The Meaning of Things

Some things just don’t have the same meaning in Vietnam and the U.S.   Here are a few examples… 

I was with some Vietnamese the other day and we were travelling to the airport.  It was over the lunch hour, so I asked if we could stop and get something to eat.  They said yes, to get some bread.  I was hoping for something more than bread – at least a sandwich.  We stopped at a sandwich shop and they said I could get some bread here.  So I ordered a sandwich.  Later, they told me that it meant the same thing.

More than once I have ordered “vegetables” from the menu only to get a few slices of tomato, cucumber, onions, and some lettuce.  It looks like food decoration - not real food.  It's not enough to even make a small salad, but I still eat it anyway.  

Recently, I was giving a lecture on ecotourism to some university faculty and students.  I was describing market segmentation procedures and used the example of bird watching.  This activity is popular among Westerners, but there is virtually no demand from the domestic market.  The first time I said bird watching, I heard a few women laugh and some started whispering to each other in hushed tones.  This was a bad sign.  Later, a guy told me that the term bird watching in Vietnam means looking at a certain part of the male anatomy (human, not bird).  You can imagine my surprise.  I plan to use another example in my next talk.

We have our own meanings in the U.S. and they are not shared universally.  For example, if Americans were to see two women holding hands while walking down the street, we would assume that they are lovers.  Even if the women told us otherwise, we would not believe them.  In Asian countries it is completely normal for grown women to hold hands.  So common, in fact, that every woman does it.