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Comment by latchkey | Hacker News Reader

I'm back in Vietnam (Saigon) for the first time in 4 years and it has been like a time machine. Covid definitely left its mark on this country due to the severe lockdowns they went through. The most interesting change I've noticed is that nearly everyone speaks at least a little English now. Attributed to being locked inside and a lot of YouTube.

It used to be difficult/expensive to get drones here, but I see DJI stores all over town now. Seeing this is super cool and speaks towards how innovative and creative Vietnamese get with whatever they can get their hands on.

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> I'm back in Vietnam (Saigon) for the first time in 4 years and it has been like a time machine. Covid definitely left its mark on this country due to the severe lockdowns they went through. The most interesting change I've noticed is that nearly everyone speaks at least a little English now.

Interesting - here in Japan the consensus is that the level of English went down, as we had a few years of no tourists and no language assistants.

Vietnamese are extremely capitalistic as part of the culture. Everything is for sale here.

They realized that they make more money when they speak English to foreigners, so they studied up. I'm not even making this up, one of the kids I was talking to said that.

Today, as a tourist in Japan many restaurants and bars outside of Kyoto, Tokyo, and Osaka and some in those places will not serve me food or a whiskey highball because I am not Japanese. They say "No English" as the reason. Four African students who recently graduated from the University of Kyoto were refused entry into a bar in Kyoto as I walked by. They all speak English and Japanese fluently unlike many of their Japanese classmates. This is high contrast to Vietnam where people would stop me as I walked down the street offering me a beer poured from a pitcher, a seat at their table on the sidewalk, or food and they would try to speak English with me. I also noticed that there is a lot of cooperation between people of different countries in Asia done with English. I would not be surprised if the common language of the Chinese and Vietnamese people mentioned in the article is English.

Vietnam is my favorite place in Asia. It felt like the country is trying very hard to address many of the environmental problems like moving from gas powered to electric vehicles.

I've traveled all over Asia and lived in many countries for extended periods. It's also been my experience that the Vietnamese are the most welcoming and genuinely interested in talking to foreigners.

> It felt like the country is trying very hard to address many of the environmental problems like moving from gas powered to electric vehicles.

This is my favorite IG: https://www.instagram.com/sai_gonxanh/

But also SOOO depressing at the same time. The country is actually really really bad with trash and waste. The culture is literally to just toss trash into gutters. I can't tell you how many times on this trip alone that I've seen people just toss trash out car windows. Sigh...

Here is what is happening now, due to over farming, building dams everywhere and generally poor management...

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8Bk7jgvF65/

> everyone speaks at least a little English now. Attributed to being locked inside and a lot of YouTube

There was a push for English fluency in K-12 around 10 years ago. Most people you are bumping into are products of that era. The non-Saigon/Hanoi/DaNang/DaLat kids who didn't get that opportunity attended the hundreds of ESL schools like "Wall Street English" and "California English" in town

"Hi, what is your name? Where are you from?"

It was pretty mediocre and that was the depth of it.

Unless you're in a private school, my experience is that education here is still pretty poorly handled. Kind of "blind leading the blind".

What I'm seeing now is that even the older generations are speaking some English too now, where previously I would just get the infamous jazz hands.

I'm also in a big city... it'll be interesting to see how things are when I head out into the country side again.

> that education here is still pretty poorly handled. Kind of "blind leading the blind".

It is, but the tourism boom began around sa decade ago as well, which pushed (pidgin) English fluency front and forward in Tier 1 cities (eg - https://laodong.vn/chinh-sach-giao-duc/dieu-kien-lam-giao-vi...).

Most Vietnamese born after 1980 who consume foreign content prefer Korean, Chinese, and Japanese content over Western (based on my wife and her extended family's experience)

In Saigon at least there was a push for English teaching in K-12, and ik international teachers (mostly Pinoy) were hired as contractors to teach part time in that initiative.

> Most Vietnamese born after 1980 who consume foreign content prefer Korean, Chinese, and Japanese content over Western (based on my wife and her extended family's experience)

Agreed, I've noticed this as well from when I was living here before. The difference today is that I'm noticing more english youtube content being consumed. I wish we could see youtube stats on this.

My partner is 1983... grew up in D3... near perfect english... only likes western content. A bit of an oddball in that regard, which sets them apart mentally from the rest.

In Hoi An, locals are known for their English fluency since more than 10 years ago, when I came back there last year, I was blown away by so many locals speak Korean just as fluent.

Money talks. A decade ago a good portion of people could speak Russian in Da Nang because of the large number of Russian tourists that come to vacation on the beaches.

From what I understand, it is more now that the war in Ukraine is going on...

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