people.   They do that already on a daily basis , and these people get a regular income from a job or welfare. 

Could you imagine how savage they'd be if they had ZERO income like people here.

It's pretty good here.

Sorry, a bit of digression here, but your post reminded me of being in a United Nations meeting in Luanda a few years ago. The country was a wartime wreck and there were people selling roasted rats at the roadside outside  - cost, a few cents per rat for a local, a dollar each for ex-pats. I used to buy a couple and give them to the kids or the old people, anyway....

A UN rep stood and addressed the meeting saying '"what do these people need to stop them from fighting?"

A Canadian voice from the back of the room answered with: "A good hard Canadian winter!"

Hi everyone,

Please note that some inappropriate posts have been removed from this thread.

Can we please go back to the initial subject of this topic?

Thank you,

Priscilla

it is not too much trouble but I am so sorry that happened to you 
we are local peoples but still encounter similar problems when traveling to other places in my country 

xiotien wrote:

it is not too much trouble but I am so sorry that happened to you 
we are local peoples but still encounter similar problems when traveling to other places in my country 

Relax, Xiotien.

You are feeding the (very) Vocal minority.

..who find similar problems at (their?) home..?

..actually, everywhere they go...   But they are the last to know why.     So venting their pathos is their only option here.    Ethos and logos..?   Unknown.     We all seek approval.   But to justify our existence by crying about the Universe (not) unfolding as we want it to..?    ..paints a very accurate picture...

Of our Self.