13 interesting Western – Vietnamese cultural differences
Published on: July 01, 2022
Last updated: December 26, 2023 Read in fullscreen view
Last updated: December 26, 2023 Read in fullscreen view
Recommended for you
- 01 Nov 2023
Difference between Vendor and Subcontractor 701 - 06 Mar 2021 4 things you need to do before getting an accurate quote for your software development 452
- 01 Sep 2022 Facts Chart: Why Do Software Projects Fail? 416
- 16 Apr 2021 Insightful Business Technology Consulting at TIGO 331
- 07 Jul 2021 The 5 Levels of IT Help Desk Support 306
- 10 Apr 2021 RFP vs POC: Why the proof of concept is replacing the request for proposal 202
- 01 May 2023 CTO Interview Questions 196
- 03 Nov 2022 Top questions and answers you must know before ask for software outsourcing 195
- 07 Aug 2022 Things to Consider When Choosing a Technology Partner 184
- 30 Dec 2022 Top 6 Reasons to Partner with TIGOSOFT 172
- 09 Feb 2023 The Challenge of Fixed-Bid Software Projects 151
- 20 Nov 2022 Software Requirements Are A Communication Problem 150
- 07 Oct 2022 Digital Transformation: Become a Technology Powerhouse 149
- 09 Mar 2022 Consultant Implementation Pricing 141
- 08 Nov 2022 4 tips for meeting tough deadlines when outsourcing projects to software vendor 134
- 01 Mar 2023 How do you deal with disputes and conflicts that may arise during a software consulting project? 130
- 09 Jan 2022 How to Bridge the Gap Between Business and IT? 115
- 16 Feb 2021 Choose Outsourcing for Your Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) 109
- 06 Feb 2024 What are benefits and drawbacks of co-creating solutions with your clients? 108
- 11 Jan 2024 Entering the Japanese Market: Stacking the Deck and Setting Expectations 90
- 10 Jul 2025 Building AI-Driven Knowledge Graphs from Unstructured Data 48
- 17 Mar 2025 IT Consultants in Digital Transformation 39
Understanding basic differences between Western culture and Vietnamese culture is very important. It helps us to avoid cultural shocks.
A few days ago, I read the article “East meets West” of young artist Yang Liu, a Chinese who has been living in Germany for over 10 years ago. The article explores major differences between Eastern and Western culture, especially beneficial for Western tourists on their first visit to Vietnam. Today, I’d like to develop on that topic, exploring Western – Vietnamese cultural differences.
- Expression of personal opinion. Vietnamese usually don’t get straight to the point, especially sensitive matters such as borrowing or asking for a favor. We embrace subtleness while Westerners appreciate frankness.
- Matter of punctuality. Culturally, most Vietnamese people are generally not on time, from a few minutes to an hour late depending on the event they attend. Even though this attitude towards punctuality has changed dramatically recently thanks to commercial working etiquette.
- Social and family hierarchy is an important issue in Vietnam’s society, where the younger is supposed to pay respect to the older. That is done in many ways including how each person is addressed. An elderly person can not be a “friend” to a younger person even though it’s literally friendship in Western view.
- Expression of emotions: people avoid expressing inner negative emotions: anger, sadness, discontent, etc.
- Queue culture. Look at the illustration and you will know. Even though this has changed dramatically like so many other things, queue is still not in the dictionary of some people.
- Sunlight. Clearly, we have waited too long for it. There’s nothing called getting tan or sun bathing here, please.
- Children in a family. In Vietnam, children are the most important members and the center of a family. All of the others (parents, grandparents, uncles, aunt) pay special attention to them.
- Meal time. There are 3 main meals in a day and we emphasize the importance of all.
- Travelling. We want to save all the beautiful moments in photo
- Bathing. Westerners like showering in the morning before working, while we prefer showering in the evening before sleeping.
- Cuisine. Chopstick and Spoon vs Knife and Fork.
- Beauty standards call for bright skin. As bright as possible.
- West and East in each other’s eyes. We are impressed with Westerners' berets, sausage and beer while many Westerners are impressed with our conical hats, rice and tea.
[{"displaySettingInfo":"[{\"isFullLayout\":false,\"layoutWidthRatio\":\"\",\"showBlogMetadata\":true,\"includeSuggestedAndRelatedBlogs\":true,\"enableLazyLoad\":true,\"quoteStyle\":\"1\",\"bigHeadingFontStyle\":\"1\",\"postPictureFrameStyle\":\"1\",\"isFaqLayout\":false,\"isIncludedCaption\":false,\"faqLayoutTheme\":\"1\",\"isSliderLayout\":false}]"},{"articleSourceInfo":"[{\"sourceName\":\"\",\"sourceValue\":\"\"}]"},{"privacyInfo":"[{\"isOutsideVietnam\":false}]"},{"tocInfo":"[{\"isEnabledTOC\":true,\"isAutoNumbering\":false,\"isShowKeyHeadingWithIcon\":false}]"}]
Via
{content}
Explore more on these topics
Guest Blogging: The Definitive Guide
Top Trending Topics
Share This
Recently Updated News
