You’ll often hear vietnamese insulting you but you will not understand it ( you don’t speak vietnamese i bet? ). There are words that you ought to know actually…

Du Ma or Du Ma May - Means Fuck Your Mother
Con Cat - Means You’re Dick
Po Tay - ? Something about the foreigners
Tay - Foreigner
Bop - Touch
Bop Cu - Touch Penis
Bop Vu (pronounces like Yew) - Touch the boobies
Bop Chim - Touch the pussy
Khong, Dieng - Crazy (Khong means also No, but the vietnamese language is a bit special we’ll come to that later)

Those are the one that i use often… it pisses them off so badly, they are really kids… they can’t contain themselves. It’s easy for them to say it but when it comes to hear it they really act like children… So i don’t advise you to use those words with them even though you’re tempted to… We’re not like them at all so no need to be aggressive when we’re with them… It’s the web i can say whatever i want cause i’ve lived in Vietnam for 4 years!

Yeah, you might be thinking it’s a bit rude, but there’s no picture like that on the web, so the web needs me somehow. What i mean by that picture…
I mean that… please… vietnamese people have to stop to smiles like morons all the time!

It’s now in those periods of my life that i understand the dark nature of the mockeries to the asian community because they smile all the time (especially the Vietnamese people and the Chinese… Not the Japanese alright? lol…)

Perhaps may be i can find one of those cliché on internet… ok let’s find it out!

See that big cliché? After reading my blog may be you’ll figure out why it is so…

Oh… Oh… Oh! Here comes the big stuff! How do we negotiate in Vietnam, Huh! Any idea? Why does people doesn’t want to sell me things cheap

First of all… Welcome to South East Asia!

So there are not many ways to negotiate here actually… But! There are ways to influence the guy you are negotiating with, because if you had experience of negotiation with vietnamese in the past you realized that he got you and your money even you think he is poor and you will never buy to him anymore, the man got you.

So if you have honor and if you believe in yourself, this guide is for you, and how to reverse the method they do to us… to them!

Forget about Being Human
- You don’t need feelings when you go shopping, they don’t have feelings for you so don’t have any for them.
- Don’t treat them like crap but don’t show that you’re happy or angry, they don’t show what they feel to you so don’t show what you feel, because that is where they will attack you (your feelings).
- Barely look at the Shop Guy, that is a technique that vietnamese uses against each other to low the guy they are talking with and it works.
- They know that we are sensitive, so don’t be sensitive, don’t be afraid to go away within just a few seconds without saying bye bye, this is shopping, this is your pleasure, not their pleasure.

A Good Negotiation Takes just a few Minutes
- Always ask for the prices of each clothes before you choose the clothes you want to buy (if you buy clothes in mass). Because, if you arrive with all your clothes that you took 20 minutes to choose and you figure out that the owner of the shop is a moron that will never low down the price, you wasted 20 minutes + the time you got angry negotiating with the guy.
- Never negotiate if you’re not sure to buy…
- Always ask for prices and smile at them when they tell you that a Ralph Lauren Fake Shirt costs 130,000VND (it costs 50,000) or something like that. Smile at them like they smile at you.
- Always have the big money in one pocket and the small money in another pocket. Remember to always keep the small bills! Give the big bills so that you always have small money, because most of the time during a negotiation, the vietnamese are short of money (if you give them big bills of course), so you can always say oh wait a second… i have money!
- Low down the price by half or even by 2/3. For instance if they tell you that the price for a trouser is 210,000 then you know it costs 100,000. It’s the same for everything, but sometimes you do meet honest vietnamese that tells you the real price, don’t bother with that kind of people they are rare.
- Remember they will try to get your money and sell you their worst products so they keep the best ones for themselves or for foreigners that got more money, so when you see that the quality of a product is really not good, you just tell them, and if they don’t like it you can go away, there are dozens of other shops around and the owners of those shops are not all close friends.
- Never waste your time on Negotiation. Hunt for the best shop for whatever you’re looking for and become friend with the owner even if he is a big asshole (like most of the people here), and you’ll get foreigner ’s discounts after shopping 2 years with them. It’s good to go to the same shops because you don’t have to restart the negotiation process (that is so childish and useless, just a waste of time).

Example on How to Negotiate (Fake Conversation):
Let’s say that my name is John and the shop girl name is Hoa.

John: Hello
Hoa: Hello sir, want to buy shirt?
John: No i’m just looking
Hoa: *She will show you many things that she wants you to buy*
John: *You found what you wanted to buy and hand it over the girl*
John: How much is that shirt?
Hoa: *Takes the calculator out to show you that it costs 130,000VND*
John: *Don’t say a thing, take the calculator, and show her that you want to buy it for 50,000VND*
Hoa: Noooooooo! *Big Smile, thinking fuck i’ll make no money with him* It’s from China, Good Quality! (Not from China at all, and even if it was i wouldn’t want to buy stuff from China)
Hoa: *She takes the calculator showing you that it costs now 125,000VND*
John: *Realize that it’s gonna take half an hour before you buy the shirt the price you want*
John: No. I want to buy it 50,000VND and not 130,000VND.
Hoa: No i’m sorry i can’t.
John: *Go away and you will see that Hoa will call you to come back*
Hoa: Ok,Ok, now 100,000VND, you see good good quality my boss, i can’t!
John: *Go away again and she will call you back again*
Hoa: 80,000VND *Smiling with her friends, talking vietnamese using the word Tay more than once (means foreigner)*
John: No i will buy it 50,000VND
Hoa: Ok 75,000VND
John: *Shakes his head, it’s been 10 minutes already* No i will buy it 50,000VND
Hoa: 70,000 VND ok? *Not Happy (But you don’t care, it even makes you feel good)*
John: No. 50k VND
Hoa: Ok 60,000VND, this is very cheappppp….
John: (Ok so you either say ok it’s fine with me, or you keep lowing the price down like i always do) No i said i want to buy it 50,000VND and i will buy it 50,000VND, it’s been 10 years that i live in Vietnam (talk some vietnamese and make her laugh, show her that she is an idiot)
Hoa: Ok 55,000VND (Looks like she doesn’t understand english. So you figure out that whatever you say she doesn’t understands it, so no pity at all)
John: No, 50,000VND.

Then you get your stuff for 50,000VND, you get the card of the shop, and each time you go back there you will get your shirts for 50,000VND! W00t!

It Works for everything! Except… the Xe Um!

Xe Um Strategy, How to get cheap pricings with Xe Um
Xe Um is the same as a Taxi but with a motorbike. It’s obviously cheaper than a Taxi just because of that…

- Always negotiates how much you give him before you go with him
- Never negotiate when you arrived
- 1 mile should be 4,000VND
- Even if he shows unhappiness about it just don’t care
- You will have to know about the streets of Saigon before you start to really negotiate…
- Experience will tell you how to be with those Xe Um guys… i can’t really explain it…

Hope that helps

I will list the 10 very first things that you notice when you come to Vietnam for the first time. May be the old expats will remember how it was when they settled in Vietnam the first year… It’s hard to reckon the time when we arrived here, usually foreigners that are in Vietnam forgets that period very fast… They don’t want to remember it… Or just the good sides of it… well…

1. The Motorbikes!

2. The Huge Amount of People in the Streets!

3. The Smiles! Whether you like it or not, they always smile to you… It can be boring… It’s no real smile anyway so no need to bother.

4. The Electricity Wires!

5. The Houses are all the same, 3 meters large / 9 meters high.

6. The people behave all the same, just like they got raped when they were 6 years old and now they are afraid of doing things out of the box.

7. The sound of the horns that never stops

8. Who work here? It will appear to you that nobody work! They all stay on the sidewalk enjoying their coffee or Tra Da (Vietnamese Ice Tea)

9. The Pollution, if you don’t wear glasses when you drive your motorbike (or a guy drive for you, we call it Xe Um) you will receive pollution balls that will hurt and irritate your eyes.

10. Even there is all that madness… There is that ‘Calm’ that exist nowhere else. In Vietnam people tends to make you angry cause that is their sport… But when you know how to play that sport then it becomes very calm and peaceful… Obviously to play that sport you have to become evil and ignore people… But you don’t have to do it all the time!

For those that knows Philippes, well they will recognize him at the first glance when seeing those pictures! It’s really him! Sorry for that dude but just i never expected to find a guy so similar to you on da web lol!

That character is from the Family Guy, it’s some real funny stuffs, you can have all the episodes on the web site Flatoz.com

Lol, what i’m going to show you is what i hear in the morning and in the evening all the time… I live with a member of my family here and he is married to a vietnamese lady for about 2 years now. So he got some members of his family in law at home, same as i am in his home.

Check out also that video, you will see that at some point they sing LOUDER, Way LOUDER.

So, they are really different from me. They wake up at 7.30am and starts singing karaoke, then they love to watch TV very loud, so loud that it blows their ears away. When the ladies shave their leg’s hairs or so they use a product that stinks so much you would puke the very first time you smell it…

They eat food but i still don’t know what the hell do they eat, they eat noodles-water-vegetables and that’s all, i never saw them enjoy a burger or/and they are not used to fat food, or western kind of food. That’s culture! At least they remain slim… They’re not fat… Yet their food is damn weird, i would die within a week if i ate only that!

Vietnamese people can sing 5 hours in a row. They can sing till 2am in the morning or even all the night, when they sing they are in trance, they don’t realize that they are singing, it’s like taking crack or ecstasy…

In a World of Carebear

Vietnam is a world full of carebears, where nobody cares about the condition of the other carebear, they only care about being happy, they care about singing, about having fun, about enjoying, just like anywhere else in the world…. But Vietnam… Remains… the best carebear plateform ever upon the surface of the earth…

If you love easy life, then come here

How do you see vietnam in 2008?

Funny but i don’t see nothing new in Vietnam for 2008. I heard they will destroy the restaurant “La Fourchette” in Saigon to make buildings. But besides that Vietnam will remain the same!

Hard to Live Here

How do you think it’s like to live here? You ever lived here? If not then i will tell you my experience. Living in Vietnam is way harder than living in Europe, USA or Canada. First of all, here if you’re a foreigner that means for those poor people that you got money, that’s a fact.

I didn’t travel much, but i would bet my heart that it’s the same everywhere int he world in any of those third world countries that tries to copy the western civilization…

Vietnamese people will never gain more respect if they don’t give respect to people that visit them first, they will try everything to get 1000 Dong (less than 10 cents $)! They will lose customers for just a few bucks! They don’t think about the future, that’s why nowadays so many vietnamese restaurants are empty, and there’s no more tourists like it used to be in 2004…

There is a statue crying nearby the street that i live in (Tran Quang Khai), and i always wondered what it was representating, do you have any clue? Any ideas what that could be? If so you have to share!

It’s green now, why they painted it white first, i don’t know but i don’t even try to understand.

Never thought it would make up a story…