Sixty percent of Vietnam’s population is under the age of 30, according to business-in-asia.com. This interesting fact shows the youthfulness as a country and how Vietnam is one of the fastest developing countries. These characteristics of the third-world country are prevalent in the people. The Vietnamese people are so sincere, helpful, hard-working, kind and open to foreigners. It seems that they are much more accustomed to working with and interacting with foreigners. For example, a lot of the older men know how to speak English very well because they worked with Americans during the war. And a lot of the younger generation knows how to speak English because they interact with tourists from Europe, North America and other parts of the world. Because foreigners usually can’t speak Vietnamese, they communicate with English. I didn’t realize that English is really a language that everyone around the world knows a little bit of and uses even in countries like Vietnam. Surprisingly, the U.S. Dollar is accepted in Vietnam as well.

Vietnamese people will go out of their way to make you happy, especially if they are trying to sell you something and if you’re willing to give them a good price for it. For example, we bought tons of gifts and souvenirs from one lady in Ben Thanh Market. I asked for certain items that she didn’t have, so she went to the next store to get it for me. In addition, Randy bargains like crazy. His strategy is: the more you buy the more of a discount you get, which is true. Walking through Ben Thanh Market is madness. Women will pull you left and right to eat at their place or buy their items. But when we went to An Dong and Binh Tay Markets, there were no foreigners. All of these items are for the wholesale price. Hardly any bargaining can be done here. But, it’s still madness. People are buying things in bulk and lugging it out of the four-story market filled with people.