Teaching in Asia: Why I chose Vietnam.

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Bob Fagan is a TEFL teacher currently working in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.  He’s fully qualified and even has an MA in TESOL! In this post he shares his reasons for choosing to teach in Vietnam.

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So you’ve got your TEFL certificate or – Congratulations! – your MA in teaching English as a second/foreign language. Your ticket to a rewarding job and an international lifestyle. But where to teach? The choices seem limitless and sometimes daunting. I can’t tell you where you should teach, but I can tell you the five factors that helped me to choose the country and city where I’m now teaching: Saigon, Vietnam.

The People

Vietnamese people are among the friendliest people in the world. You’ll find them intensely curious about you – I can’t count the number of bus rides (and the bus is a great alternative to scootering about) I’ve taken that have turned into a talk show interview, with the rest of the passengers listening intently as I’m interviewed by an older veteran (sometimes the driver). The Vietnamese tradition of respect for elders also means – if you’re an older teacher like me – that teenagers will nearly always offer you their seat if the bus is crowded. And if they don’t the conductress will remind them of their filial responsibility before shoving you (gently) into your newly vacated seat.

Vietnamese students are generally polite and respectful as well. There is a tradition of respect for education and educators in Vietnam and it shows in the ESL classroom. You’ll likely encounter students with impressive career goals and a willingness to work hard to achieve them. They’re not perfect little robots – hey, they’re teenagers! – but for the most part they are well-behaved and eager to learn.

Size and Location:

If Ho Chi Minh City were relocated in America it would be the largest city in the USA, by a good 4 million people. When I was 22 I lived for a year and a half in New York City, and loved that feeling of being at the heart of a major metropolis. Living in HCMC has allowed me to finally recapture that sense of excitement. You won’t run out of things to do or new places to explore here anytime soon. HCMC is also ideally located for teachers looking for a base from which to explore Southeast Asia and beyond. Incredibly cheap bus fares are easily found to places like Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Angkor Wat or Luang Prabang, Laos. Travel within Vietnam is very inexpensive as well.

Cost of Living:

Saigon is a very VERY cheap place to live. Grizzled expats – ungrizzled ones too – complain that it’s not as good as it was whenever it was that they got here, and I’m sure they’re right. It doesn’t matter – it’s still cheap, and if you work enough hours you’ll put some money in the bank as well.

If you avoid the more expensive western food offerings and eat street food or at local Vietnamese places, you can eat on less – sometimes much less – than $7/day, and that’s including a few cold cans of local brew. City buses cost about 25 cents a trip; gasoline is cheap and you can rent a scooter for about $50 US/month. Travel to locations within and outside Vietnam are incredibly cheap – try round-trip to Phnom Penh for $17, or to Angkor Wat and back for about twice that. Housing costs have risen somewhat in the last few years, but it’s still possible to find a furnished 1 bedroom for about $400, or a room in a shared household for roughly $250, plus utilities. I work a combination of gigs that total around 16 hours a week, allowing me to live in a very comfortable 1 bedroom in District 3, while still leaving me enough free time to work on that novel about this guy who moves to Saigon to be a teacher.

The Food:

Vietnam is a world-class Mecca for food lovers. Many travelers are aware of the most commonly known meal – pho, a rich meat-based broth with rice noodles and chunks of everything from beef and chicken to congealed pig’s blood. It’s a traditional Vietnamese breakfast food, but you can find restaurants and street vendors selling it at any hour of the day.

Many local Vietnamese restaurants often feature only a few items on the menu – if there’s even a menu at all. I go twice a week to a small lunchtime place near my apartment. There I pay about $1.10 for a substantial plate of fresh-grilled pork or chicken over rice, with vegetables on the side, a bottomless bowl of purple yam and rice soup, and weak iced tea. The Banh Mi (Vietnam’s delicious version of the American hero sub) ladies on my alley sell their sandwiches for $1.00 apiece, and sometimes invite me to have dinner (usually homemade pho) with them – their treat. The pho would be a bargain at any price, let alone free. Their welcoming friendship is priceless.

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