For the most part I really enjoy living in Vietnam and don't want to not be living here any time soon. I tell this to a lot of people including the people that I recently met up with in Thailand. I lived in Thailand a lot longer than most people that aren't Thai and after revisiting there a little while ago I now know that I do not want to move back there but would rather stay here in Vietnam. I say this even though I can speak a meaningful enough level of Thai to get things done in banks in Thailand, whereas I don't even know any numbers past 3 in Vietnamese. The only reason why I know 1-3 is because those numbers are in one of the most popular ways to "cheers" before you drink some beer.
The other people that I know that live her also enjoy doing so and it is for a number of reasons. The main one being that this is one of the cheapest safe places to live in the world. One can easily live here for under $1000 a month all in. This would include all living expenses including rent. I've lived some places that are pretty cheap, but unless you were eating ramen noodles exclusively and living with several roommates I don't think this is possible at all in the USA.
It's a pretty wonderful country but I realize now that it is not for everyone because two of my friends that I have known for over 10 years and have visited in multiple countries as well as being a groomsman in their wedding, moved here to live and work and didn't even make it 6 months before they packed up and left.
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I'm not going to say that Da Nang is perfect because it certainly isn't. The architecture is boring (everything is a rectangle), there are a ton of people living here, and it is almost always very noisy. I think we could say that is true for almost any densely populated area in the world though, especially in South East Asia.
My friends experience is a little bit different than most people because they came here to be teachers and they kind of got screwed around by the schools a little bit and I think that when the 2nd round of BS came around, they were just like "fuck this, we are outta here." They came here without jobs thinking that their more than 10 years each of experience teaching in Thailand and Korea would make them in high demand. They did get some leads very early on and were hired by a language center pretty fast. Unfortunately this language center seems to be full of crap as far as processing work visas, work permits, and residency cards though because when they were first hired they had to leave the country for nearly 2 weeks for the visa to be processed. I have no idea why it takes so long or why you have to be out of the country for this to happen but it does seem to be the case.
They just went to Thailand for 2 weeks and finally came back with all the paperwork to provide to the equivalent of and "HR" department that was meant to be processing their extended visas as well as work permits. Well 2 months of their 3-month business visa go by, and they still haven't received any word from said HR department about the status of their paperwork. When they started to get a bit worried about running out of time they ended up finding out that the HR department hadn't even submitted their documents to government officials. They had other problems with this language center as well such as them not delivering on their promises of a certain number of hours per week. Teaching in a language center pays somewhere between 10 and 20 US dollars per hour so you need to be actually working if you are going to make a living.
At this point they had their fill with the language center and decided to quickly look elsewhere. They were almost immediately hired by a local public school with a salary that they were happy with and things looked like they were going to turn around. That was until they got hit with more red tape and they just weren't in the mood for it anymore. The school said the Education Department or whatever it is called here was requiring them to fly down to Ho Chi Minh City in order to prove that they are who they say that are and that it is in fact them in the passports.
I can understand why this would piss them off because they already had a mountain of paperwork that they have acquired over the past 5 months and we have tons of government offices here including police stations and a full-fledged Immigration building. Why make them fly all the way down to HCMC for something that can easily be done here. Basically they started feeling as though they were being made to jump through hoops just for the sake of jumping through hoops and they weren't going to do it anymore.
Their decision to leave was abruptly made, and even though I am one of their best friends in the world I was made aware of their departure just 2 days before it was going to happen. I think it was a decision made out of frustration, but I didn't try to talk them out of it. If you are not happy somewhere, then there is no reason for you to stick around in that place.
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To me, living in Da Nang is one of the most effortless places I have ever lived but then again, I have never tried to get a job here. I am fortunate enough that I am one of those remote workers or digital nomads that you have been hearing so much about ever since Covid. Hell, I was one of them long before Covid was even a thing.
I guess the point here is that this city isn't going to be for everyone and it is the people that actually need to work here that seem to have the biggest problems. I think that this is something that is frustrating about most countries because it certainly was for me during the 10 years or so that I was legally employed in Thailand: There seemed to always be a few more pieces of paper that I needed to provide to government officials basically all the time. I can only imagine that it is like this almost everywhere in the world.
Another factor for my friends is likely the fact that they were making pretty fantastic money in Korea before they ever moved here and nature was a lot more accessible there than it is here. This is one downside of Da Nang in particular. There actually IS nature here, but you are going to have to drive 20 km to just get to the entrance of a park or nature trail or something like that.
I'm disappointed to see my friends go, partially because of the fact that a bit part of the reason why they moved here in the first place was because I lived here and talked about how much I enjoyed living here. I think this is just a very good sign that people are different, and not everyone is going to agree on these sorts of things.
So if you are a teacher and think you would like to come to teach in Vietnam, just know that this case is proof that it isn't as easy as just rocking up and wanting to work. These 2 are much more qualified than most people and even they experienced difficulty so maybe if you are considering coming here to teach, to be prepared for a lot of headache along the way.
I hope they are happy wherever they end up going next. I would bet money that they end up simply going back to Korea because they are already familiar with how things work there and can demand quite large salaries because of their experience.
Bon Voyage friends!