Most Vietnamese people, especially women, are very timid at first when meeting foreigners.
After talking and getting to know each other, if they feel you are trustworthy, they might invite you to hang out with their friends, over to their house or to dinner with their family or even to some important family events as if you are their close friend, and this progress happens very quickly.
They often feel difficult to break the ice with a foreigner. They apply this thinking to any situation such as work, business, and friends for example.
The Vietnamese has been described as energetic, sentimental, pragmatic, entrepreneurial, proud, industrious and hardworking. As is true with the Chinese, their natural tendencies often seem to fly in the face of what is expected of good Communists.
Vietnamese are very friendly, easy-going and have an easy smile. Barbara Crossete wrote the Great Hill Stations of Asia , the Vietnamese are “warm, inquisitive, generous people who want to draw an outsider into whatever activity is at hand.” It is hard to believe that were such tough fighters during the Vietnam War.
Vietnamese like to joke around. They like sarcasm and puns but their jokes often defy easy translation into English. The Vietnamese arguable have a very individualistic streak. When you watch them drive or do exercises in a park they often appear to be doing their own thing. The Chinese, by contrast, with exercise anyway, like to do things together as a group.
Confucian Vietnamese have a reputation for being aggressive and businesslike like the Chinese, which contrast with the relative mellowness of Buddhist cultures in Laos, Burma, Cambodia and Thailand. There is a Lao proverb that goes “Lao and Viet, like cat and dog.” The French used to say “The Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Lao listen to it grow.”
Many Vietnamese customs and values are rooted in both the Confucian respect for education, family, and elders, and the Taoist desire to avoid conflict. Vietnamese tend to be very polite, avoid talking about feelings, and are stoic. Thua (meaning please) is added in front of an honorific name to show respect to elders. To show respect, more traditionally minded Vietnamese bow their heads to a superior or elder.
Traditional Vietnamese culture is concerned more with status (obtained with age and education) than with wealth. If one were to rank them in their importance, education would likely come first, followed by age and then wealth. In Vietnam, professions that are high status include doctor, priest, and teacher. Educated people and others who are not in the peasant class do not work with their hands. To do so would appear to try to beat a poor peasant out of his job. In addition, it is considered beneath the dignity of refined people.