Vietnamese smiles

Vietnam in the foreigners’ eyes, as Dave mentioned, mass of people, constant noise even air pollution. Vietnamese, especially enthusiasm souvenir shoppers or venders, continuously attract honest customers from other countries but always overcharge them. Some newcomers may misinterpret and raise a feeling of tiresome then they promise to themselves that they will never come back to Vietnam. However, Vietnam is far from the memories, it a charm, not a charm of its natural beauty. It is humanity. Once you come Vietnam and leave this place with testiness, latterly you will find your self in memories of Vietnam because there is no where in the world you can see smiles like Vietnamese ones.

Many non-native people get themselves in troublesome with Vietnamese smiles, and they wonder why people here always smile. They smile as they feel sad, happy, angry, make a mistake, even when saying sorry. It is not easy to understand, perhaps someone must live here for a long time, and then they will find a key to this question.

Vietnam, a country of wars and poverty but never yield to any power, is a heroic people. People have strange concept of happiness and misery influenced dramatically by Buddhism. They believe in samsara, naturally they also think that after suffering misery, they will be happy and if they can not have, their later generations will have. In the past, Vietnamese smiled when fighting against enemies inasmuch their sacrifice would bring a bright future for their children. They felt a vindictive hatred for the aggressors and the traitors, however, always opened their hearts to losers and deeply sympathized with anyone’s misery without distinguishing friend or foe. Vietnamese people remind their children of the past not to make their new century revenge to the enemies in the past, they just want fellow generation to remember hardness of the old and make them respect what they are having, peace and happiness.

Vietnamese, at present, forget their losses in the past but never get rid of their characteristics. Manual labors industriously work all day and night for the children. They love life and easily accept hardness. If you have time to walk around Hanoi at noon, on pavements along Hanoi streets, you will see the motorbike and cyclo drivers sleeping in the vehicles that they use to earn their living however severe are weather conditions then they wake up and smile to take tourists in want of going sightseeing. So please don’t feel angry by constant invitations of venders, of motorbike or cyclo drivers, because they are trying to earn their family with 3 schooling children and a wife without work.