Speaking Vietnamese.

Shuttle-cock kicking. (or whatever you call it in English)

Riding a motorbike in this crazy traffic.

But there are still five things in Vietnam that I can't understand, even though I've tried really hard.

I'd like to tell you about them.

You might feel this topic is a bit negative,

but I swear that someday I'll make a video about the things in Vietnam I wish my country would adopt.

I speak English in this video. You can click the settings button to choose English or Vietnamese subtitles,

or turn subtitles off altogether.

Let's start!

"Inviting the family to eat"

It's very confusing for a foreigner to witness the beginning of a Vietnamese meal.

(Inviting individual family members to eat. Pretty much untranslatable. One of them would be something like, "Nephew invites mother's younger brother and his wife to eat." So fuck it, I'm not going to bother.)

Now, in the two and a half years I've been here,

I've learned that this custom is just a way for younger people to show respect to their elders.

And I also understand that customs are just customs.

Sometimes we don't understand where they come from, or why they take the form they do,

but we just follow them.

But the thing that still makes this custom difficult for me to understand is the use of the word "mời"—invite.

In the West, we usually invite someone to do something when we've done something for them. For example:

"I made some lemonade. I'd like to invite you to drink some."

I bought tickets to go see Justin Bieber. I'd like to invite you to come with me.

Right?

I remember being very confused the first time someone explained the custom of inviting older people to eat.

So, the kid invites his mom to eat?

Yeah.

But his mom did everything.

She worked to earn the money, she bought the food, she cooked the food, and she put the food on the table.

The kid just played videogames all day.

Well yeah, exactly, that's why he has to invite his mom to eat.

From a Westerner's perspective, it seems like it should be the other way around—

the older people invite the younger people to eat,

and the younger people wait to be invited before putting food in their mouths.

Here's how I imagine things would play out if I invited my mom to eat.

And let's just imagine that my family speaks Vietnamese, ok?

I'd like to invite you to eat, Mom.

What?

I'd like to invite you to eat, Mom.

You're inviting *me* to eat?

Yes, ma'am.

What did you do to get the right to invite me?

You ought to be asking my permission to eat.

Yes, ma'am. May I have your permission to eat?

Yeah, go ahead and eat.

"Worrying about safety in the wrong places, at the wrong times"

This is something I observe constantly in Vietnam.

There seem to be a lot of people here who are worried about safety in all kinds of situations.

Don't eat that orange! It's from China!

You trying to go see Grandma and Grandpa in heaven?

And sometimes they're concerned about safety in very dubious situations.

Don't drink that ice water!

You'll get a cough, man!

But then, you ask them something like,

Hey, if it weren't mandatory, would you wear a helmet?

and you get an answer like,

No!

What the hell for?

Let's go!

"Chewing freely, toothpicking discreetly"

This doesn't apply to everyone in Vietnam, or even most people,

but you do see a lot of people here eating sort of like this:

Where I come from, it's considered quite rude to eat like that.

We consider it polite to eat like this:

But I can accept this difference in cultures.

Every culture has different expectations for polite behavior at the table.

In some cultures, it's considered rude to talk very much during a meal.

In other cultures, it's considered impolite to eat everything on your plate.

So when I see Vietnamese people chewing with their mouths open, I don't like it, but I try not to judge it.

But the thing that I can't understand is you often see those same people, who eat like this,

And then when they finish, they use a toothpick like this:

What?

They're embarrassed about people seeing them pick a few bits of food out of their teeth,

when just before they showed everyone their mouth full of food?

The open-mouth chewing is surely the more offensive thing.

Kind of seems to me like pissing in the kitchen sink,

and then excusing yourself to the bathroom to fart.

"Western-style photo albums"

I remember the first time I looked at a wedding album here.

I was at my neighbor's house, and she had an album from her son's wedding.

I opened it up, and everything was in English.

Every single word.

I knew that she and her family didn't speak English, so I asked her, in Vietnamese,

"Do you guys understand this?"

And she was like,

"Well, no, of course not."

I've seen some more albums since then, and they, too, were in English.

It seems that all wedding albums here are.

So why are Vietnamese families that speak no English

having wedding albums made in English instead of Vietnamese?

Is English considered cooler?

Is it supposed to be more romantic?

Do people think it's some kind of status symbol, like,

"Oh, Vietnamese simply won't do for our wedding. It must be English."

Wouldn't it be more meaningful to have an album in a language that the family can actually understand?

Well, let me tell you, it would definitely be more meaningful,

because a lot of the English in those albums is meaningless.

Grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes, wrong words, things that make no sense in the context of a wedding album . . .

I saw one album where, next to a lovely picture of the bride and groom,

was not a poem, not lyrics from a song,

but instead some Korean photographer's biography,

which, I'm guessing, the guys who made the album had just copied from a website.

Before becoming a wedding photographer,

Jin-Young Lee was well-known for his work in the Busan porn industry.

"Fashion crimes"

Ok, I've got one more for you.

I can't understand what's going on with all the guys you see around Hanoi

who wear gray or black dress pants and white socks.

Where I come from, it's basically understood that when you wear nice pants,

you match the color of your socks with the color of your pants.

Blue pants, blue socks.

Gray pants, gray socks.

So what's up with these guys?

I don't know, because I'm a little bit embarrassed to ask,

"Hey, uh, why do you wear such stupid-looking socks?"

Maybe it's just that wearing white socks with dark pants is the fashion in Vietnam.

Maybe that's considered really cool and stylish and edgy, in which case . . .

Well, fashion is fashion. You can't really explain it.

Or maybe, wearing darks socks with dark pants is the fashion in Vietnam, just like in my country,

but those guys who wear white socks don't know it,

and they don't realize how bad white socks look, in which case . . .

Come on, guys, just look at them.

Or maybe, just maybe, these guys know that the common fashion is to wear dark socks with dark pants,

but they don't care. They're independent. They want to do their own thing.

In which case . . .

Good for them.

I guess.

I don't know what the answer is, but I'll just say that if you dress like that where I come from,

the fashion police will get you in no time.

Ok, those were five things in Vietnam that I can't understand.

Can you explain them to me?

Comment away!