Life in Vietnam in 2004

Of you all, some have returned for your vacations in Vietnam, some have not. I have, twice. Thus, I would like to share to you what information I have gathered. (please, see the note I inserted below on how I gathered information).

Let's talk about Vietnamese salaries, and cost of living, and let's imagine and understand more the life of the people living in Vietnam.

1°) You can go to my website http://dir.vietnam.online.fr/ and, from the Lao Động Việc Làm [JOBS] section, click on the links to the Job Search websites. Read around all the small adds to get an idea of who gets what salary?

2°) Some case studies.

* I talked to Hạnh, a street vendor on the busy Trần Hưng Đạo Boulevard, in District 1, Sài Gòn - TP.HCM. This girl sells Xôi Vò + Xôi Rượu packs on the sidewalk. I asked her about how it's going? Her customers are the motorcyclists who stop at the traffic lights, and there was a lot of pollution where she sat, with her straw basket containing the Xôi in neat small take-away transparent nylon packs.

Hạnh lives in District 7, and uses the bus for transport. She wakes up early in the morning, and starts being on that sidewalk selling Xôi packs at 7h00 until 10h00. After that, she goes back home to buy some provisions at the market, cooks the day's meals for her family, has lunch, and takes some rest. She starts again selling Xôi packs as from 15h00 often until late 22h00, and, because it's late, her big brother comes on his motorcycle to fetch her back home.

Every day, on average, she sells an average of 40~50 packs of Xôi Vò + 40~50 packs of Xôi Rượu. At VND 2,500/pack, daily turnover is then VND 200,000 out of which she said she makes VND 80,000 profit. She works everyday, Saturdays and Sundays included (in today's Việt Nam everybody work all days from early 6h00 until late 23h00). So, VND 80,000 X 30, that gives her an average monthly income of VND 2,400,000...

There are a lot of young women who (buy and) sell these Xôi Vò + Xôi Rượu packs on sidewalks in and around Sài Gòn - TP.HCM. Their income might be less than Hạnh's, only because they sit at less busy streets. This is a good case of individual work activity, for, as I wrote in the thread about Personal income tax, a beginner undergraduate monthly salary starts at only VND 1,500,000 /month.

* Saleswomen in Chợ Bến Thành are paid from VND 600,000 to 1,500,000 depending they are only helpers or qualified. Same in all shops in the streets or in supermarkets in HCM.

* Honda "xe ôm" drivers and Xích-lô drivers in HCM make VND 30,000 to 60,000 /day. There's fierce competition, and since in early 2004 brand new buses with air-conditioning and cheap fare came into service, business is becoming harder.

* Home servants are paid VND 500,000 to 800,000 /month. They have accomodation and meals. They work all year (generally their employers will not let them have any holiday, even on special occasions like "Giỗ Tổ Hùng Vương" or Tết, to visit their families who often live in far away provinces).

* Shoe-shine little boys in HCM, who are 10~12 years old, can also make good money! if you wear shoes when you are in HCM, they would offer to shine your shoes for VND 3,000. You can make sure they do the job well and give them a little more, and see the polite smile on their face as they say "cảm ơn"!

* Many people, some very old and some very young, sell lottery tickets in the streets of HCM. They make 10% profit on the sales. The price of each ticket is VND 2,000, results are published everyday at 17h00, and the big prize is VND 50,000,000. Needless to say, this is lottery, so don't expect to win too often! Generallly people would buy a series of 5 or 10 tickets at a time, with same number. Many times I gave them money, but most adults are very proud people, and don't accept.

* Masons in HCM are paid VND 25,000 /day for very hard manual labour from 7h00 until 18h00.

* An unqualified country girl who works at the Suối Tiên entertainment facility (she brooms the alleys, empties waste bins) earns VND 690,000 /month. She works 9 hours /day, 6 days /week. There's a whole team of girls like her, and you can just sit down at a bench, and ask them to come and have conversation.

* Country side labourers in the Mekong delta make VND 20,000 /day. They work from 7h00 until 20h00 in the fields, under the hot sun. Jobs are not regular jobs, and not all the people living in the country side have a job. (Unemployment rate is around 5 to 6% for all Vietnam). So let's say, daily individual income is somewhere around VND 10,000 /day.

People living in the country side are very poor, much poorer than those living and working in town, but most of the time they lived in their family house, the picturesque "nhà lá ở quê"! and don't pay a rent.

The rent in HCM can start at VND 300,000 /month for a small student room, VND 500,000 /month for a small family individual house, to VND 6,000,000 /month ($ 400 /month) for a whole 6-7 room, 180m², 2-3 storey house in good districts.

There is electricity and running water everywhere in HCM. Running water costs VND 2,700 /cubic meter. Electricity costs VND 500 /kW. State prices. Individual landlords can make you pay more, though, up to VND 2,000 /kW for electricity, and VND 9,000 /cubic meter for water!

In small restaurants, Phở and Bún Bò Kho are VND 7,000-12,000 /bowl, Hủ Tiếu or Mì Chá Siú is 5,000-10,000 /bowl, same for Bánh Cuốn. Mì Xào dòn tôm or thập cẩm is VND 10,000 to 15,000 /dish, same for Cơm Gà, Mì Vịt Tiềm... Chả giò, Tôm chiên bột are VND 2,000 /piece...

A bottle of beer is VND 12,000 to 15,000, same as fresh orange juice. Lemonade, coffee, and all soft drinks, are VND 2,500 to 5,000. Rau má, nước miá, sâm bổ lượng, nhãn nhục, hột é, đậu xanh đậu đỏ nước dừa, are VND 1,000 to 4,000 /glass. A big glass of ice-tea is VND 2,000.

All the prices are double in some restaurants, triple in the not so luxurious restaurants.

Bus fare was VN 2,000 no matter the distance. For example you can go from Chợ Lớn to Suối Tiên, or from Chợ Bến Thành to Gò Vấp - Quang Trung (or to Tân Sơn Nhất airport. Too big luggages are not admitted on buses though!). I read that the bus ticket will cost VND 2,500 because of oil price rising. Children under 12 years old don't pay. On every line, the frequency is one bus every 5 minutes, so it's a good way just to go around and visit the city.

Xe ôm tarif is roughly VND 6,000 /2 kms, for example from Cao Thắng Street to Chợ Bến Thành. Taxi fare is VND 12,000 /first 2 kms, then VND 6,000 /km.

If you're adventurous, for VND 50,000 /day, you can hire a "xe ôm" driver for a few days, he will take you to Dalat, or to places he knows, why not to visit his parents who live in the Mekong delta? You will be their guest of honour, and they will be pleased to show you around in the country side!

***

I'm a caring person. I do really care, about knowing exactly what the situation in Vietnam is, what it is for the people living in the country, who work in town, or out in the country side. Last year, in July and August 2003, I had the opportunity to go back to Saigon for a whole 7 weeks. This year, I could go back a second time, for 4 weeks, in April and May. All that time I was in and around Sài Gòn - TP.HCM and the Mekong Delta, meeting and talking to people.

I even came inside administrations, knocked at doors, asked to meet officials to talk, and I was received many hours by cadres who showed true interest in observations and suggestions which I made. I also read the Vietnamese daily press, picked up the names and addresses of examplary individuals, went to their homes, asked to talk to them.

OK. I'm French, but I have a heart that is 100% Viet. I also look Viet. I'm a free man, an intellectual, and a French centre democrat. I'm not pro (not at all!) but I'm not anti-communist (not anti-the Vietnamese communists at all!). I hate war, and I hate the hopeless hatred that I can feel in the heart of some people.

The Vietnamese people have suffered too much. Let them now have a normal life. I believe democracy is in everyday life practice, and not in the form a government would take. I believe that Vietnam has a history and a heritage of traditions and culture, and has lots of intelligent and truly caring people, and that we must let all things be reformed and changed in a smooth manner now.

We are not just onlookers, we all can help our people to recover the country, and to build a better future for all - all those who live there, all those who will come back, and all the children who grow up in the new Vietnam.


================

It's vacation time for some of you? Are you going to Vietnam? Have you, before? Many times, for some? Post here about your own experiences and your remarks, your hopes.

I remember a few years ago when i was in Vietnam alreadu at the toll both my dad told me to slip 10 US$ in my passport so they wont take me to the side.. Is it still like that?

That was a very bad habit, among Vietnamese, to bribe and to take bribe!

Since early 2004, airports have video surveillance, so no officers working at the toll boths will take bribe money, or they will face sanctions and dismissal. Travellers caught while trying to bribe are also "talked to", re-checked as for the reason why they'd done so?...

Well, I've just been back in Jan this year and no bribes at all...BUTTTTTT they hassled me at the check in and check out points.

Perhaps because I look very East Asian but I have a Vietnamese name on my passport, they hassled me. I hardly know a few words in Viet and they pretty much got verbally abusive (it seemed from the way they spoke, it wasn't very friendly). They got an English intrepreter for me and said "Don't play games with us, we know you speak Vietnamese (err is it me, or do they like to assume a lot of things), please co-operate" then I just said I seriously don't, I explained pretty much my life story to them. In the end, they let me go but JUST...I swear it was the worst treament I ever received from a customs officer anywhere....

When I got out of Vietnam (much to my relief) I was interrogated about my MD, one of the guards kept on asking me what's that (again had the Viet name + no Viet speaking abilities prob) and again they got Mr. Interpreter out. They kept asking if there were any secrecy files in there (discs) and they confiscated two to scan. (fu-kers...) I was so pissed and when i got back home, wrote a letter to the embassy about my flight problem, within two weeks I received a verbal apology and had two replacement MD discs return as a kind of "compensation".

I don't have anything against Vietnamese but damn, they got to learn better manners and really to respect non Viet speakers who just happens to have a Viet name...I've travelled to Guangdong China and I wasn't treated like this.

Are you Vietnamese? if ur Viet isn't that the treament you should expect?? ie. bribes

Yours is a strange case!? haha I'm sorry, this is not funny...

As you can imagine, I look Viet and have a long French name on my EU passport, and on my first return in July 2003, that officer at the desk also made some fuzzy remarks, like "you don't have fair hair and blue eyes". I also didn't like it because he didn't look at me while he joked, but I could speak to him in Vietnamese, simply saying "my parents are French", and nothing else happened.

I remember my mother used to bribe sometimes to get things done faster, even when she lived in France!!! This is really very bad habits... I never bribe, and I'm really serious about this. Every country has laws, and no one is above the laws.

When I returned this year, at the toll desk they really were very friendly.


EDIT: The official definition of a Việt Kiều is someone living overseas, who has Vietnamese blood lineage, even if his/her name and/or nationality are foreign.

There's also this "resolution 36" issued on 26th of March 2004, about working with overseas Vietnamese. Here's the text in English at the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington:
http://www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/news/new...=20040511170158

What if your not Asian?

One of my Chinese friends came to Vietnam with his Vietnamese girlfriend. At the airport, a Vietnamese custom asked him for 5 dollars. My friend showed him the POC (People Republic of China) passport. The Vietnamese custom told my friend: "I know you're Chinese but we still collect 5 dollars since you have Vietnamese girlfriend".

anyways fujisan_8, why do you have Vietnamese name?

3 travels in VN, 2 months when u make the addition.
I study to become an agricultural engineer and I hope to work outside France (I like my country but I'm an adventurer and I like the travels! )

Maybe Vietnam who knows?
I will see with the international training periods.

cds: When did this happen? this year?

To all: please, also date the stories - if you can.

EDIT:

I travelled quite a lot too, there are so many countries to visit!
Working in Vietnam would be a great gift ! So, I wish you good luck !

you cant bride, and they wont take it anymore. but there is this tax thing for foreigners or those with international passport, that when you leave out of vietnam you have to buy a tax ticket or something of ~14 USD in order to get thru the passport check :s i dont know if this is new, but i have never come across something like this in travels around europe.

That's the "airport-tax". Sometimes in other international airports it's already included in the price of the voyage, sometimes it is not, depending on the country's law. It has nothing to do with international passports holders!

hmm ok you're right i guess. Cuz i have just never encountered that so i was just ignorant about that issue.
But like i said, i have never seen this on european air ports.. And this was my first trip to asia so far so bear with me

LOL Look, this is for ...New York, USA


Your travel agent will always mention this when you buy your flight ticket.

Sorry for the late response. I was busy making money
That happened a couple of years back. I hope things are getting better now.

Thank you for sharing. That really help me knowing more about life in Vietnam.

So am I.

Err b/c I was born in Vietnam and the Vietnamese didn't allow people to register Chinese names. My name is translated from Chinese to the equivalent Vietnamese name. I don't have a problem with this, many ethnic Chinese from Vietnam who came to Australia reverted back to their Chinese names (e.g from Tran to Chan or Huang to Wong).

When I was back in Vietnam, I was always mistaken for a Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese or mainland Chinese. Of course, I was ripped off all the time, probably by as much as 200%, but hell, it was cheap anyway, compared to what I pay here in Australia.

Back to the my original post, I can't blame Vietnam much because life there is still hard for your average Joe (incl. the underpaid customs officers). Mainland Chinese and Vietnamese have a ahrd time when travelling to the USA/West.

Hell imagine the interrogation if your name was Mohammed bin Laden or something muslim.

Hell yeah I was ripped off so many times just because I looked so obviously like a Viet Kieu (some even thought I was Korean). But anyway, I learnt from those mistakes and now I sorta know how much things cost in Vietnam nowaday.

man in vietnam they create a special force to counter act brideing but they the special force take bride so that did do no good

Hey! there are special forces, there's the law. Depending on the importance of the bribe cases, all officials - army officers included - must face trial (in "people's tribunals" ), sanctions, jail, or fire squad for the biggest cases.

Life is still hard and $hitty back there. Thank God I live in the USA.

Thank you for answering. Is making money confucian?



When you are a "Việt Kiều", the local people can expect you to have two types of attitudes, and they don't react the same way.

Either you are just a compatriot Vietnamese on a visit back in your home country Việt Nam (even if you don't speak Vietnamese), or you are just a tourist, a foreigner (even if you do speak Vietnamese).

"ĐẾN THÌ KHÔNG SỢ, MÀ SỢ THÌ KHÔNG ĐẾN" (Khổng Tử).

99% of the people where I went regularly knew I was a "Việt Kiều", and I could just hang around, as any other local Vietnamese. Sometimes they just very naturally turned around, and asked questions, generally they just want to know how it is, the life abroad in a foreign country, and I just answered as simply.

They can be extremely friendly, even caring and understanding, because you're just one of them, in the big family of the Vietnamese people, or they would just ignore you, because you're not.

What you should be aware of: they are not after your money. The majority, including the very poor, are very proud and dignified people. They work honestly, they don't beg. About any prices you want to pay (excepted for the food or in supermarkets), you must bargain - everyone does, that's common practice in Saigon.

Nowadays, most people living in the city know about what's life like, abroad, in Europe and in the US. It's all in the daily newspapers.

Hahhaha going back to Vietnam, one of the things overseas Vietnamese girls got to learn is modesty. The average Vietnamese women over there does not wear bikinis to the beach, low cut hipsters or revealing cleavage tops. My friends learnt this the hard way when men would just stare at them and some even thoight they were pros ahhahaha....

Have you got some photos ?

http://toilanguoi.lethien.com/nowhere/

http://toilanguoi.lethien.com/

really and what did you say?

this is absolutely false. the bribes are taken in the open and encouraged in airports. have you noticed that all the desks and stands for the officials all contain little drawers and cabinets for them to slip money into? have you noticed they do NONE of the immigration and customs paper work out in the opn on top of the desks?

even the furniture they use was designed to easily hide the fact they're taking side money. they take money. they all do. of course the rules and regulations forbid them to, but that is not the atmosphere in the work environment. during customs check out, i turned around to look at their lower portion of the stations to find a huge pile of american cash. they're working with so many people that they just throw it under the upper portion of the desk and get the paper work done. i noticed that those who paid up never had a single question asked and never had their luggage searched. a lot of them never even passed anything through xray. they just wheeled their luggage out.

and if someone pulls you aside to talk to you, chances are they're hassling you so that you'll pay up. don't do it in the open in front of everyone, but be discreet about it. i posted about this before. i do not condone the bribes, but i will continue to pay up. i would prefer not to get searched because these customs guys are looking for a payoff. if they wanted to, they have grounds to take my camera, ipod, cds, books, magazines, almost anything they wanted citing me for smuggling political media into the country. they don't care if it is or not, they can do it and tie you up in the system for hours or days until it gets straightened out. it has happened. but its amazing what happens when you slip them 100k vnd.

yeah it is... i been there once...

is there many vietnamese go back to Vietnam for vocation??
my vietnamese friend she only been to vietnam once( her entire life, she's 19 now)

That was in HCMC last year. We talked about general perception, that a foreigner like I could have, of Vietnam; about governance, security of circulation in the country, investments and speculations, environment's pollution, seemingly law non-abiding citizen... you can go to 147, Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Q3 TP.HCM (Ủy ban về người VN ở nước ngoài) and say whatever is on your mind; there you will meet with VK from all countries: US, Canada, Japan, Belgium, Germany, France, etc... and that's what they do: talk out what's on their mind.

***


False? Có tật giật mình... probably?
You can read Vietnamese? This article dates back in early February 2004 :

Thứ Tư ngày 11/02/2004, 21h02 GMT+7
Sau loạt bài phản ánh của báo Thanh Niên:
Hải quan Tân Sơn Nhất đã cải tiến như thế nào?



1/ Customs officers aren't allowed even to touch your passport. So you cannot slip money in its pages to bribe.

2/ Their desks have no drawers.

3/ The video cameras will have been installed at end of 1st trimester 2004.

Click on the link to read the whole article and see the photos showing the desks.

it is still like that, if you are VIET KIEU then they will do that to you, everytime i been back to VN i have to slip 5 - 10 bucks inside my passport, foreigners are ok to go though...

My great uncle has "contacts" at the airport, so when we're going back home, omg it's so fast, no queues haahhaha

Going there is annoying, but I go with my parents who know what to do.

I.E BRIBE!!!!

If I go back now it should be fine b/c my wife has friends that work at the airport so we would not have to give anything

I'm going on Wednesday.

Fun.

Life in the country is till hard for many peasants farmers, too. Many farmers work very hard, but their working conditions are poor. They work hours under harsh heat, and have lunch together in a dusty road under a shade of a tree. There is no break room, no dinning table, and no chairs. Their air conditioner is natural wind, and a shade of a tree. I admire all Vietnamese rice farmers. Without enough tools and machines, they produce millions tons of rice yearly. As you know, the huge quantity of rice are more than enough to feed 80 millions of Viets
and more than 1 million tons of price exported each year.


Things have been improved in the country side:
More than 10 years ago, there was no electricity, TV broastcasting in the country, but there has been electricity since then. Many families now own TV, radios. The number of people who have telephone service are still low. There is a article at the site below saying there are rich peasants who own cars in Vinh Phuc province, Vietnam.

http://vnexpress.net/Vietnam/Xa-hoi/2004/07/3B9D4632/


[COLOR=blue]http://www.le.org/pipermail/vnbiz/2004-July/004643.html

If you're not Asian then they won't give you a hard time b/c they know you don't know nothing about the bribery issues, only Viet Kieu knows, it's always been like this. I don't think the bribery thing can be eliminated in VN, it will only limited to some extent!

last time i went back to vietnam we paid this guy to load our luggage onto the kart thing and to bring it out the car...and the f@g took my dads camcorder n stuff and tried to hide it n my dad was piss and saw it under the cabinet that this one guy was standing by guarding...and he was like thats mine blah blah and then they made all this fuss about it not being ours n then finally he asked waht was in it and my dad told him everything and he finally gave it back...anyways next time ima visit and if i catch sum n00b stealing our stuff im whoopin their skinny viet @$$'s. jk lol

That's pretty fu-ked up situation you and your dad got involved in! I guess you guys just happened to meet a dirtbag, what kind of fu-k up $hit is that? It is clearly yours and the guy acted as if it was his, b!tch slap the mofo!

Johannjs - Thats real cool. How often do you go to Vietnam? How do you look Viet when you're 100% French I assume? So whats your main purpose in vietnam besides providing somee stats?