02: My Ho Chi Minh Hellos

A familiar foreign greeting with moments of local connection.

I hear English all the time. I’m now an English teacher, so there’s no shortage. And I am no longer surprised by the fact that someone who is an English-speaking foreign worker or immigrant can live here for decades and never need to learn how to speak Vietnamese. The ease with which you can manage, even without Google Translate, is quite great. A short…