If I Was Born in Vietnam: Motorbikes, Phở, and the Ancestor Altar

Imagine starting the day on a red plastic stool about thirty centimetres high, on a pavement in Hanoi, with a steaming bowl of phở in front of you and a river of motorbikes flowing past your knees. Your father is drinking a coffee so strong it drips slowly through a tiny metal filter. Your school bag is on the bike. If you were born in Vietnam, this is what a normal morning would look like: loud, communal, fast, and lived largely outdoors.

Childhood & School: The Year Starts on the Fifth of September

The Vietnamese school year opens in early September, around the fifth, with a ceremony in the schoolyard. It has two semesters and ends by the last day of May. Children go to primary school for five years, lower secondary for four and high school for three.

• The Grade 10 exam. To get into a public high school, especially a good one in a big city, most students sit a provincial entrance exam at about fifteen. Places at the best public and "gifted" schools are scarce, so the exam is a major family event, often preceded by months of extra classes.
• The graduation exam. At the end of Grade 12, a national high-school graduation exam both certifies students and, for many universities, decides admission.
• Respect for teachers. Teachers are treated with formal respect, and students bring them flowers and small gifts on special days. Many girls in high school wear the áo dài, the long silk tunic over trousers, as a uniform, a tradition revived since the late 1980s.

Vietnamese is written in a Latin alphabet with many accent marks, called chữ Quốc ngữ. It was developed by Portuguese and other Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century and gradually replaced Chinese characters. That is why a visitor who reads Spanish or French can sound out Vietnamese street signs on the first day, even without knowing what they mean.

Streets & Food: Breakfast at Knee Height

Vietnam runs on two wheels. About 79% of Vietnamese said in 2017 that they used a motorbike regularly, and the country has tens of millions of them, one of the highest ownership rates in the world. Families of three or four on a single scooter, a refrigerator strapped behind the driver, a whole wedding party in procession: all ordinary sights.

• Phở. Rice noodles in a clear beef or chicken broth scented with star anise and charred ginger. It first appears in records in early 20th-century northern Vietnam, with French and Chinese influences, and is above all a breakfast food.
• Bánh mì. A crisp baguette, a legacy of French rule, filled with pâté, pork, pickled vegetables, chilli and coriander. A Vietnamese invention built on a French loaf.
• Coffee. Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, almost all of it robusta. It is brewed through a small phin filter and often served over ice with sweetened condensed milk (cà phê sữa đá). Hanoi also invented egg coffee: coffee topped with egg yolk whipped with sugar and condensed milk.

In Vietnam, life happens on the pavement: breakfast, haircuts, homework, card games and long conversations, all at the height of a plastic stool.

Family Values: The Living and the Ancestors

Practically every Vietnamese home or shop has an ancestor altar: photographs of grandparents and great-grandparents, incense, fruit and small cups of tea or rice wine. Families talk to their ancestors, ask for their help before an exam or a journey, and gather for a feast on each person's death anniversary (giỗ). Traditionally, that date mattered more than birthdays, which were not widely celebrated before Western influence.

• Everybody is family in grammar. Vietnamese has no neutral word for "you". People address each other with kinship terms chosen by relative age: anh (older brother), chị (older sister), em (younger sibling), cô and chú (aunt, uncle). Talking to a stranger means first working out who is older.
• Very common surnames. In 2022, about 31.5% of Vietnamese were named Nguyễn, followed by Trần (10.9%) and Lê (8.9%). So people are called by their given name, which comes last: Mr. Nguyễn Văn An is "Mr. An".
• Filial duty. Children are expected to care for their parents in old age, and grandparents often live with or near one of their children and help raise the grandchildren.

Tết: The Holiday That Stops the Country

Tết Nguyên Đán, the Lunar New Year, falls in late January or February and is by far the most important event of the year. In the week before, families clean and decorate the house and many travel back to their home province, emptying the big cities. They make bánh chưng, square cakes of sticky rice, mung beans and pork wrapped in leaves, and buy peach blossoms in the north or yellow mai blossoms in the centre and south.

On the first days of the year, children receive lì xì, lucky money in red envelopes, and the whole family visits relatives and the graves of ancestors. The first person to step into your house in the new year is believed to shape your luck, so families choose that visitor carefully. A few months later, at the Mid-Autumn Festival (Tết Trung Thu), it is the children's turn: lantern processions and mooncakes.

Unique Laws & Systems: A One-Party State in a Market Economy

Vietnam is a socialist republic governed by a single party, the Communist Party of Vietnam. Since the Đổi Mới ("renovation") reforms of December 1986, it has combined that political system with a market economy open to trade and foreign investment. The result has been decades of fast growth: factories, new roads and a large new middle class that did not exist when your parents were born.

The trade-offs are real and openly debated inside and outside the country. Supporters point to stability, falling poverty and a government that delivers roads, schools and electricity. Critics point to tight limits on independent media and political opposition: in 2021, Reporters Without Borders ranked Vietnam 174th of 180 countries for press freedom. Growing up in Vietnam usually means talking freely about family, business and food, and carefully about politics.

Your Country vs. Vietnam

Vietnam has changed faster than almost any country in the last forty years, and these numbers show where it stands now. Pick your own country, or any other in the series, and compare.

Notice the combination: by Vietnam's own definition, fewer than 4 in 10 people live in urban areas, yet more than 8 in 10 use the internet. A village farmer checking crop prices on a phone is completely normal.