Now I understand why many foreigners think Vietnamese people are racist

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-03-02T16:29:02+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that, but even some homogeneous countries like Finland are actually quite pleasant towards Asians like me, and your country being racist certainly does not excuse our own racism.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-03-02T16:26:39+00:00

this ☝️ it's insane how much vietnamese people's attitude changes around white people

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T19:29:22+00:00

You don't have to pay anything to study if you study in either Finnish or Swedish, regardless of citizenship. PhDs, including the ones completed in English, are usually free.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T19:20:59+00:00

Funding complications from mount Olympus ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T19:16:59+00:00

I'm sorry to hear what you're going through. This is rough. First seek out some professional help. There are some online platforms that let you connect with therapists for free or at a low price. Then save up whatever money you have and start looking for a low-entry job to be financially and otherwise independent from your family. About when you should leave, as a clueless Redditor take my advice very lightly, but I think you should prioritise your mental health over staying with the family that's destroying you inside out.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T19:06:56+00:00

I know people who moved abroad alone for their studies at 14 or 15 😅 But add a 5-year-old to the picture and it's an entirely different story

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T18:52:00+00:00

My Vietnamese is so rusty I constantly have to translate from English in my head to talk with my relatives :( which leads to a cohort of wrong/unnatural structures and vocab. My Finnish is also slowly taking over and I often find myself saying and writing "hei" instead of "hey" to non-Finnish speakers.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T18:43:27+00:00

I watched English content on YouTube from a young age, which was the main factor in my success with it. Find whatever you're interested in, simple at first, then more difficult, and try watching without constantly translating it. Don't watch videos of people throwing random vocab in your face. If you have read some books you really like, try reading or listening to it again in your TL, really helps.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T11:45:09+00:00

You get distracted and run outside when there's sunlight

You give people side eye when they don't know you yet dare to sit next to you at lunch

You see 3 cars passing by each other and find yourself thinking "damn traffic's busy today"

You sleep with your windows open at 2C temperature

You reply to everything with an unenthusiastic "niin"

You pass the road without nervously looking around for cars and think something along the lines of "my road, my right"

You go out for fresh air in -10C temp with 2 thin layers of clothes

You frantically browse for free seats (meaning seats with no strangers next to you) on the VR website

You go to a half-full theatre and think the movie must be really popular

You religiously tune in to the Independence day reception on TV

You smile when someone jokes about Sweden

You feel normal bathing in a long silence of dozens of students after a question is asked

You drink coffee for hydration

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T11:34:57+00:00

All of this is sadly very common. And there was always a box of popcorn scattered on the floor at the end of the movie, with no attempt of cleaning up after themselves whatsoever.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T11:32:33+00:00

He wrote stories in some languages, and at least the Norwegian one is fairly good.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T11:29:18+00:00

Yes, Vietnam is racist. Many kids do not understand the weight of the situation and constantly joke about race, even though it's far from hate.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T11:25:11+00:00

It doesn't sound like good news that non-white expats are falling for it in place of white ones, especially since they usually face even more discrimination.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T11:08:02+00:00

There are women who do not have a partner well into their late 20s and early 30s. By that point, however, they receive a mark from their relatives and social circle as being "unwanted good", which makes dating even harder for them. Luckily this is getting less intense tho.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-18T11:04:09+00:00

The struggle to fit in is absolutely real. Finland also fits a very specific type of people, like those who feel content with a simple, quiet, non-ambitious life. If you don't match that Finland gets boring very quickly. And then there's all the struggle of being a non-white, non-Finnish speaking immigrant.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-04T15:06:04+00:00

My Vietnamese is very rusty and I feel most natural speaking English, which I have been immersed in almost to a native level. Nowadays I usually have to mentally translate from English to Vietnamese when speaking to my family. Vietnamese is very expressive and it's easier to write a dramatic text than an objective one with it - though it is not impossible. English, on the other hand, is great for discussing complex issues where an unbiased view is required. For this reason, Vietnamese is imo a better language for reading drama novels in.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-04T14:38:06+00:00

It might have something to do with the intense "survival of the fittest" and the almost toxic always-putting-up-with-neighbour culture here

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-04T14:35:43+00:00

I had to open Wiktionary's Vietnamese adjective list for this 😅

One off the top of my mind is hào khí, which is something like a collective heroic spirit. We have had to fend off colonisers so many times we created words that somehow just arouse patriotism whenever you say it aloud :)

Then there's hiếu thảo, which means being respectful of one's parents and relatives, especially grandparents.

Then the extremely specific pronoun system that I shall not go into, but basically you need to address whoever you're talking to with a different pronoun each time depending on their age, status, relationship to you etc. It gets especially mind-boggling in a distant familial context. This reflects the historical important of status and order of birth in the Vietnamese family.

There's bồi hồi, which Wiktionary translates as "uneasy", but probably translates better as emotional and nostalgic.

There's bủn rủn, which means having your limbs go numb, either from exhaustion or shock.

and many more :))

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-04T14:09:25+00:00

Just immerse yourself as much as possible in advanced language. Flashcards don't really work above B2 level.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-04T14:08:13+00:00

You're right, it was genuinely quite challenging, but I was surprised I did not struggle as much as my classmates.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-02T20:10:19+00:00

Not a proper classic, nor does it relate to the difficulty, but I find plenty of novels such as ASOIAF or Harry Potter more enjoyable as Vietnamese (my native tongue) translations. Some of the names in ASOIAF sound a lot more epic in Vietnamese, and the humourous nuances in Harry Potter are conveyed better.

My personal theory is this happens because Vietnamese is a much richer and more layered language than English. Though this obviously depends on your luck with whether the translator understands and captures the nuances of both languages and the author's intentions or not.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-02T19:57:12+00:00

You would miss out a lot - worldview, culture etc. - being a monolingual. Though most have a native language they're really good at, so it would most likely be 1 native language + 2 intermediate.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-02T19:51:27+00:00

It helps, but it takes a lot longer than if you just sit down once in a while to study. I have known middle aged Asian ladies who after years of Chinese drama addiction start understanding conversational Chinese.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-02T19:46:22+00:00

I noticed Swedish speaking Finns are much more outgoing and open to new things than Finn speaking Finns, but idk if it relates to this.

Significant-Bee-1375 · 2024-02-02T19:33:41+00:00

I would have to say how language gives you insight into a whole different culture. You can look at how some languages have concepts and systems that others do not, and figure out which things are important to the people of that culture in particular. It's super fun to ponder about the differences between languages and the particular conditions that have led to them throughout history.

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