> Among 52 countries and territories having newly licensed investment projects in 06/2022, Denmark was the largest investor with 1.32 billion USD, accounting for 26.7% of total newly registered capital; Singapore 1.16 billion USD, accounting for 23.4%; China 629.3 million USD, accounting for 12.7%; Japan 432.3 million USD, accounting for 8.7%; South Korea 330.9 million USD, accounting for 6.7%.
The Vietnamese are very intelligent. You never know what they think.
The Russian ones who help them, "come and give us their money. We are all Communists. Chinese give us guns. We are all brothers."... They hate the Chinese!
Maybe they hate the American less than the Russian and the Chinese?
I mean, if tomorrow the Vietnamese are Communists they will be Vietnamese Communists. And this is something you never understood, you American.
I mostly lived in south of Vietnam, but I never seen any hate to either Russia or US. After all people who stayed in Vietnam do think they won that war. And descendants of those who immigrated due to their anticommunist views are very much pro-american for obvious reasons.
> So seeing 8% y-o-y growth is unsurprising when your basis is an incredibly weak prior year.
Yeah, a bit, but if the opposite had happened ("Vietnam's economy shrunk 1% in 2022, its worst recession in 25 years") one could also say "this is unsurprising, the rot started in 2021 where it only grew by 2.59% after years of 7%+ growth".
Knowing only the GDP numbers, I'd be more likely to predict the latter scenario: after all, the first thing to do in time-series forecasting is to predict tomorrow's weather will be the same as today's. Knowing a bit more - that there was a global pandemic in 2021 and restrictions mostly lifted in 2022 - might make me more likely to predict higher values. Knowing a bit more - that interest rates in the West have been hiked, there have been high profile tech layoffs, and everyone is harping on about a potential global recession - would make me think again of predicting a contraction. And once you know everything, nothing could be considered "surprising"!
unsurprising, 2021 lockdowns and production moving to Vietnam from China were huge contributors to this. Also a lot of workers coming back from wealthier countries due to weaker local currency: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04kfB_MKlQs&t=209s
Anecdotally, I know a few people who are children of Vietnamese who fled the war that are moving back to Vietnam. Reasons include perception of better opportunities and weather.
Vietnam might look small on google maps, but it actually almost as big as Germany and weather in south is very different from north. I understand that a lot of people live in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh, but there are certainly places that are quite close to some island tropical heaven.
I spent plenty of time living around Phan Thiet, Na Trang and Da Nang next to the sea. While it generally humid in many places there is barely any rain outside of rain season.
My sister-in-law is from the south, her family is from the mid region, and my brother lived in Hanoi for a little while. All I have heard from any of them about the weather is how terrible it is.
I get that there are a few parts of Vietnam where it’s not oppressively hot and humid for a bit of the year, but “the weather” being a reason to move back year round seems suspect.
I’m not saying that there are zero people in the world who love the weather there, but if you compare the cities in Vietnam with the “best” weather they don’t come close to comparing with a city with good weather in the continental US—much less with a tropical paradise like Hawaii.
Compare the average humidity, temperature, average rainy days, percent of clear days etc… between Da Nang and Honolulu. It’s not even remotely close.
I guess we just have different perspective since I'm not from US. I mostly compare Vietnam to Russia (where I was born), UK (lived there for a while) and Turkey since I live there at moment.
Suppose I need to come to visit US and Hawaii to judge it, but honestly I loved living in Vietnam between October and May. And I'll choose it any time over London.
Simple fact that in Vietnam I can wear very much the same closes most of the year and don't need heating in winter is great.
Comparing any place to Hawaii is not really fair. The Hawaiian island chain is almost unique in how far north it is while still being a tropical island chain of decent size.
Nope I dont live there full time and honestly haven't been there since covid madness started as 3 month tourist visas got much harder.
And yeah from my own experience it become much more humid in May and there is some actual rain during the rain season, but nothing you can't bear if you live next to the sea. Some of my relatives lived in Mui Ne whole year since they stuck there during covid and it was pretty much okay.
But the rain here in Saigon goes in spurts. You have around 7 months of rainy season but it usually rains 1 hour per day or so after lunch time (13:00-14:00).
Occassionally evening, rarely morning. But it is extremely rare that it covers a long span of the day. Really rare even if it can rain like one month in a row every day. Once I counted from 1st september to 10th of october.
However, you skip the rain and continue at some other time. It does not bother. Maybe people tend to imagine you cannot do anything bc it rains a lot, but the rain is concentrated in short spans.
It’s not just rain though. It’s the heat and humidity, and cloud cover.
Also an hour of hard rain per day will prevent plenty of activities because everything is constantly wet.
Sure you can get used to it and clearly millions of people live with it, but I can’t imagine the climate in Saigon is a selling point.
I’ve talked to my sister-in-law about it before—she was born and raised in Saigon. She clearly was able to deal with it. She talks about doing things like driving a scooter in a downpour.
But she also complains about how awful the weather was compared to where she lives now. She lives in a hot, muggy, rainy city in the US (by US standards), so that’s really saying something.
> Sure you can get used to it and clearly millions of people live with it, but I can’t imagine the climate in Saigon is a selling point.
For me it is. The rain clears up the pollution, does not bother too much, and I can go to the swimming pool today or any day in the year.
> But she also complains about how awful the weather was compared to where she lives now
I do not think, this is my personal opinion, of course, that it is that bad as in the paper. Bc if you say it rains for 7 months people would run away. If you say, from those only 2-3 like every day, it rains in very concentrated spurts and does not clash with activities (if you work most of the day) and it cleans the air and you can still go to the swimming pool, for example, all year.
I do not think it is that bad after 11 years in Vietnam.
That’s not a selling point. The air quality in Vietnam has only gotten worse over the last decade. Saigon’s pm2.5 levels are significantly worse than the worst US city.
>I do not think it is that bad after 11 years in Vietnam.
It’s not that bad because you’re used to it is not a selling point.
Sure a place with bad are quality with daily rain is probably preferable to a place with bad air quality without daily rain.
But assuming you don’t live in one of the 20 or so large cities in the world with worse air quality than Saigon, that point is irrelevant to this discussion.
While I personally haven't seen a lot of vietnamese permanently move back there I met plenty of people who heavily invested in business of their relatives who still live in Vietnam. Starting any offline business is simply 20-50x times cheaper than in US so it make sense.
Though I doubt many people will return to live in Vietnamafter living in western countries. Of course many people come to visit, but even with living being so cheap quality of life is still too far from US or any of european countries.
There are plenty items on this list, but here is a few:
* No infrastructure unless you drive a bike. So children, older or disabled people mostly have to stay at home.
* Lack of recreational infrastructure in cities. There are some parks, but it not a place where you would want to go.
* Air quality in big cities is actually terrible.
* Smaller and more touristic places have better infrastructure and air, but have no entertainment whatsoever. Like having single shopping mall for city with 300,000 population.
* Free education is very lacking. There are paid options, but they are expensive even for rich vietnamese.
* Same true for medical services. Yeah you might find cheap dentist, but for some health problems you will need to look options outside of Vietnam.
* No pension system unless you been working for government.
Some of issues can of course be compensated by fact of how cheap human labour is, but unfortunately having personal maid and cook wont help you with entertainment for your family or quality of air.
While some of those are true, you're discounting the benefits of life in Vietnam far too quickly, especially if you are moving back from the US with savings and a social security check.
- People are kinder to each other, that's worth more than many modern comforts.
- feel free and comfortable and relatively safe to ride your moped in your 70's - everyone does.
- get a cheap private Grab (Uber) if you are really incapable.
- food chain supply is significantly better, resulting in fresher and with healthier options almost everywhere compare to most modern countrues.
- most modern medicine is available, and their are counties with superior medicine with a few hours flight. For many specialties, it's the same in the US - except you may only fly between states rather than counties. Same distance though.
Ultimately, quality of life is subjective. You may think you have luxeries like neverending fast food sitting on your ass watching netflix, while I think you have shackles to an un-natural lifestyle that is burdened with gluttony and misery.
In my experience living in Vietnam, the people are poorer and work harder, but still happier than the average person stateside. If you judge quality of life by a standard of happiness, I think many modern countries loose.
I'm not saying Vietnam is bad by any means for those of us who enjoy it here. I myself been there like 5 times for extended periods of time and I love country and people. But I work remotely, live by the sea looking at sunrises and sunsets. And don't have kids.
At the same time I have vietnamese friends who struggle to provide their children with education because private school with good English cost them $1000+ / month. And since they mostly have more than one child it's can be hard even if you own some family business and work two jobs.
Also I have foreigner friends who took a job offer for $60,000 and went to work to HCM or Hanoi and hate it here because air pollution and terrible and situation with transport and public infrastructure.
I studied in Vietnam for two semesters so I have some personal experience (plus some time being a tourist to visit friends).
1. Partially true. If you are not abled bodied then you are trapped at home because nothing is built to accommodate wheelchairs except housing/malls built by VinGroup. There are still cars everywhere and that’s how I commuted everyday. Every space on the streets are filled with cars and without adequate public transportation, the city will drown in traffic as the number of cars goes up (and Hanoi is planning on banning motorbikes by 2030).
2. There’s plenty of parks and things to do everyday. In comparison the US is very lacking of parks and recreational opportunities. I completely disagree with this point.
3. Absolutely true and only 5% of locals see it as a real problem.
4. Not really a problem as most people live in HCMC, Hanoi, and Da Nang where in the first two there’s a mall every 500 meters.
5. The public education system could be better but I know plenty of people who went to public schools and got a better education in the natural sciences than me, an American.
6. Unfortunately true. For complicated cases you need to relocate to Singapore or Thailand.
7. I’m not very informed about pensions, but most old people have their lifestyles funded by their children in this culture so it’s not too important.
> * No infrastructure unless you drive a bike. So children, older or disabled people mostly have to stay at home.
Every vietnamese has a bike or borrows it from a relative (yes, people here lend things and money as a normal thing, do not think it is like for westerners, for them it is the right, natural thing to do).
> * Lack of recreational infrastructure in cities. There are some parks, but it not a place where you would want to go.
I see regularly people walking in parks, playing badminton in parks, how come you do not want to go. There are even small places that sell drinks. Go to Vo Thi Sau/Hai Ba Trung park for example. There are quite a few parks
> * Air quality in big cities is actually terrible.
True. Hanoi even worse than Saigon.
> * Smaller and more touristic places have better infrastructure and air, but have no entertainment whatsoever. Like having single shopping mall for city with 300,000 population.
Vincom (District 1), Crescent Mall, GigaMall, at least in Saigon you have Zara, Uniqlo, Decathlon, Thegioididong... with that you should be reasonably covered, but there are also night markets (and day!). there are quite a few malls in Saigon. There are places to play games inside malls, climbing and others. People play badminton or this typical game in the street or in parks (go to the park next to Pham Ngu Lao in D1 and you will see it). There are a ton of restaurants in city and also more than enough places for drinks like Bam Bam, Qui Bar, and others.
> Some of issues can of course be compensated by fact of how cheap human labour is, but unfortunately having personal maid and cook wont help you with entertainment for your family or quality of air.
I do not think entertainment is that bad, the problem is the chaotic traffic and going from place to place. BTW there is a full network of buses in city, in Hanoi also. Not sure what is reachable but it covers a fair amount of space in city.
> > * No infrastructure unless you drive a bike. So children, older or disabled people mostly have to stay at home.
> Every vietnamese has a bike or borrows it from a relative (yes, people here lend things and money as a normal thing, do not think it is like for westerners, for them it is the right, natural thing to do).
The issue isn't not having a bike. It's being unable to ride one.
For some large corporations and their enterprises this might be the case, but at least their supply chain isn't going to be under direct control of CCP. E.g majority small and mid-sized companies supposed to have vietnamese citizens in management as otherwise you just can't do business in Vietnam.
Vietnamese government in general is not very fond of China taking control over their economy and there are numerous protections against foreign entities inluding discriminatory ones specifically against chinese citizens like a effective bans on selling them any land.
Disclaimer: I'm not from Vietnam, but I lived there for extended periods of time.
You sound like a Vietnamese living abroad with hatred and resentment - while some of what you said is true to a certain extent, this kind of attitude won't contribute anything to the discussion itself, especially the last sentence. What's the point?
Err, with all due respect, the alert seems a bit stupid in the current form: as a tourist you would have to eat fresh food, healthy wise. Also it is most likely you want to learn about the kitchen - eating could be of benefit so.
True, getting invited is an option then, but this is likely not possible for all tourists, so they would have to buy something to eat.
Had similar feelings 10~15 years ago when in China.
Especially, I have full sympathy for the food safety. In 2008, there was a scandal astonishing in developed countries' standard, that nutrition deficit baby formulas have been sold for years, impacting more than 300k babies and 54k are hospitalized.
Well, things will get better with a stronger economy. The richer part of China is already at least halfway past that. Don't lose hope.
That's why it's called a developing market. Many people expect that they can buy an index fund of any country similar to how you buy it in the US or some other developed market and get a return in line with the country's GDP growth. Often it's not the case.
If Vietnam's GDP last year was $1 billion, and this year it's $1.082b, that's an 8.2% growth.
Lets assume that GDP is entirely from selling widgets.
Last year they sold 108 billion widgets and received $1b dollars, 108 widgets for a dollar. They spend that $1b on 1 million units of oil.
This year they produce the same 108 billion widgets, but this time they will only say 100 widgets for a dollar, so they get 108b - 8% growth.
They then spend that $108b on 1 million units of oil (as oil is more expensive)
Has the economic output really grown 8%?
Or is it that they are still making 108 billion identical widgets as last year, so no change in output, just charging more, but the dollars they get will buy less oil?
That's great, it certainly isn't clear from the two paragraph article
"HANOI (Reuters) -- Vietnam's gross domestic product grew 8.02% in 2022, the fastest pace annually since 1997, backed by strong domestic retail sales and exports.
The reading is higher than an official growth target of 6.0%-6.5% and growth last year of just 2.58%, when COVID lockdowns left a dent on the economy and impacted factory activity."
Your math is wrong. That said, economists differentiate between nominal and real growth. GDP reports growth that has already been adjusted for inflation. It represents an actual increase in more goods and services produced.
There are multiple measures of GDP. This must be Real GDP growth. Real GDP will either use the prices in a base year or a GDP Deflator to account for the changes in price.
Yeah the economic growth is nice, but. Have you seen the air? Have you seen the water? It's getting all literally toxic.
And, of course, all the energy is almost 100% fossils (coal). Which is funny... South Vietnam is sunny basically most of the year (when it's not raining), yet there are no solar panels.
There are some wind turbines in the highlands though, even when half of them is never working. I'll give Vietnam that.
Good luck there cannot be no ecological protests, because the government will shut down everything and put everyone to prison for life, like with the Formosa Steel protests some years ago.
67 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 154 ms ] thread> Regarding the export market in 2020,
> the United States ranked the first with 77.1 billion USD, a spread of 25.7% over the previous year, accounting for 27.3% of total export turnover;
> China reached 48.9 billion USD, a rise of 18%, contributing 17.3%;
> EU gained 35.1 billion USD, representing 12.4% (since 2020 data of export turnover with EU excluded the United Kingdom);
> ASEAN attained 23.1 billion USD, a downturn of 8.4%, sharing 8.2%;
> Japan reached 19.3 billion USD, a reduction of 5.2%, making up 6.8%;
> South Korea gained 19.1 billion USD, a fall of 3.2%, accounting for 6.8%
Page 613 - https://www.gso.gov.vn/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Sach-NGTK-...
from General Statistics Office, Vietnam:
https://www.gso.gov.vn/en/category/national-accounts/
Further:
> Among 52 countries and territories having newly licensed investment projects in 06/2022, Denmark was the largest investor with 1.32 billion USD, accounting for 26.7% of total newly registered capital; Singapore 1.16 billion USD, accounting for 23.4%; China 629.3 million USD, accounting for 12.7%; Japan 432.3 million USD, accounting for 8.7%; South Korea 330.9 million USD, accounting for 6.7%.
From: https://www.gso.gov.vn/en/data-and-statistics/2022/07/socio-...
( It's not the worst national website for statistics I've trawled, but it takes a bit of picking through .. )
The Russian ones who help them, "come and give us their money. We are all Communists. Chinese give us guns. We are all brothers."... They hate the Chinese!
Maybe they hate the American less than the Russian and the Chinese?
I mean, if tomorrow the Vietnamese are Communists they will be Vietnamese Communists. And this is something you never understood, you American.
There is a lot of hate to China though.
Vietnam’s largest city locked down for 2 months from Sept to Oct 2021. People weren’t allowed to leave their homes.
The economy shrank by 7% in Q3’21 and the economy as a whole only grew by 2.59% in 2021 when it was 7%+ the year before.
So seeing 8% y-o-y growth is unsurprising when your basis is an incredibly weak prior year.
Almost half of that growth is making up for what was lost in 2021.
Yeah, a bit, but if the opposite had happened ("Vietnam's economy shrunk 1% in 2022, its worst recession in 25 years") one could also say "this is unsurprising, the rot started in 2021 where it only grew by 2.59% after years of 7%+ growth".
Knowing only the GDP numbers, I'd be more likely to predict the latter scenario: after all, the first thing to do in time-series forecasting is to predict tomorrow's weather will be the same as today's. Knowing a bit more - that there was a global pandemic in 2021 and restrictions mostly lifted in 2022 - might make me more likely to predict higher values. Knowing a bit more - that interest rates in the West have been hiked, there have been high profile tech layoffs, and everyone is harping on about a potential global recession - would make me think again of predicting a contraction. And once you know everything, nothing could be considered "surprising"!
Sure, but that still doesn’t make Vietnam’s 8% growth surprising either. We can agree it’s a high variance and unprecedented environment.
[1] https://www.oecd.org/economy/colombia-economic-snapshot/
Vietnam is hot, very humid, and for a large part of the year, extremely rainy. I guess many people would prefer that to living near the arctic circle.
I’ve never heard a Vietnamese person longing for the weather.
I spent plenty of time living around Phan Thiet, Na Trang and Da Nang next to the sea. While it generally humid in many places there is barely any rain outside of rain season.
I get that there are a few parts of Vietnam where it’s not oppressively hot and humid for a bit of the year, but “the weather” being a reason to move back year round seems suspect.
I’m not saying that there are zero people in the world who love the weather there, but if you compare the cities in Vietnam with the “best” weather they don’t come close to comparing with a city with good weather in the continental US—much less with a tropical paradise like Hawaii.
Compare the average humidity, temperature, average rainy days, percent of clear days etc… between Da Nang and Honolulu. It’s not even remotely close.
Suppose I need to come to visit US and Hawaii to judge it, but honestly I loved living in Vietnam between October and May. And I'll choose it any time over London.
Simple fact that in Vietnam I can wear very much the same closes most of the year and don't need heating in winter is great.
Compare any objective weather metric between Da Nang and San Diego then. Unless you just like the rain, it’s not even close.
And yeah from my own experience it become much more humid in May and there is some actual rain during the rain season, but nothing you can't bear if you live next to the sea. Some of my relatives lived in Mui Ne whole year since they stuck there during covid and it was pretty much okay.
Occassionally evening, rarely morning. But it is extremely rare that it covers a long span of the day. Really rare even if it can rain like one month in a row every day. Once I counted from 1st september to 10th of october.
However, you skip the rain and continue at some other time. It does not bother. Maybe people tend to imagine you cannot do anything bc it rains a lot, but the rain is concentrated in short spans.
Sure you can get used to it and clearly millions of people live with it, but I can’t imagine the climate in Saigon is a selling point.
I’ve talked to my sister-in-law about it before—she was born and raised in Saigon. She clearly was able to deal with it. She talks about doing things like driving a scooter in a downpour.
But she also complains about how awful the weather was compared to where she lives now. She lives in a hot, muggy, rainy city in the US (by US standards), so that’s really saying something.
For me it is. The rain clears up the pollution, does not bother too much, and I can go to the swimming pool today or any day in the year.
> But she also complains about how awful the weather was compared to where she lives now
I do not think, this is my personal opinion, of course, that it is that bad as in the paper. Bc if you say it rains for 7 months people would run away. If you say, from those only 2-3 like every day, it rains in very concentrated spurts and does not clash with activities (if you work most of the day) and it cleans the air and you can still go to the swimming pool, for example, all year.
I do not think it is that bad after 11 years in Vietnam.
That’s not a selling point. The air quality in Vietnam has only gotten worse over the last decade. Saigon’s pm2.5 levels are significantly worse than the worst US city.
>I do not think it is that bad after 11 years in Vietnam.
It’s not that bad because you’re used to it is not a selling point.
But assuming you don’t live in one of the 20 or so large cities in the world with worse air quality than Saigon, that point is irrelevant to this discussion.
I've met a ton of non-Vietnamese diaspora British expats who left because they hate the weather in the UK.
Though I doubt many people will return to live in Vietnamafter living in western countries. Of course many people come to visit, but even with living being so cheap quality of life is still too far from US or any of european countries.
* No infrastructure unless you drive a bike. So children, older or disabled people mostly have to stay at home.
* Lack of recreational infrastructure in cities. There are some parks, but it not a place where you would want to go.
* Air quality in big cities is actually terrible.
* Smaller and more touristic places have better infrastructure and air, but have no entertainment whatsoever. Like having single shopping mall for city with 300,000 population.
* Free education is very lacking. There are paid options, but they are expensive even for rich vietnamese.
* Same true for medical services. Yeah you might find cheap dentist, but for some health problems you will need to look options outside of Vietnam.
* No pension system unless you been working for government.
Some of issues can of course be compensated by fact of how cheap human labour is, but unfortunately having personal maid and cook wont help you with entertainment for your family or quality of air.
- People are kinder to each other, that's worth more than many modern comforts.
- feel free and comfortable and relatively safe to ride your moped in your 70's - everyone does.
- get a cheap private Grab (Uber) if you are really incapable.
- food chain supply is significantly better, resulting in fresher and with healthier options almost everywhere compare to most modern countrues.
- most modern medicine is available, and their are counties with superior medicine with a few hours flight. For many specialties, it's the same in the US - except you may only fly between states rather than counties. Same distance though.
Ultimately, quality of life is subjective. You may think you have luxeries like neverending fast food sitting on your ass watching netflix, while I think you have shackles to an un-natural lifestyle that is burdened with gluttony and misery.
In my experience living in Vietnam, the people are poorer and work harder, but still happier than the average person stateside. If you judge quality of life by a standard of happiness, I think many modern countries loose.
At the same time I have vietnamese friends who struggle to provide their children with education because private school with good English cost them $1000+ / month. And since they mostly have more than one child it's can be hard even if you own some family business and work two jobs.
Also I have foreigner friends who took a job offer for $60,000 and went to work to HCM or Hanoi and hate it here because air pollution and terrible and situation with transport and public infrastructure.
Are there any beach towns there that are developed well enough, are walkable and safe for children to play on their own?
1. Partially true. If you are not abled bodied then you are trapped at home because nothing is built to accommodate wheelchairs except housing/malls built by VinGroup. There are still cars everywhere and that’s how I commuted everyday. Every space on the streets are filled with cars and without adequate public transportation, the city will drown in traffic as the number of cars goes up (and Hanoi is planning on banning motorbikes by 2030).
2. There’s plenty of parks and things to do everyday. In comparison the US is very lacking of parks and recreational opportunities. I completely disagree with this point.
3. Absolutely true and only 5% of locals see it as a real problem.
4. Not really a problem as most people live in HCMC, Hanoi, and Da Nang where in the first two there’s a mall every 500 meters.
5. The public education system could be better but I know plenty of people who went to public schools and got a better education in the natural sciences than me, an American.
6. Unfortunately true. For complicated cases you need to relocate to Singapore or Thailand.
7. I’m not very informed about pensions, but most old people have their lifestyles funded by their children in this culture so it’s not too important.
Every vietnamese has a bike or borrows it from a relative (yes, people here lend things and money as a normal thing, do not think it is like for westerners, for them it is the right, natural thing to do).
> * Lack of recreational infrastructure in cities. There are some parks, but it not a place where you would want to go.
I see regularly people walking in parks, playing badminton in parks, how come you do not want to go. There are even small places that sell drinks. Go to Vo Thi Sau/Hai Ba Trung park for example. There are quite a few parks
> * Air quality in big cities is actually terrible.
True. Hanoi even worse than Saigon.
> * Smaller and more touristic places have better infrastructure and air, but have no entertainment whatsoever. Like having single shopping mall for city with 300,000 population.
Vincom (District 1), Crescent Mall, GigaMall, at least in Saigon you have Zara, Uniqlo, Decathlon, Thegioididong... with that you should be reasonably covered, but there are also night markets (and day!). there are quite a few malls in Saigon. There are places to play games inside malls, climbing and others. People play badminton or this typical game in the street or in parks (go to the park next to Pham Ngu Lao in D1 and you will see it). There are a ton of restaurants in city and also more than enough places for drinks like Bam Bam, Qui Bar, and others.
> Some of issues can of course be compensated by fact of how cheap human labour is, but unfortunately having personal maid and cook wont help you with entertainment for your family or quality of air.
I do not think entertainment is that bad, the problem is the chaotic traffic and going from place to place. BTW there is a full network of buses in city, in Hanoi also. Not sure what is reachable but it covers a fair amount of space in city.
> Every vietnamese has a bike or borrows it from a relative (yes, people here lend things and money as a normal thing, do not think it is like for westerners, for them it is the right, natural thing to do).
The issue isn't not having a bike. It's being unable to ride one.
- Depending on the location, weather can be very hot and humid
- Traffic congestion, noise and air pollution in big cities
- Low food safety, drug safety due to lax regulations
- High corruption
Apart from the weather, none of these are unique to Vietnam btw, just general traits of a populous fast developing country.
[0] https://www.straitstimes.com/business/property-crisis-pressu...
Vietnamese government in general is not very fond of China taking control over their economy and there are numerous protections against foreign entities inluding discriminatory ones specifically against chinese citizens like a effective bans on selling them any land.
Disclaimer: I'm not from Vietnam, but I lived there for extended periods of time.
Where's the rich come from ? From corruption. Some of them is in prison now, but it's not enough. 90% of richness comes from corruption.
Who's the rich ? Police and policician.
As a result, no more land for the poor. No jobs for the poor (labor work is hard work with very low pay).
Alert: If you're a tourist, please don't buy anything to eat here, as most food is poisonate already (for greed reason).
It's fine for you to experience though.
I'm not living abroad, it's reality.
True, getting invited is an option then, but this is likely not possible for all tourists, so they would have to buy something to eat.
Especially, I have full sympathy for the food safety. In 2008, there was a scandal astonishing in developed countries' standard, that nutrition deficit baby formulas have been sold for years, impacting more than 300k babies and 54k are hospitalized.
Well, things will get better with a stronger economy. The richer part of China is already at least halfway past that. Don't lose hope.
Look into closed-end funds if you want to better approximate what a real index of Vietnamese businesses would look like.
Lets assume that GDP is entirely from selling widgets.
Last year they sold 108 billion widgets and received $1b dollars, 108 widgets for a dollar. They spend that $1b on 1 million units of oil.
This year they produce the same 108 billion widgets, but this time they will only say 100 widgets for a dollar, so they get 108b - 8% growth.
They then spend that $108b on 1 million units of oil (as oil is more expensive)
Has the economic output really grown 8%?
Or is it that they are still making 108 billion identical widgets as last year, so no change in output, just charging more, but the dollars they get will buy less oil?
Or are GDP figures adjusted for inflation?
"HANOI (Reuters) -- Vietnam's gross domestic product grew 8.02% in 2022, the fastest pace annually since 1997, backed by strong domestic retail sales and exports.
The reading is higher than an official growth target of 6.0%-6.5% and growth last year of just 2.58%, when COVID lockdowns left a dent on the economy and impacted factory activity."
Well I guess people writing these articles assume this is common knowledge.
And, of course, all the energy is almost 100% fossils (coal). Which is funny... South Vietnam is sunny basically most of the year (when it's not raining), yet there are no solar panels.
There are some wind turbines in the highlands though, even when half of them is never working. I'll give Vietnam that.
Good luck there cannot be no ecological protests, because the government will shut down everything and put everyone to prison for life, like with the Formosa Steel protests some years ago.