For the past 20+ years, I’ve watched Vietnam change dramatically. Now as I visit the country after a three-year absence because of the COVID pandemic, I can see that yet more dramatic change has taken place.
While there are many different ways in which I detect change, such as an increase in global name-brand stores in places like Saigon, there is one change that I think is particularly important: I see less “nhậu.”
To “đi nhậu” (go nhậu) in Vietnam means to go drinking (and eating). People usually nhậu in groups, and when you get a nhậu restaurant filled with people, it can be very loud and “dynamic.”
So why is there less nhậu now? Well, the government got very strict on drinking and driving a while ago, and now if you are caught driving after drinking you have to pay a very big fine. That has lessened the amount of nhậu.
At the same time, there are groups in Vietnamese society who are not as interested in nhậu. Young people, for instance, do not necessarily see it as cool, particularly in the main urban areas. And then there are middle-aged people who have turned to more “sophisticated” forms of enjoyment. This may very well still involve alcohol, but it is consumed in more “elite” and subdued ways.
As I think about nhậu, I see it as having played a very important role in forming how outsiders view Vietnam.
I’m part of a generation of foreign scholars who “discovered” Vietnam in the 1990s and early 2000s. I think all of us to some degree or another became attracted to Vietnam because it was “different.”
Its delayed economic development meant that it was different from places like Thailand and Singapore, and there were cultural and social practices that made it distinct as well. One such difference was “đi nhậu.”
There are foreign scholars who like to “đi nhậu” and there are those who do not like it, but regardless of one’s perspective, I think every one of my generation was exposed to it by virtue of the fact that it was a main form of entertainment and one way or another you ended up at nhậu sessions when you were in Vietnam to do research.
I don’t know if I can prove this, but I have a theory that nhậu has played an important role in influencing how foreign scholars view Vietnam. In particular, and to use some terminology from post-modern/post-colonial theory, I think nhậu has influenced foreign scholars to see Vietnam as an “Other.”
For readers who don’t understand what that means, basically when you “Other” (using the term as a verb here) another society, it means that you view that society as somehow essentially (or hopelessly) different, and I think that certain behaviors and ideas that were expressed at nhậu sessions enabled such “Othering” to take place, even among people who enjoyed to “đi nhậu.”
The reason why I think this is important is because I have also seen a kind of “Othering” in the way that foreign scholars have presented their scholarship about Vietnam in conference settings. There is a way of presenting information about Vietnam that I can see in some scholars, but certainly not all, that assumes that the audience agrees that there is something “different,” even “comical,” about the Vietnamese.
This is really difficult to explain, but certain scholars (again, “some,” not all) will present information that will be somewhat sarcastic and which will not depict certain actions or practices, either in the past or now, as serious and logical, just as it is difficult to accept as serious and logical the guy at the nhậu session who tells you the same sexist joke that you’ve heard at every other nhậu session about how there are “three things that men eat with their hands”. . .
Sociologist Kimberly Kay Hoang recently published an article about what we might think of as an extreme form of “nhậu” in the business world – sessions where business partners drink together and then have sex with women.
In this article, Hoang points out that while this was a kind of standard practice in the past, there are now business owners in Vietnam who make the choice not to engage in such a practice.
For the foreigners who work with the businesses that do engage in that extreme form of “nhậu,” it’s clear from Hoang’s article that they rationalize these practices by seeing Vietnam as different, as an “Other.”
As far as I know, the nhậu sessions that academic scholars have experienced are nothing like the types of events that Hoang documents in her article, nonetheless I think that the effects of these experiences on the ways that outsiders view Vietnam are similar.
However, just as there are now business owners who do not engage in “extreme nhậu” practices, there are extremely educated and talented Vietnamese who do not nhậu either. So, what kind of knowledge about Vietnam will the foreigners who interact with such people develop?
Will it be different from those who were more exposed to nhậu?
I don’t know.
At the moment I kind of feel like Zhuangzi and his butterfly dream. I can’t figure out if there is something we can theorize about nhậu and knowledge production, or if I just “đi nhậu” and am now imagining that there is something that we can theorize about nhậu and knowledge production. . .
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I left VN over 40 years ago, however occasionally visiting the motherland. The last visit was December 2019, just before Covid hit. I can say from experience that the nhau culture is real and widespread. It is almost something that people feel proud about. There are even “hangover” pits at the back of the nhau places for nhausters to instant detox in order to instantly re-nhau. This culture is so prevalent that it made me feel like an outsider for not partaking, as I’m not into nhau. On every occasion of a business meeting, the inference was – let’s discuss this at a place I know down the road.
To make matters worse, this culture is carried over to overseas VN community, ie Australia. In my regular soccer sessions on Saturdays, there would be occasional bbqs with of course nhau in company. 1, 2, 3 zdo is heard dozens of times. Those who don’t drink are unfortunately and unfairly always under some peer pressure. It is an exception rather than the rule to be able to withstand this real nhau culture pressure. It may have changed in the recent years as evident by the reduced activities in this pastime.- I’ve spoken to a few who have just come back from Saigon in the last few days. I’m inclined to think that it is due more to the economic impact from Covid than any newly introduced drink driving rules.
I’m therefore in the Kimberley Kay Hoang camp in this regard.
Thanks for the comment!! Yes, there are definitely more factors than the drinking and driving law. Economics – that could be true for people at the working-class level. I was thinking more of the white-color level. They still have plenty of disposable cash. While nhau may have always existed in Vietnam, when I first came in the late 1990s it was still pretty limited. Then in the 2000s it really started to grow, and by 2010 it seemed like everywhere you looked was an advertisement from an alcohol company and people were drinking like there was no tomorrow. At one level, I think some people might also be burnt out, and COVID may have led people to break from their previous lifestyle. I’m not sure, but something is definitely different now from what it was like before COVID.
Oh, and as for the “fight” one has to make to not drink a lot, I just had a surprising experience the other night where it was incredibly easy, and with people who never accepted that before COVID. Maybe we’re all just getting older and mellower. I’m not sure. Something seems different though. Last night I went out and had ice cream and fruit juice. 🙂
Dear Prof Kelley,
Yes agree with you re white collar workers. Although I tend to think they have migrated to drinking red wine in air conditioned places rather than populating the many “dân ̣đen” drinking places lining the streets out in Tân Bình, Gò Vấp districts. My family are mostly middle class and higher. They are middle aged, educated and have found alternative pastimes (tennis, golf etc). But then again they are a minority.
Perhaps the enforced time off during the covid lockdowns has caused many to take stock of their life styles. I certainly hope so. The one perception that needs changing is that Vietnamese are proud of their ability to consume a large amount of alcohol per capita in SE Asia. The other perception (hard to argue) is the culture of drink anytime, any where and any day of the week.
By the way, having ice cream and drinking sinh tố on Bạch Đằng is always my go to when in Saigon
So, to update our conversation, I was talking to someone yesterday who acknowledged that the new law is definite a major deterrent, but who also mentioned these factors as well:
1) Work has become more “căng thẳng,” and so for many people the days when you could have several beers at lunch and then co back to the office and fall asleep are over;
2) Many more people have cars now, and A) they want to protect their cars and themselves, and B) nhậu places do not have (enough) parking spaces.
This person also acknowledged that working class people still nhậu, but it’s changing for the white collar workers.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
1) Yes, more tension due to difficult times economically around the world. Thereby affecting world consumption demand, potentially placing many jobs at risk. That will only affect their propensity to drink at work. It doesn’t affect their desire to drink after hours.
2) For a nation that has less than 3 cars registered per 1000 pp that may only affect a tiny privileged class. I’m not a pessimist, more of a realist. Until the figures are out, I’m not convinced that old habits wane unless some drastic policies are introduced. But then again the alcohol companies are monopolized by you know who so why would you change it.