Just came back from Hanoi (before Tet went crazy). Absolutely love the country and the people but as you say it is squarely matriarchal. Despite my not speaking a word of the language the servers always showed me pictures of their children and brought me the bill much to the amusement of my husband AT FIRST!
Thank you very much for your kind words. If you happen to have some observations from your trip, I would love to hear about them. I really enjoy hearing other perspectives.
I just wrote an entry on my substack about my trip. Hoping to go back in Sept and see Hue/Hoi An. Just love the people to death :) . One of my closest primary school friendswas a girl called Cam Thong. I often think of her and what became of her all those long years ago...
I get the same treatment and my wife is Filipino who speaks next to no Vietnamese 😅 I first came across the 'hand the salary straight over to the wife' culture when I lived in Japan in the late 90s, the husbands always made sure they had a stash handy for sneaky beers after work, don't worry about that 🤣
I have a similar experience. I had a close friend in grade school whose name was Hung Nguyen. I was over at his families house nearly every day. I too have tried to contact the family without any luck.
‘In traditional Vietnamese culture, some men doesn’t actually get to keep their money. In some traditional households, when a man makes money, the money is immediately given to either his mom or his wife. The man is then given an allowance determined by the matriarch to use as pocket money. This presents a bit of a problem if the guy wants to go out for beers with his friends, but the wife doesn’t like the friends and refuses to give him money.’ Welcome to Japan. The only way round this for many men is that drinking with colleagues after work is common and then the boss pays for everyone.
Is that how the Japanese drinking culture started? I always thought it was some sort of macho team building thing. It is really admirable about Japanese culture to make such an effort to save face. The bosses disguise doing something nice for employees as being part of job duties.
Good heavens - there’s no kindness in this. It is a compulsory macho team building exercise but the boss pays which is an assertion of his power and control. And probably the cost is actually referred back to the company as an entertainment expense.
Just came back from Hanoi (before Tet went crazy). Absolutely love the country and the people but as you say it is squarely matriarchal. Despite my not speaking a word of the language the servers always showed me pictures of their children and brought me the bill much to the amusement of my husband AT FIRST!
Thank you very much for your kind words. If you happen to have some observations from your trip, I would love to hear about them. I really enjoy hearing other perspectives.
I just wrote an entry on my substack about my trip. Hoping to go back in Sept and see Hue/Hoi An. Just love the people to death :) . One of my closest primary school friendswas a girl called Cam Thong. I often think of her and what became of her all those long years ago...
I get the same treatment and my wife is Filipino who speaks next to no Vietnamese 😅 I first came across the 'hand the salary straight over to the wife' culture when I lived in Japan in the late 90s, the husbands always made sure they had a stash handy for sneaky beers after work, don't worry about that 🤣
Wow, I thought this was uniquely Vietnamese. I wonder how many countries have this 'hand salary over to the wife' culture.
Your article was so beautiful, I felt inspired to write some of my thoughts as I thought about it later that day.
I am going to need to look up your article.
I have a similar experience. I had a close friend in grade school whose name was Hung Nguyen. I was over at his families house nearly every day. I too have tried to contact the family without any luck.
‘In traditional Vietnamese culture, some men doesn’t actually get to keep their money. In some traditional households, when a man makes money, the money is immediately given to either his mom or his wife. The man is then given an allowance determined by the matriarch to use as pocket money. This presents a bit of a problem if the guy wants to go out for beers with his friends, but the wife doesn’t like the friends and refuses to give him money.’ Welcome to Japan. The only way round this for many men is that drinking with colleagues after work is common and then the boss pays for everyone.
Is that how the Japanese drinking culture started? I always thought it was some sort of macho team building thing. It is really admirable about Japanese culture to make such an effort to save face. The bosses disguise doing something nice for employees as being part of job duties.
Good heavens - there’s no kindness in this. It is a compulsory macho team building exercise but the boss pays which is an assertion of his power and control. And probably the cost is actually referred back to the company as an entertainment expense.
I guess I am going back to my original assumption.