Vietnam tuned my attention to what was already within reach, like how happiness is a daily practice stitched from small choices.
I moved to Vietnam for the food, the energy, and the creative itch that hits when you land in a place that smells like herbs, exhaust, and possibility.
Somewhere between the morning markets and late-night bowls of noodles, I learned more about joy than I had in years of chasing success back home.
I spent my twenties in luxury F&B—precision, plating, service choreography, and the high of a perfect Saturday night when the room hums and every guest feels seen.
It was beautiful, but exhausting—so, I arrived in Vietnam with a refined palate and a Type-A routine, expecting to map my old life onto a new city.
Instead, the city remapped me.
A $1 bowl of soup reset my baseline
The first morning in Ho Chi Minh City, I sat on a low plastic stool and ordered whatever the woman with the metal cart was making.
It turned out to be bún riêu—tomato broth, herbs, tofu, crab paste for the table next to me, and for me, extra greens because I looked like a person who needed vegetables at 7 a.m.
It cost about a dollar.
The taste was bright and layered: Tomato sweetness, lime acid, the minty snap of rau răm, the lift of chili.
I’d spent years studying tasting menus with 20 steps, but this bowl stripped away the theater and left only intention.
Fresh ingredients, heat, balance, and care.
Was I full? Yes.
Was I satisfied? Absolutely, but did I need anything else? Nope, not really.
That bowl quietly recalibrated my “enough.”
Time moves differently when nobody rushes you
In America, my calendar was color-coded and back-to-back.
If I had five minutes between meetings, I treated it like failure but Vietnam changed that.
Cafés here are temples to lingering.
People camp on tiny stools for hours, just sipping cà phê sữa đá and watching scooters flow by like schools of fish.
No barista throws side-eye because you’ve been nursing one drink too long.
There’s a social contract: Your presence is welcome as long as your vibe is kind.
I started leaving 15-minute gaps in my day.
I didn’t fill them, I all but sat and watched—my nervous system stopped sprinting.
Honestly, I got more done when I wasn’t playing calendar Tetris.
Vietnam taught me to build margin into life, not just workouts.
Community shows up at the table
I was used to reservation books, names on doors, velvet ropes.
However, Vietnam runs on sidewalks as dinner spills into alleys and people share tables with strangers because space is a team sport.
One night in Da Nang, I ordered cơm chay—rice with a parade of plant-based sides: Lemongrass tofu, sautéed morning glory with garlic, pickled vegetables, a spoon of chili jam.
The owner saw me hesitate over the last tofu cube and slid her portion onto my plate with a laugh, no language needed.
Eating like that re-wires you; you stop treating food as an individual performance and start seeing it as a communal ritual.
Health feels like a lifestyle, not a project
- Courtesy of Unsplash/Jason Briscoe
Back home, health was a spreadsheet: Macros, more macros, and even more macros.
Here, in Vietnam, health sneaks in sideways.
Daily movement is baked into life—walking to the market, taking stairs because the elevator is slow, and biking because it’s faster than traffic.
Breakfast is xôi (sticky rice) with peanuts and sesame or a warming bowl of cháo with scallions and pepper.
Lunch leans “light but satisfying”: rice, vegetables, tofu, herbs.
Dinner might be a turmeric-stained bánh xèo you wrap with lettuce and more herbs than you’d put in an entire American salad.
The pattern matters more than any single meal.
Happiness grows from matching your environment to your values, and Vietnam made healthy default.
Taste taught me mindfulness
I’ve sat through tastings where the notes sounded like poetry—“stone fruit,” “wet river rock,” “late-summer hay.”
Lovely, but abstract.
In Vietnam, “mindful eating” clicked in a less performative way.
You tear basil, you smell it on your fingers, you drop it into hot broth and it hits your face like a minty sauna.
Moreover, you squeeze lime and the acid lifts the steam and crunch bean sprouts and the texture resets your whole mouth.
You’re not meditating about eating—you’re too busy actually eating.
Sometimes, mindfulness is about paying full attention to what’s already flying at you—heat, scent, sound, texture—and letting your brain say, “Oh, this is life.”
That attention—undefended and unscripted—felt like happiness.
The city rewards curiosity more than credentials
In America, status often unlocks experience suchs as titles, networks, the right reservations.
In Vietnam, curiosity beats clout.
If you’re willing to talk with your hands, learn two phrases, smile at three strangers, and point with conviction at whatever’s sizzling, doors open.
I stumbled into a family lunch in the Mekong Delta because I asked about the herbs in their basket.
Ten minutes later I was chopping lemongrass and trying not to cry from the chilies, learning the difference between heat and brightness in chili oil.
No one asked for my résumé.
Being useful—carrying plates, washing herbs, pouring tea—earned me more access than any business card ever did.
Useful beats “important” every time, and usefulness feels suspiciously like happiness.
Contribution beats consumption
Finally, the biggest happiness lesson snuck up on me during Tet (Lunar New Year).
The city slows, families gather, altars bloom with fruit and flowers.
I joined a friend’s family to deliver food to elderly neighbors who lived alone.
Simple packets: Sticky rice, fruit, a little cash tucked inside.
I felt the same end-of-service glow I used to get after a perfect Saturday night—only quieter and deeper.
No applause, no Instagram, just the warmth of having made someone’s day a touch easier.
Consumption is a thrill and contribution is ballast.
America taught me to chase the first, but Vietnam reminded me to build the second.
The myths I stopped believing
I used to believe happiness lived at the end of achievement—promotion, launch, and a reservation at the place everyone is tweeting about—but Vietnam cracked that story by showing me how happiness is local.
It lives in your morning bowl, the auntie who sells you herbs, the five minutes you give your nervous system to catch up, the plate you share with a stranger.
Like taste, it refines as you pay attention.
Sometimes, we’re bad at predicting what will make us happy but Vietnam is a laboratory for exactly that: Tiny, joyful tests you can run daily.
What I’m taking back with me
Happiness, for me, is now a daily practice stitched from small choices: A slower coffee, a shared table, a market-driven plate, a pocketed phone, and a useful errand.
Vietnam tuned my attention to what was already within reach.
If you want to test any of this, don’t wait for a plane ticket.
Start with lunch, build a bowl with a riot of herbs, eat it without a screen, leave ten minutes free on your calendar and don’t fill it, and share something you made with a neighbor.
You don’t need a new country to learn what Vietnam taught me, you just need to taste your life a little more closely.
