Name: Podcast chậm - Luyện Nghe Tiếng Anh - Những cú shock văn hóa | Tập 2
Uploaded: 2025-09-16T13:43:14.000Z
Duration: 8 min 35 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Vietnam has come so far in the last 50 years and I hope that in the coming years this is something that can be improved.

Xin chào các bạn, mình là Brooklyn Day.

Future simple

Hi everyone, my name's Brooklyn and today we're gonna talk about culture shock.

So when I say culture shock, I just mean all the little things that make it different than my home.

I realize that people here do things a certain way because it's worked well over decades.

I would say that my first month here I was in culture shock, but now it's progressed to culture stress.

Alright, let's highlight a few things that really stood out to me during that culture shock period.

I noticed how Vietnamese people are so creative and ingenuitive.

People here will pile things up on a really small motorbike.

For example, I once saw a woman, a cô, driving, transporting a gigantic pile of plastic waste on her small motorbike.

People in America, if they were in a similar situation, needing to transport something very large and they only had a small vehicle, would probably just give up and say that it's not possible.

Similarly, I once saw a teenage boy, probably about 13 years old, riding a tiny bike made for kids on the main road.

With traffic zooming around him, he was just cruising without fear.

He didn't seem to be scared, but I was quite scared for him.

People here will just do what they gotta do, and I think that you guys are much stronger than we are as Americans.

The small things sometimes get on my nerves, and at first they rub me the wrong way.

For example, one morning I got up on the wrong side of the bed and was just irritated at the world.

And sometimes the decorations will get on my nerves and irritate me, like my mother-in-law's curtains that I never would have chosen.

Or I get frustrated how people will roast dogs on the roadside at a bee-ahoy shop.

Or it makes me sad how people will keep their dogs on a short leash in the hot sun for long hours.

I'm not judging, well, let's say I understand that this is just the way of life for a small group of people here, but it still makes me sad.

But I find that these feelings can quickly melt away.

That day, as soon as I walked into an air-conditioned coffee shop with my husband, I immediately felt better and it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

I was able to laugh at the small things in life again, like my husband tripping over a chair and getting a nasty bruise on his knee.

My silly husband was in a rush to beat the rain and ended up on the floor with the whole coffee shop watching him.

I wasn't a very supportive wife in that moment.

I have been amazed how the street vendors here will work together in a community.

One Saturday afternoon, my husband, my mother and sister-in-law, and I went on an outing to get plants in the Hadong district.

While we were still shopping around for a pot, the pot store owner allowed us to take the not-yet-purchased pot over to test out the size at the plant vendor.

After we finally made a decision, the plant store owner took the plant and arranged it in the pot for us, better than I ever could have, and for free.

I was so thankful for these gestures and I was struck by the thoughtfulness of this community.

Every day as my husband and I go out, it's almost like I'm in whiplash because an area of the city can change so quickly from affluent to poor.

A very nice and fancy house can be right next to or in the middle of a boisterous local market where people are haggling and calling out to get customers.

And my American mind just can't make sense of it.

In America, we compartmentalize, and we use zoning laws to do it.

The rich live almost completely separate lives from the poor, almost acting like they don't exist.

If you asked me which I'd prefer, I'd have to say American zoning laws, but I do understand that it is important to be in the midst of people in all walks of life.

At most street food spots I go to, the servers are young teenagers.

They should be in school, but their family needs them to contribute and there are no laws to keep them in school.

So they work long hours almost every day.

I want to give them the world, but I realize I can't do this for everyone.

Vietnam has come so far in the last 50 years, and I hope that in the coming years this is something that can be improved.

Culture shock and culture stress takes a toll on the body.

Because everything is new to me, it's like warning bells are constantly going off in my head.

I find I need more sleep than I normally would, and I'm realizing that it's important to do things that are restful and rejuvenating for me.

Things like reading a book, watching an old TV show, calling friends and family from back home, or spending time reading my Bible.

A few years ago when I lived in another foreign country, I wasn't very good at giving myself grace in these things.

I was constantly beating myself up that I wasn't meeting my impossible standards I had made for myself.

This time around though, I'm doing it differently.

After all, this is my first time living in Vietnam, so I'm not supposed to automatically know how to fully function here.

And this also applies to you guys, because several of you are going through big changes, like studying abroad, moving to a new job, or just going to a new school.

This is new, something you're unfamiliar with, but I know you're strong, so I hope you will give yourself grace and persist.

These things take time, but in time, you will look back and realize that you are now comfortable in your new phase of life.

Goodbye for now, and I'll see you in the next one.