Heka in Vietnam

[Heka]

I'm back for the time being. After my one year adventure in Japan I returned to Finland which I found boring and full of negative people. I also missed my girlfriend who had returned to her home country of Vietnam after spending a month in Europe with me. In Finland I completed my few missing uni courses and tried to find a practical training place. After some searching it became obvious that all the trainee position were unpaid and sucked donkey balls. I said fuck this shit and bought a ticket to Vietnam. This all happened some three and a half months ago and now I have been living in this exciting country since then.

I live in Ho Chi Minh City or HCMC as it's abbreviated here. I had been in Vietnam twice already before making the move here. It's an extremely bad idea to move to Vietnam without knowledge of the culture and a person who is going to help you with the stuff in the beginning. You'll get scammed and/or robbed and nothing will work. You also need nerves of steel and a lot of patience since this is a developing country with a lot of poverty and corruption. You have to leave your feelings of compassion and heart at the airport if you are going to survive here.

I have no idea if any of you guys are interested about life under the hot south east Asian sun but I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Here is picture of the biggest boar from my girlfriend's fathers farm. It's huge, around 250kg. You see the door on the background which gives some indication of the size of that beast. All Vietnamese people have their roots in the countryside and I've spent many days in the rural ares of the country. My girlfriends hometown is a interesting place with great seafood as well as some dirt poor people. It's very common for the Vietnamese to return to the countryside during certain national holidays. At these times even the 9 million people HCMC feels empty.

Vietnam also has some great food. I almost always eat out because a street food meal cost around 1 euro often less. Most importantly for me the girls are really pretty and the beer is cheap, 30 cents a can and less if you buy in bulk. I'm atm working towards my goal of having the life of Louis from John Woo's Heroes Shed No Tears . I'm already pretty close if you ask me. I have a pretty Vietnamese girlfriend and I live in the craziest country ever.

[HungFist]

I'm still wondering how did this guy manage to spend one year surrounded by cute Japanese girls, and then end up dating a Vietnamese girl

I'm atm working towards my goal of having the life of Louis from John Woo's Heroes Shed No Tears . I'm already pretty close if you ask me. I have a pretty Vietnamese girlfriend and I live in the craziest country ever.

I should take the credit for showing Heka this awesome Woo classic back in 2011-2012, when we were both in Finland and watched together about 70 Asian movies in one year. Oh, the good old times

Oh, and you could tell us more about the Machete gang you mentioned to me before.

[Heka]

I'm still wondering how did this guy manage to spend one year surrounded by cute Japanese girls, and then end up dating a Vietnamese girl

Vietnamese girls are the best. If the dreaded zombie apocalypses catches us by surprise one day I'd feel much more safe with a Vietnamese girl. This brings me to a funny story. Vietnam is full of poisonous creature who are all out to get you. One the most common and ugly ones is the very poisonous red-headed centipede. It's far more poisonous than anything that lives in Finland. Well turns out there are several of these things in our house . First time I saw one was on our living room floor. My girlfriend wasted no time and ran to the kitchen to get the biggest knife. She ran back to the living room yelling Yaaaa! and chopped the creature into pieces . After that incident I've seen 4-5 of the damn things. I just normally hit them with a shoe or a rolled up newspaper.

I should take the credit for showing Heka this awesome Woo classic back in 2011-2012, when we were both in Finland and watched together about 70 Asian movies in one year. Oh, the good old times

Awesome times indeed .

Oh, and you could tell us more about the Machete gang you mentioned to me before.

Well HCMC is a crazy place and some districts of the city are dangerous to say the least as evidenced by this story. This story is a few months old. There was a gang who rode around chopping peoples hands of to steal their belongings. The leader of the gang is being put to death for his crimes. People will do Anything here for money http://thanhniennews.com/society/vietna ... 24826.html

[Tenchu1998]

So... Are you working on a movie in Vietnam? What is it about?

EDIT: Hahahaha... Oh my God... my brain is malfunctioning all the time, as of recently... I read it as if you typed you were making a movie there, while you actually typed "Move"... I'm keeping my original question, for lols...

So, how do you make a living in Vietnam?

[Heka]

So, how do you make a living in Vietnam?

I use my old savings and do some mixed jobs like translating. You can survive with very little in here if you don't live in district 1 and you stay away from places with other foreigners.

[Tenchu1998]

Awesome!

I am interested in your experiences in Vietnam. Please keep on updating! I'm curious to how you live there.
I know so little about Vietnam, it's quite embarassing.

What do you do for recreation? Do you go to Vietnamese Karaoke Bars? Do you watch Vietnamese movies? What cultural phenomena can be experienced in Vietnam?

Also, will you be putting in hard work on the countryside? Like a real man!

(Sorry if my questions are too many and too weird, or something...)

[Markgway]

You have to leave your feelings of compassion and heart at the airport if you are going to survive here.

I'd have trouble with that.

I consider myself a very moral and considerate person.
Perhaps that could change... but I'd hate myself for it.

Vietnam sounds too dog-eat-dog for me.

Best bet would be for me to fly to Vietnam and hang out at The Airport just long enough to pick up one of those pretty local girls and then take her to a more civilised country.

Or I could just go to Japan and have pimpmaster HungFist hook me up with schoolgirls!

[Heka]

What do you do for recreation? Do you go to Vietnamese Karaoke Bars? Do you watch Vietnamese movies? What cultural phenomena can be experienced in Vietnam?

I do sports, travel and drink beer. The Vietnamese karaoke bars are the farthest thing from their Japanese counterparts. In Vietnam the songs in the machine are 99% Vietnamese and the 1% of foreign songs are from the 1980s or older. To add insult to injury all the good rock songs from that era are missing . I'm a bad singer anyways so I just drink beer when I'm in a karaoke place. I've never heard that a foreigner has watched Vietnamese movies and I'm not going to be the first one to sacrifice myself. Their movies are terrible. Best thing one can do to experience the culture is to go to a cafe bar outside the main areas and just drink coffee and observe life. Every coffee shop, no matter how shitty or old has wifi so people tend to stop at them for hours to meet friends, work or just browse their phones.

Also, will you be putting in hard work on the countryside? Like a real man!

I ain't working farm jobs in 40C heat for no pay. If you do something nice to the Vietnamese they will start taking advantage of you faster than you can say your name.

Vietnam sounds too dog-eat-dog for me.

It sure is. My Finnish friend who has been living here for 2 years already said that if you dwell on the inequality and the no hope situations you see in this country, you'll get mad.

Best bet would be for me to fly to Vietnam and hang out at The Airport just long enough to pick up one of those pretty local girls and then take her to a more civilised country.

Well a whore is 5 euros or 4,10 GBP if you go to the outskirts of town. I'm pretty sure those girls would fly with you back to your home country just to stab you in your sleep and take your stuff . They are pretty though, the young ones at least. That profession tends to wear one out rather quick.

Or I could just go to Japan and have pimpmaster HungFist hook me up with schoolgirls!

I recommend this one .

[Heka]

The rainy season has begun which means one thing, mosquitos. A mosquito net is essential if one wants to catch some sleep down here. Fortunately our house has an army of small lizards that eat all kinds of creepy crawlies. Life here is like living in a zoo.

The summer also pushes temperature close to 40C which is all fun and good until you need to play badminton . After exercise I look like I have been dropped to a swimming pool. The only place I've found hotter than HCMC is Kyoto in summer.


Here is some awesome Vietnamese kebab. No telling what meat it is. Maybe rat, or the victims of the crazy traffic .