Nice article....
http://goslapdish.com/2015/04/saving-face-in-vietnam/
SLAPdish
Saving face in Vietnam
23rd April 2015 SLAPlife SLAPlife
Saving face in Vietnam
One of the most difficult problems that most foreigners face when coming to Vietnam is how Vietnamese deal with problems. It’s a big part of the culture shock that people experience when they come to Vietnam. Anyone who has lived in Vietnam for even a short time will no doubt have come up against this problem and will have some story to tell.
In most western countries there is a certain way in which people deal with problems. In the West when there’s a problem we tend to find out what the problem is, then search for solutions, and finally find the best solution and use it to fix the problem. Or at least that’s the idea; even we don’t always succeed. But in Vietnam and much of the rest of Asia this is not the case, instead if there’s a problem the typical response is to not say anything, but to instead walk away and pretend it never happened. There are many cultural and social reasons for why we tackle problems the way that we do and I’m sure that it’s the same for Vietnam.
When you live in a place that is extremely crowded and everyone is basically living on top of each other then it’s easy to see how you might not want to be dealing with another person’s crap all day and it would be easier to just say screw it rather than try to have a meaningful conversation, especially when that person is speaking a language you really don’t know and they have weird ideas.
I get that, and so I try to be sensitive to Vietnamese and their ways of doing things. I know I’m asking them to think outside of a pretty big cultural box when I try to get them to confront a problem rather than avoid it, but when I have to deal with a business and it effects my money or my visa status or I see that person every day, like my wife or a co-worker then I expect that there will be a little ‘meeting me halfway’ going on. Unfortunately, most Vietnamese do not understand the ‘meeting you halfway’ concept though, it’s the Vietnamese way or no way at all. Still as more and more Vietnamese come into contact with foreigners that is slowly beginning to change.
My wife used to have a real big problem dealing with any sort of problem in our relationship. As soon as there was any sort of problem she would clam up and I wouldn’t hear a word out of her about it ever again. There was no communication at all, but now when she gets upset after a few minutes she’ll tell me what’s upsetting her and then we can actually have a conversation about it.
So I know that there is the ability to learn how to talk about problems, but the difficulty arises when you have a problem with a random Vietnamese person like a taxi driver or a waiter or a shop clerk or a Vietnamese co-worker. That’s when real and legitimate cultural confrontations can happen.
Let’s look at an example of this. One that has happened to many of my friends and to myself also. A co-worker needed a Work permit, and the lady filling out the information in the office misspelled the person’s name. This caused a whole lot of problems for that person, but did the lady in the office ever offer any sort of apology or explanation? No, nothing was ever said even though this lady cost this person a lot of money and time to take care of this problem she created. When those things happen here it can be really frustrating.
Does anyone here have an example of when they had a problem with saving face? Post your stories for us to read.
Written by Nate Jensen