40 Reasons Why Living in Vietnam Is Better than Living in a Western Country (#21-40)

19/11/2021 | 16:28

A friend once asked me to give her 100 reasons as to why living in Vietnam is better than living in a Western country. Here’s #21-40

21) Incomparable Banking Interest Rates

At the time of writing this, most banks in Western countries are offering savings accounts with negligible annual interest rates, many as low as 0.01%; essentially nothing.

In Vietnam, every time I go walking around the city center of HCMC, every few blocks I see a sign in front of a bank advertising savings accounts paying out anywhere from 5-7% annual interest (if you’re investing VND).

If you put $200,000 worth of VND in a savings account in Vietnam then you can receive $14,000 worth of VND per year, enough to live well off of in Vietnam (if you know how to avoid paying artificially inflated expat prices).

Maybe you live in a Western country and have money sitting in the bank, in assets or other investments. Are you making a guaranteed 7% per year off that?

22) Easy for Foreigners to Open a Bank Account

I remember in Canada whenever I brought cash into the bank they’d always just grill me with questions until I’d say something along the lines of “alright, I’ll go take it to [insert competitor bank’s name here] then.” In which case they would immediately apologize and accept the deposit.

In Vietnam on the other hand, I’ve opened banks accounts at 3 different major banks with nothing more than a tourist visa and a passport. I’ve never been questioned as to the origin of my money or anything else like that.

There is one hurdle if you’re an American citizen and you want to open a Vietnamese bank account. I’ve heard that you have to fill out this Big Brother-esque form from the IRS; apparently, but not surprisingly, they like to have their tentacles all over the globe.

23) Low or No Banking Fees

When I was receiving international transfers payments from China into my Canadian bank account, I would have about 5% chopped off each month by mysterious fees and conversion rates that nobody could provide me with data for.

I think it was because it passed through a few intermediary banks, and they each wanted to stick their fat greedy fingers into the pie and take a piece of my money for nothing.

When I transfer USD from my American account to CAD in my Canadian account they fuck me for 3.5%, even though it’s to and from the same bank.

The Western banking industry is going to continue to try and milk people for as much of their money as it can, at least until cryptocurrency makes them redundant. Luckily, in Vietnam, the fees are either very low or non-existent.

I switched over to receiving international payments from China straight into my Vietnamese bank account. After that, I never lost more than 1.5% per transfer.

I use my Vietnamese bank account to withdraw money, transfer money, pay bills, buy groceries, shop online, order delivery and order taxis. Besides the 1.5% fee to receive an international transfer and the $10/year I pay for one of my accounts, I’ve never been charged a single bank fee in Vietnam.

24) Quick, Easy, Cheap Delivery

A recent case study in America found that when ordering delivery, they were paying about 50% more than they would have been eating in at the restaurant. Why? Well like most things with a Western marketing model, the price advertised often comes with like 4 different hidden fees added to it.

In this case:

The base price of the food was raised on the delivery app compared to what it was dining in the restaurant.
There was a few-dollar delivery fee.
There was a few-dollar service fee.
There was a “Regulation Fee“, whatever the fuck that is.
There was tax added on after.

So yeah, you’re paying quite a bit more to have food delivered to your door.

In Vietnam on the other hand, every time I use Grab Food or Shopee Food (formerly Foodie/NowVn), I actually generally pay about 15-25% less than I would in the restaurant? How? Well, let’s look at the average delivery fees in Vietnam compared to the top 5 fees listed above.

The base price of the food on the delivery app is almost always the same as dining in at the restaurant.
The delivery fee is generally around $1.00-$1.50.
Sometimes there is a service fee of around $0.10- $0.25.
“Regulation Fee” (??) In Vietnam, there generally aren’t stupid, obscure hidden fees like that.
95% of establishments in Vietnam include tax in the advertised price. The price advertised is usually the exact amount of money that will leave your wallet.

And then Grab Food (inside the Grab app) and ShopeeFood (formerly Foodie/NowVn) always have discounts that you can add to your order after, generally ranging from 15% to even 30% off of the price. I’m not exaggerating; try it out yourself if you don’t believe me.

It can help to know Vietnamese to use these food delivery apps, but you can also figure it out by looking at numbers and photos.

HCMC and Hanoi have hundreds, if not thousands, of restaurants on those apps; the discounts can be applied to most of them. If that restaurant has chosen not to accept discounts, then I just search for another restaurant with the same type of food.

25) Quick, Easy, Cheap Transportation

So when I was 19 I had a job on the other side of the city. My car broke down for a week and I had to take a taxi to get to work; otherwise, the train and bus would add about 5 hours to my day (and it was like -30 degrees Celcius that week).

I’d work 8 hours a day but I lost almost everything I earned each day to pay for the taxi ride to and from work. How is anyone ever expected to get ahead in those circumstances? Unfortunately, that’s only one example of thousands regarding that topic.

In Vietnam, I can be halfway across the city for a few bucks ($1-$4 depending on distance). Anytime, anywhere, 24/7, I can pull out my phone and have a Grab Bike come get me within minutes. If I’m with people, we can use a Grab Car; if we split the cost then it’s still only a few dollars per person.

How much does it cost you to get around the city in an Uber in America? About 5-10x more than what it costs to get around the city on a Grab Bike in Vietnam.

This is pre-pandemic. Post-pandemic prices of Uber rides, as well as many other things, in America have skyrocketed.

26) Ready-Made Healthy Food and Drinks Are Affordable

So within the last decade or so there’s been a big health trend in Western countries to eat healthier. This is great.

However, what is not good is when people take advantage of this to sell food and drinks containing basic ingredients at extortionate prices while marketing them as trendy and ultra-healthy.

Look at these Booster Juice prices in America:

What the fuck is this?

What am I paying for? It’s an orange, some sugar and some ice. People brainwashed by consumerism are willing to give most of their money away just because something has a brand name on it; it’s insane.

The cheapest food in Western countries is fast food, processed food and unhealthy food. That’s why in Western countries poor people are generally fatter and less healthy than rich people.

In Vietnam, you can get fresh orange juice on almost any street for $0.50-$1.00. You can get a delicious bowl of noodles or a plate of rice containing a variety of different vegetables, a decent serving of grilled or boiled meat, and other healthy additives such as garlic or turmeric for $2-$3. In Vietnam, healthy local food is cheaper than unhealthy fast food.

About $1.50 is a typical price for 4 of these rolls of healthy deliciousness (gỏi cuốn) on the street.

27) Vietnamese-Style Restaurants

I’m just gunna put a mini-post inside a post for this one:

[“Tây” is Vietnamese for “West” or “Western”. It can be used as a noun or an adjective. The Vietnamese letter “â” is pronounced kind of like the short “u” sound in English.

“Trà” (said with downward intonation like you’re being stern) means tea.“Đá” (said with upward intonation like you are excited) means ice. The letter “đ” in Vietnamese is pronounced like the letter “d” in English.

Adjectives come after nouns in Vietnamese.]

Fucks with the Duolingo app (it’s free) if you wanna learn a bit of Vietnamese, I taught myself quite a bit with that.

The ‘Bams kickin it in a Vietnamese style restaurant in Hanoi, eating bún chả (Hanoi’s specialty dish) and shredding a Bia Hanoi while sitting on a Vietnamese-style low plastic stool.

28) Leading the World in Economic Growth

Pre-covid, In 2018 and 2019, Vietnam experienced over 7% GDP growth each year, making it the fastest-growing economy in the world in 2019.

Vietnam was the world’s fastest-growing economy in 2019.

After covid hit, Vietnam’s GDP’s growth in 2020 was 9th highest in the world at +2.9%, whereas every Western country in the world, except Ireland, experienced negative growth.

Vietnam still has quite a ways to go to catch up with the economic powerhouses of the world. But personally, I’d rather chill with the skinny underdog and watch him come up than hang around with the fat, spoiled playground bullies as they decline from their peak, throwing tantrums because they no longer can have hundreds of toys while the poor kids have none.

East Asia, Africa and East Europe have been coming up while Western countries stagnate. Ireland’s been doing quite well though.

29) No “Alchohol Zones”

So in most Western countries, if you want to consume alcohol you need to be inside hidden away from public like a deviant. Even if you’re drinking outside, that patio probably has a wall of frosted glass surrounding it, separating the people unwinding and enjoying themselves from the rigid society outside where being too happy or relaxed does not equate to productivity.

In Vietnam, most bars have chairs on the sidewalk where you can drink, or the bar *is* chairs on the sidewalk.

Tạ Hiện “Beer Corner” in Hanoi. Chill during the day, it gets quite lively at night.

One of my favorite things to do in Vietnam is to post up in a chair along Bui Vien Street in HCMC, Bach Dang Street in Danang, or Ta Hien Street in Hanoi on a beautiful day and shred some beers while watching the world go by. In situations such as this, you’ll usually meet friendly people too. People who are feeling as open and laid-back as you are at that time. I haven’t experienced that too much in a Western country.

Me on Bui Vien Street in the day; after borders were shut, so not so lively.

30) Friendliness of Strangers

In Western countries, it’s rare that people will have a genuine interaction with strangers. A Westerner will play roles while working and while talking to employees of restaurants, shops, banks, etc throughout their day, but that’s not really a real interaction in my opinion.

A lot of Westerners don’t trust or feel connected with each other; consumerism tends to often create a sense of isolation from others and the community, with increased rates of loneliness, depression and anxiety.

Hope you can find somewhere you can feel happier.

In Vietnam on the other hand, travelers, expats and Vietnamese locals are much more open to strangers. I often go to bars solo after work and chill, listen to hip-hop and shred some beers. I generally end up meeting people without even moving from my favorite spot in the bar.

31) Nonviolent

Although petty theft is fairly common in HCMC, physical violence is extremely rare in Vietnam. The US has 88.8 guns per 100 residents; Vietnam has 1.7.

In over 5 years in Vietnam, I have never been hit or assaulted in any way, not even a slap.

The only two times a Vietnamese person has slightly gotten into my face were times when I was really drunk and kind of had it coming (but actually not really, I was drunk in a bar but not hurting anything). Also, these were guys who had worked in a Western bar for years so I would hypothesize that the Western confrontational attitude had rubbed off on them a bit.

On the other hand, it’s not unusual to see a fight at a Western bar; many Westerners specifically go to bars looking for fights. Perhaps they’re unhappy with the way their lives have been going lately and want to try to make other people feel as unhappy as they are. Or perhaps the Western ultra-competitive mindset has wired their minds to perceive other people in society as adversaries. Or maybe they think that it’s the year 10,000BC and that fighting is the only way that they can attract the attention of a girl; I don’t fucking know.

In Canada and in Vietnam, numerous times I’ve seen Westerners hurt each other. An English guy once threw a bottle of beer at my head in a bar in Thailand just because I looked at him. If you look at reviews of one of the most popular expat bars in Vietnam you’ll see numerous reports of fights. My buddy got punched at that bar basically just because he’s a friendly, outgoing, eccentric guy.

Anyway, fuck all that. Thankfully the vast majority of Vietnamese see the nonnecessity and pointlessness of violence and so go out of their way to avoid violence. I hope that attitude rubs off on the Westerners who choose to visit and live here. Also, Westerners should understand that, unlike their home country, Vietnam is an extremely peaceful and nonviolent country, and that it is extremely selfish to bring violence of any kind into this place.

32) Less Trolls and Haters

Overall, the vast majority of Vietnamese try to avoid confrontation as much as possible, whereas many Westerners seem to seek it out in order to boost their egos and/or reinforce the paradigms that they have of the world.

Western society manufacturers numerous trolls (people who derive their entire sense of self-esteem and self-worth from insulting others online) and haters (people who are unhappy with their own personality or level of success and so try to knock down other people to a level beneath them).

A hyper-competitive, impersonal, exploitive society spawns multitudes of trolls and haters, people who troll and hate as ways to cope with their own perceived inadequacies.

In person, trolls and haters don’t often have the confidence to directly insult someone so many will use passive aggression to try and undermine people and attempt to make others doubt themselves. You can see this behavior from a very young age even; Western society mass-produces people who put each other down and step on each other to get ahead socially and economically.

Although Vietnamese locals have told me that there are people like this in Vietnam, I have personally only encountered a small fraction compared to the number of Western trolls and haters I have seen in my life.

33) Less Divided Society

If you’ve been following Western news that past two years, you’ll have seen that Covid has just straight-up made a lot of Westerners hate each other even more than they did before. Their minds have been shocked by the drastic changes that have suddenly impacted their lives and they need to tell themselves a simple and easy explanation that fits well into their schemas of the world and helps them sleep better at night.

Finding a scapegoat is psychologically the easiest way to come to terms with severe situations such as this. Many Westerns find it comfortable to simplistically create an “us against them” mentality based on political views, race, vaccination choice etc. Although categorizing and blaming different groups of people for problems is not a new phenomenon in Western society, the last 2 years have seen a massive increase in this type of behavior.

Besides the utter retardedness of trying to force the infinite complexities of the human personality into one of two categories as “right” or “wrong”, this type of polarized thinking is unhealthy and not conducive to the longevity of a prosperous society.

A society of people hating each other is not sustainable, which is why we are starting to see some Western countries slowly tearing themselves apart from the inside.

It’s quite rare to find massively in-your-face overly-opinionated Vietnamese people. Vietnamese society runs pretty smoothly organically, there’s not really too much of that annoying trend of everyone trying to contradict everyone else for every little thing.

34) Not Everyone is Trying to Manipulate Your Thinking to Sell You Shit

In a Western country, everything you do your mind is bombarded with visuals and audios trying to manipulate your thinking and sell you something. YouTube ads, Facebook ads, radio ads, popup ads, TV ads, websites, certain Facebook groups, employees of almost any establishment you walk into, telemarketers, sports, ads in bars, ads at entertainments events, streets, malls, etc, they all come at you with a fake smile and artificial emotions; it’s no wonder genuine interactions between human beings are so rare in a Western country.

Once or twice I’ve heard a Westerner bash Vietnam about how Vietnam uses “propaganda” related to covid or other things. Vietnamese “propaganda” (posters, billboards, TV programs and announcements over speakers in public areas) generally has the objective of encouraging people to cooperate and work together towards a common goal, such as the betterment of society, prosperity for all people in the country or mitigating deaths from covid.

The definition of propaganda is “communication that is primarily used to influence an audience and further an agenda”. To me, that sounds exactly like what modern-day Western advertising and marketing are.

Replace the word “propaganda” with “marketing” or “advertising”; it’s no different. Except that you could add “for the purpose of taking people’s money” to the end of each definition.

In that case, people living in a Western country are exposed to propaganda at least 50% of the time that they are awake.

However, unlike the “propaganda” in Vietnam telling people to work together towards a common good, Western propaganda is essentially just trying to get you to endlessly consume shit, trying to convince you that you will be a happier, better or more “successful” human being somehow if you give them your money. There’s no endpoint to this.