Casey Space

We were told that after about 4 months of living here, you get the Hanoi Hate. This is when the novelty of moving abroad wears off and all the annoying things about your new home start to get to you and you are going to be living here for a while.

Fortunately for us, we were in Indonesia for 3 weeks when the 4 month mark hit. Heh. All jokes aside, we are still happily living in Hanoi. I made a list of my favorites about living here and not-so-favorites.

Favorites

People

The Vietnamese as a people are so helpful, friendly, and warm. They are so cheerful and will reach out to help anyone who needs it.

Their dedication, perseverance, and grit is remarkable. My uneducated opinion is that their dedication to the task at hand is what defeated the Americans in the war. They absolutely do not give up. Ever.

I want to do a feature on all the people who have helped us adjust to our new life, but here’s a brief list:

Huyen – Cleans our apartment twice a week. She helps me with my Vietnamese by having every day conversations and being patient with me as I try to formulate my slow sentences. She is always ok with repeating slowly what she said when I ask.

Trang (Chang) – Cooks us vegan meals with just one day notice on days I am working and hitting a yoga class afterwards. She also offered and drove us to the airport at the beginning of the Tet holiday when taxis and Grab where hard to come by.

Khanh – My fabulous hair dresser. I love the cut he has given me. He has two helpers. It is interesting to sit in a chair with three people working on me at the same time, especially when I have such short hair.

Ha and Nhung (Ha and Noom) – Vietnamese language teachers from Easy Peasy Vietnamesy. They are always very patient and positive. They answer any question we have about the language or culture in Vietnam.

Mr T. – Security guard in the building next door who holds onto our delivered packages and switches out our water cooler water when we need it.

Linh – Building manager for our apartment. Any problem we have, she gets someone on it within the hour it seems.

Mr. Vinn – Was our van driver to work until recently. The van folk parted ways. Mr. Vinn was happy to teach us a little Vietnamese every few days, a favorite “Oi Gioi Oi” (Oi Zoi Oi) “Oh my God.” He loved complaining to Josh about the idiots on the road.

Food and Drink

• Coffee
  • Vietnamese Coffee (Ca Phe Sua) with espresso sludge and two fingers of condensed milk
  • Coconut Coffee (Ca Phe Cot Dua – pronounced Zua) is like a frappee with coconut cream and candied dried coconut shards on top
  • Salt Coffee is like a Snickers bar coffee drink
  • Egg Coffee is the Vietnamese answer to the French’s request for a Cappuccino. Back then, they didn’t have any fresh milk, but had tons of eggs so they make a meringue with the egg whites and it is better than a Cappuccino if you ask me.
• Mango Everything
  • Dried Mango
  • Mango Smoothies
  • Mango with Tofu on Coconut Rice
  • Sticky rice with Mango
• Avocadoes are huge and cheap

Services

• Grab – Like Uber, but more. Grab will grab anything you need grabbed.
  • Rides of any distance
  • Food
  • Coffee
  • Stuff you bought on Facebook Marketplace
  • Stuff you left somewhere accidentally or on purpose
  • Stuff you want to buy from a shop but want it delivered. Example, I was chatting with my hair dresser about hair product on Instagram. Within the hour, he had the products at my apartment by Grab.
• Appointments – I can get an appointment for anything within the day or at most, the week. Many of these make house calls.
  • Salon – Beauty
  • Dentist
  • Medical – Doctor
  • Mechanic

Least Favorite – Cons

Animals – Especially Cats and Dogs

WARNING: This is a sad bit for dog and cat lovers. I wanted to talk about this because it is a tough part of being in Vietnam, and just wanted to share about the difficulty as an animal lover, especially dogs and cats.

Vietnam is a rough place for cats and dogs. I thought the comments about the Vietnamese eating these animals was a racist trope perpetuated by the U.S. to vilify Asians, but nope, it’s true. I’m not saying all Vietnamese people eat cats and dogs, but it seems to be widely accepted here, and they view these animals differently than typical Westerners.

Dog Life is Stressful

People do have dogs as pets here. Many businesses are dog-friendly, but this may be because there is a rigorous dog-theft problem, so you need to have your dog with you at all times. People steal dogs to sell them for meat, but also to collect ransom to sell the dog back to the owner.

As I wrote before, there are no walkable sidewalks here, so taking your dog out of the apartment for a lovely walk is stressful because often you have to walk in the busy street. The stray dog life is of course more stressful as they have to constantly dodge traffic to find enough food to survive. It is very difficult for me to see cute little fluffy puppies playing in trash piles and learning how to time street crossings.

The cultural belief is that eating dog is lucky and can increase virility in men. It is expensive meat, so one will never eat it by accident. Restaurants advertise by putting a dog on a rotisserie near the street. I have yet to actually see one because when I see an animal on a rotisserie, I avert my eyes, but others around me freak out a little bit because they looked and sure enough, it looked like Santa’s Little Helper.

Two crazy stories I’ve heard so far:

1. Someone told me about a Vietnamese man who had a pet dog for 10 years and when it died, he promptly ate it.

2. Josh and I met a young couple here for two weeks on vacation from the U.S. As we chatted, they shyly grinned and asked if we had eaten dog yet.
We said no, and they giddily replied that they had tried it and the Vietnamese men were very proud of them. I admit I was shocked that Americans would seek it out in such a short period of time, but tried to act cool. “Are you guys just not dog people?” I asked. The guy responded that he was raised on a farm and viewed dogs differently, and the gal responded that she was attacked by a dog as a child and generally didn’t care for them.

Nice Doggos I’ve Pet

Cats Have It Worse

I had seen maybe 15 cats total in 4 months here. There are zero alley cats, because they get sold for meat. It is a shame because I think more cats could really help with the huge rat population.

The pet cats I’ve seen are mostly tied up with leashes at a business, but every once in a while, I see a free roaming cat.

The Noise

The tenor and pitch of the motorbike engines and beep beep of their little horns grates on ya. In open restaurants and cafes, the sound comes in and bounces around the hard surfaces so it is a bit painful to have a conversation. Additionally, there is construction going on everywhere, all the time. There is a constant din of jackhammers, saws, and clanking of metal against metal. Lastly, karaoke is blasted from private residences on some nights. We are fortunate that none of our neighbors are into it, as I’ve heard of other people having to listen to their neighbors get drunk and sing every weekend.

The Pollution

February is burn season and it sucked. Our neighbors throw their trash onto the brush by the pond, and then burn it. We are talking about Styrofoam, mylar balloons, plastic drinking bottles, everything.

The air quality in Hanoi is almost always bad. Usually 3 times worse than Los Angeles on any given day.

It common to see people throw wrappers on the ground, beverage containers when they are finished drinking, and pretty much any thing they are finished using.

Trash collection happens in some places with a truck like in the US, but often, homes put their trash bag out on a street corner where it gets spread everywhere by dogs. Then, older women on bicycles come by and take anything recyclable. I still haven’t figured out how the rest of it gets picked up eventually. But, it seems there is always residual trash left behind.

Satisfaction

Josh and I are still both very satisfied with our decision to expatriate to Hanoi, Vietnam. These are just a few things about our new home that I love and don’t love. Come see it for yourself, and come visit us!