Tieng Viet lovers club

[V|ernar]

Originally Posted by jackbl

Can you join in? This saturday. Jc pub, not hcmc hor

Today I tried to go Tam Tam, during the 3 duration, I can only sing 1 round of songs.... so need to book a "lab" so that we can sing our heart out.....

TS, Bro AdGuy u wan to join???

depend on what time , do let me know

[haosac]

Originally Posted by V|ernar

count me in if there is a lesson ~

Come, join us. If you really want to know more bout TV, I will use my lousy English to share my TV with you seriously
Btw, I like ur story on chatline girl, u r funny bro

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by jackbl

We need to meet up earlier for registration at 7pm so that Lecturer will brief us before he conducts the practical....

1) Hosac
2) Jackbl
3) jf66312
4) shysaint
5) V|ernar

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by haosac

If you really want to know more bout TV, I will use my lousy English to share my TV with you seriously

Yeah, i want to know more... and it's now

This sms was sent to me dated 27/3/2010 .... I asked a Viet why she didnt work in the coffee shop already? Her replies :
"Tu tet den gio em nghi lam luon roi. Vi nhan vien lam viec 12 tieng, nha cua em o yishun xa lam. Nen luc can em thi Boss chiu cho em lam 10 tieng voi muc luong co dinh va cpf.

Can help to explain those words in red ? thanks in advance.

I guess : muc = mức = standard ; luong = lương = salary ; dinh = định = fix. But the whole sentence "muc luong co dinh"??? why got CO inside this sentence???

[ilovedoggie]

Originally Posted by jackbl

1) Hosac
2) Jackbl
3) jf66312
4) shysaint
5) V|ernar

bro shysaint also go? huhuhu.... i cannot go... wasted... huhuhu....

[jf66312]

Originally Posted by jackbl

Yeah, i want to know more... and it's now

This sms was sent to me dated 27/3/2010 .... I asked a Viet why she didnt work in the coffee shop already? Her replies :
"Tu tet den gio em nghi lam luon roi. Vi nhan vien lam viec 12 tieng, nha cua em o yishun xa lam. Nen luc can em thi Boss chiu cho em lam 10 tieng voi muc luong co dinh va cpf.

Can help to explain those words in red ? thanks in advance.

wuah...dtd 27/3/2010...more than a year ago...

anh bo thai ( not sure if i got the spelling wrong , basically it means i got nothing to say or too shock for words )

[haosac]

Originally Posted by jackbl

muc luong co dinh

I guess : muc = mức = standard ; luong = lương = salary ; dinh = định = fix. But the whole sentence "muc luong co dinh"??? why got CO inside this sentence???

You got it totally correct already. muc luong co dinh = mức lương cố định = fixed standard salary. The word "định" = fix cannot be used alone, unless you use "định" = plan. Must have "cố" or "đã" before "định" = fix. "cố định" ~ fixed (emphasise that the thing is unchangeable). "đã định" ~ fixed (not emphasise if the thing can change or not)

I think the problem is the sentence doesn't have tone sign, so it's more difficult to guess the word. If you don't find each single word (by using Vdict) making any sense, you may try to search for the combination words (in this case co dinh) by Google search, and see if it returns the possibility original words with sign (cố định) and then look that (or those, if Google returns more choices) up in Vdict again. I've just tried this method with only few words. This method will not work 100% though.

Originally Posted by jf66312

anh bo thai ( not sure if i got the spelling wrong , basically it means i got nothing to say or too shock for words )

Haha, the meaning is correct, it's anh bó tay though . "bó tay" = hands are tied ~ and thus leads to the meaning: nothing can do, nothing to say...

[jackbl]

Originally Posted by haosac

If you don't find each single word (by using Vdict) making any sense, you may try to search for the combination words (in this case co dinh) by Google search, and see if it returns the possibility original words with sign (cố định) and then look that (or those, if Google returns more choices) up in Vdict again. I've just tried this method with only few words. This method will not work 100% though.

If the words is without diacritics mark, i will not use Google translate. For this, use vdict better....

[ilovedoggie]

Originally Posted by jf66312

wuah...dtd 27/3/2010...more than a year ago...

i really salute him for his spirit of learning and enthusiasm on TV and viet culture.

[haosac]

Originally Posted by jackbl

If the words is without diacritics mark, i will not use Google translate. For this, use vdict better....

I meant using Google general search service, better to go to http://www.google.com.vn, as it's Vietnam search machine, it will show results with diacritics mark. Most times it will show the complete form of the words (and then you check the words with diacritics mark that Google search shown with Vdict again), sometime this might not help (I haven't encountered any yet though). For example, if you try co dinh, you will find a lot of cố định show up as results for Google search, and thus that is likely to be the possible complete form of the word. I have just tried this with quite a few more words (ví dụ, thiên tài, toàn năng, đã định, even some informal word like: dính chưởng, tinh tướng, etc.. you can try without diacritics mark and see if those words come up with the full sign like I listed here or try others words of your preference) the outcome is rather promising to me . It's just that some times there could be more than one possibility and then you have to check each one with Vdict to see which one makes sense (for example: tuong tu, google vn will show a lot of tương tư, tương tự...)

I actually have just discovered this method, hope this could help bros here from đau đầu in guessing the words without diacritics mark

[jackbl]

Is living in Vietnam really that cheap?
================================================== =

Dear readers,

It is good to see you again at the end of the week.

This week, we talked about an issue that most expats are concerned with both before and during their stay in Vietnam: cost of living.

Tomo Huynh, a software engineer, actually listed how much it really costs to live in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s biggest and probably most expensive city.

House rent is around US$200, a brand new bike goes for $800, bus rides are 10 cents, a Coke and a Vietnamese sandwich are both worth 50 cents, and the cinema charges $1.50 for a ticket, according to Tomo’s calculations.

The article has attracted several responses from Vietnamese who do not find living in the big cities to be cheap at all.

“It's cheap for foreigners only. For most of Vietnamese, whose average income is $150/month, it's not cheap at all,” wrote reader Thuy Vy.

“Most Vietnamese can't afford their bills. The market price keeps changing increasingly at high speed, and it never stops. It's not that cheap!” commented Trung Hau.

“It's only right for foreigners whose income is much higher than Vietnamese's. There is still a lot of people cannot cover their life cause of low income even though they've worked very hard,” remarked Tho Nguyen.

Reader Robert Fries also contributed his opinion, explaining that affluent expats are actually helping to push up prices for locals:

“Foreigners such as myself, even if we have a modest income by US standards, can live comfortably without so much struggle. Foreigners with a lot of money coming to live in Vietnam tend to raise the price of real estate, making it more difficult for the average Vietnamese to maintain their life style. I love Vietnam and wish to live in HCMC but do not wish to make things more difficult for citizens by driving up prices. It is a dilemma. Is there a solution?”

In another article, Tyler Watts, an American who lives with his family in Ho Chi Minh City, thinks that cost of living - whether cheap or expensive - really depends a person’s expenses:

“Talking about the cost of living is sure to draw equal passions for the average foreigner. State a price and you invariably have people on both sides to discredit you immediately, one claiming that the figures are far too short and another with the retort that the figures are far too ample”

Tyler thinks the cost of living in Ho Chi Minh City is both expensive and cheap, and it depends entirely on what individual people decide to spend.

“That’s not to say prices aren’t on the rise or that there aren’t places where it’s more or expensive, but as Graham Greene wrote, Ho Chi Minh City is a place where you can find whatever you are looking for,” he wrote.

Wherever you live, house rent accounts for a majority of living expenses. Searching for an ideal place to stay is not an easy thing to do, especially when you are an expat.
Zac Herman, an American living in Hanoi, tells us why he hasn’t found somewhere to move to after being shown one house after another.

“There’s a saying in America related to the success or failure of a piece of real estate, no matter what you choose to build on it: “Location, location, location”. That’s it. That’s my problem. I would go so far as to say that the unfortunate location of some of these beautiful apartments is absolutely tragic. It’s easy to see that the owners have spent thousands of dollars remodeling their apartments in the hope that it would be enough to compensate for the noisy streets, dirty food stalls, massage parlours, and dilapidated houses that surround many of these properties. While the interior of a home can be completely changed, the location of that home cannot be moved an inch.”

Angela Schonberg also encountered several problems during her hunt for an apartment in Ho Chi Minh City.

“Our new real estate lady took us to several units. The first was still being lived in, which made it very awkward for me. There were even two babies sleeping in the master bedroom when I wanted to look! The next unit was great and we said we were ready to move in, but there was a problem. Just minutes before we were shown the property was shown to us it was shown to another group. After some frantic phone calls by our lady we learned we were too late,” recalled Angela.

However, she is luckier than Zac, since she eventually found somewhere to settle down:
“Finally, we were shown a unit with a great view, plenty of room, and no one was currently living in it. The final price was right what I wanted to spend, $550 a month, plus the extra charge for using the gym, parking garage, and pool only came to $50 a person. I loved it and I put the money down that very day”.

What are your stories about living in Vietnam? To share your experience living here with us, send an email to [email protected]

Have a great weekend.

[jackbl]

Sure???? True????

Cost-of-Living in Vietnam: It's Really Cheap
================================================== =====

So there's been a lot of chatter in the Saigon twitter community lately about the average income of Ho Chi Minh City and whether US$600/month can get you a decent middle-class lifestyle here.

This is what it costs to live in Saigon, Vietnam's (and all of French Indochina's) largest, busiest city and commercial center:


Housing

For about $200 a month I get a two-story house split into four rooms (plus bathroom) where I live and work. It's not downtown but I can get there in five minutes flat (I've timed it). I've paid less for accommodations but most foreigners pay more, while getting less. Any newcomer to Vietnam should first stay in temporary housing until they can find housing that isn't targeted/price/marketed at foreigners, unless you're an ex-pat whose company pays for housing (this is another reason why ex-pat housing prices are inflated).

On the other hand, many local Vietnamese would consider my house extravagant and expensive. But Vietnamese, like their American counterparts, seem to think that homeownership is a God-given right and normally buy instead of rent anyways. Families that establish themselves here will buy a home even if it means living in the suburbs. For me, given how cheap it is to rent versus buy property in the inner city, it makes no sense to buy. In the US it makes more sense because rent is higher compared to house prices. My rent here wouldn't make a dent in a mortgage payment, but then again most Vietnamese don't take out mortgages. They buy their houses in cash, or gold.

Transportation

Like many developed countries like Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, or most of Europe, car ownership is low here. The government is partly to thank for this because they tax imported cars 100%. Unfortunately, Vietnam's entrance into the WTO will change all that in a few years.

The way to get around in Vietnam is by motorbike. For $800 you can get a brand new Honda that will cost you three dollars to fill up once or twice a week. The streets of Saigon are jampacked with people who can not only afford motorbikes but who can afford fancy ones costing several times as much, up to $10000 after the government made high CC bikes street legal. To get a feel for how large the Vietnamese middle class is, one need only stand by the street and count how many automatic scooters go by.

Alternatively, one can flag one of the numerous taxis clogging the streets for about 50 cents (flag fall) or take a motorbike taxi costing 25 cents for short trips. Bus rides are 10 cents. The city bus takes you as far as the Cambodian border.

So for the price of insurance on a car in the states you can get around pretty economically here.

Food

This is a land where food grows in abundance. So much so that we export to neighboring countries like the Philippines which are in shortage. Food is cheap here.

For $1 you can get a bowl of phở which many people in the North eat for breakfast every day. A set lunch for office workers consisting of a rice dish with meat, some veggies, soup, and some fresh fruit and iced tea will set you back from $1 to $2. Getting a coke or coffee outside could cost you less than 50 cents, the same price as a Vietnamese sandwich. The bread alone, a Frenchi-ie sub-sandwich roll is only 10 cents. Still, many families prefer to save money by cooking at home and shopping at local markets instead of supermarkets. Every person in this city is within walking distance of a market.

A feast with friends outside with a few beers, maybe some seafood, may cost each of you $5. A Heineken is $1. Local beers are cheaper. Homebrewed is even cheaper still, perhaps 10 cents a glass. It's no wonder many foreigners come here and instantly become alcoholics.

P.S. You aren't expected to tip at restaurants.

Cigarettes are not food but they're also cheap. A pack of Marlboros is $1 unless you're the idiot coming up with numbers for Numbeo.com. Local brands are cheaper. You can also buy a single cigarette for a nickel.

Entertainment

Just sitting on the street in Vietnam is entertainment enough. But if you want to escape to the cinema in the afternoon it will cost you $1.50, more if you want to watch Avatar in 3D. A DVD at the shop is 50 cents. And I've always had HBO, Cinemax, and Star Movies at home for free, included in rent.

Taking the bus to the beach will cost you $3. Staying overnight will cost you $10.

Taking a bus into the highlands will cost a few bucks. A bus to Cambodia costs $10. And flights to places like Singapore or Bangkok are about $50 each way.

The End

I'm not a parent but I could easily fit a family of four in my house. I already have maid and laundry service ($36/mo) but in this hypothetical Vietnamese family the mother would stay at home whereas the hypothetical middle-class American mother would be put to work. The kids could go to public school or private school. Private high school in Vietnam averages $90/year and university tuition ranges from $100-$250 or much more for the dumb but wealthy kids.

The middle-class family in Vietnam has choices when getting around, whether by public transportation, private transportation, or hired transportation. They can live in a big city while living in a big home and can spend more time with their children and less time on household duties. They eat well, despite basically starving not many years ago, and have many choices when it comes to protein. And they can choose to send their children to private school, while many of their children even go study abroad. It's not a bad life, really, for $600/month.

And in the smaller cities in Vietnam, life's even cheaper.

UPDATE: Global oil prices have gone up and although the state subsidizes gas prices, they are still higher at the pump compared to before. Still, bus rides on the Saigon Bus are 3000 VND when you buy a 30-ticket book. That means for less than $5 you could ride the bus somewhere every day of the month. Think of it another way: You can ride the bus 7 times for a dollar. So if you take bus transportation into consideration when choosing a place to live you can save considerably.

* This article was first posted on the Saigonist blog owned by Tomo Huynh, a Japanese-born American software engineer who writes about technology and life in Vietnam.

[Hurricane88]

Jackbl, thank you for posting such nice article to read.

Makes me more definite to retire in hcm.

[jackbl]

Shoestring or Big Bling? Yes to both
================================================
Mention traffic in Vietnam to any expat and you assuredly will get a string of comments of disdain, a 10-fold solution for what could be done and an additional 15 part argument for why that solution will never work. Talking about the cost of living is sure to draw equal passions for the average foreigner. State a price and you invariably have people on both sides to discredit you immediately, one claiming that the figures are far too short and another with the retort that the figures are far too ample.


If I were to say that I eat for VND 30,000( US$1.5) for lunch everyday, there will be those who say VND100,000 is reasonable and those who will state (possibly with a wry smile of personal one-upmenship) that they eat lunch for VND15,000 everyday.



The truth is, the cost of living in Ho Chi Minh City is both expensive and cheap and it depends entirely on you (I imagine this could be really said for anywhere).That’s not to say prices aren’t on the rise or that there aren’t places where it’s more or expensive, but as Graham Greene wrote, Ho Chi Minh City is a place where you can find whatever you are looking for.

So whether it’s fine French cuisine in a riverfront villa or a stool that teeters on the edge of the traffic-laced street, there’s something for you. Whether you want a fully-serviced apartment on the edge of District 1 or a humble abode in an outlying district, you have your options. The best thing about Ho Chi Minh City is that you don’t have to choose just one side either.

That said, there are a few areas where I divulge from my pluralistic view of “It’s Up to You-nomics” above. Food prices are rising, gas and electricity have seen surges lately, but the area where high prices are most apparent has been chiefly in housing. While rent can vary from broker to district, I would say that there are still deals to be had and places where foreigners are clearly paying too much. But where it really is ridiculous is in housing sales.

The bubble that is the housing market, and by extension land as well, is an area where artificially high prices are rampant. By definition of lenders I believe I would be in the category of most eager buyers but the reality is I don’t want to borrow away my life for the privilege of a modest apartment in Binh Chanh or Cu Chi.

At the current rates, perhaps only the swamps of Can Gio are within my practical budget (and my dreams of being river pirate). As Ludwig von Mises says a boom like that, while every effort can be made to hold it up, is bound to collapse sooner or later and with recent news regarding housing and the property market I would wager it will be sooner than later.

[jackbl]

Finding an Apartment in HCMC
==========================================
Recently the lease on the house I was renting in District 3 for $800 a month came to an end. I enjoyed my stay but the house had its share of problems during my stay, the downstairs flooded once and there was some construction kicking into high gear next door, and I decided that I would be moving on to greener pastures. The only problem was that I really hadn’t looked for my own place in the city before, as the house I was moving out of was found by one of my roommates before I arrived in the country. After figuring out what I was looking for, like the number of bedrooms I needed and how much I wanted to pay, it was time for me to do some investigating!


The first thing I did, something I probably do too much of, was to ask a Viet friend for help. She was more than happy to help me out and she came back the next day saying she had found the perfect place and, to top it off, it was the same size as my current house for $200 a month less! That night, I excitedly followed her to the house. Unfortunately, things that sound too good to be true usually are and the new house didn’t win me over. It was down a dark, narrow alley, surrounded by houses, and it had very few windows. It made me feel claustrophobic! My friend had been so sure that I would like it, I felt bad telling her that I wasn’t interested and I think that to this day she is still upset with me.

After that debacle I decided to give a real estate company a try. By this time, a few friends had heard I was looking and gave my number to their “guy” so I had a couple agents wanting to set up some viewings for me. This would be a new experience for me, as in the US we rarely have a real estate agent that helps with rentals. If you want to rent you have to do most of the leg work yourself and search listings online and in newspapers to find rentals. By this time I had thought I had decided I wanted to live close to District 1 so, the day before I was to look at places with my real estate guy, I decided to do some of my own leg work and look at a few of the places on my own to give myself, and the realtor, a better idea of where I was willing to live.

I was surprised that rentals closer to the city were so expensive. Maybe my rent price was skewed because a good friend had recently found a nice, 2-bedroom apartment in District 7 for an unbelievably low $500 a month, but places like the Manor and the Saigon Pearl were over twice as much! You’d expect that, with the higher prices you pay, that more would be included with your unit. However, the gyms and pools at these complexes are still extra, and expensive, costing nearly an extra $100 a month per person. After looking at units in several apartment buildings near downtown I decided that paying twice as much in rent wasn’t worth the ten-minute drive I’d be saving myself from.

Coincidentally, the moment I decided that it was Phu My Hung or bust, a friend mentioned that there were units available at an Apartment with a pool, a gym, and great views for around $500 a month. When we arrived at the complex I knew it was perfect but I still had to see units that were available. Our new real estate lady took us to several units. The first was still being lived in, which made it very awkward for me. There were even two babies sleeping in the master bedroom when I wanted to look! The next unit was great and we said we were ready to move in, but there was a problem. Just minutes before we were shown the property was shown to us it was shown to another group. After some frantic phone calls by our lady we learned we were too late.

This kind of problem is rare back home because, unlike Vietnam, when rentals are shown the agent usually has exclusivity, which means only one agent shows the property instead of every agent in Ho Chi Minh City. Finally, we were shown a unit with a great view, plenty of room, and no one was currently living in it. The final price was right what I wanted to spend, $550 a month, plus the extra charge for using the gym, parking garage, and pool only came to $50 a person. I loved it and I put the money down that very day. The apartment hunt was stressful, but everything worked out and I’m happy with my new home, and with the money I saved from moving out of downtown I can treat myself to a relaxing vacation!