Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Americans are retiring to Vietnam

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 254 posts

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#221

Post by latchkey »

ncmncm wrote: post #212

It takes a lot of cheek to kill, what, 2 million people? participating in a pointless war, and then retire there. Americans, AIR?

Yea, I felt the same way, but I realized a couple things after living here for 4 years... Vietnam is now a very young country... in the same way that kids born in the late 1990/2000's don't remember the Gulf War, kids in Vietnam have no association with the war. They don't care about it at all.

The kids also do not trust their govt. or the education they get in school. They now have access to the Internet and can learn things on their own.

For the older generations, the other part is that America has, in a way, redeemed itself. First was the attempt at the end of the war to rescue millions of people. We've also brought great wealth to the country and for better or worse, taught them capitalism (Clinton in the 90's). People may be dirt poor, but nobody in Vietnam goes hungry anymore.

So yea... it just isn't how is looked upon anymore.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#223

Post by somebadguy »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #101
fxtentacle wrote: post #62

That guy must have been incredibly lucky with the timing. When I researched housing prices in the nice areas of Saigon in 2018, 50 square meter 1 bedroom apartments were sold at $300,000+. And "sold" here means you rent it perpetually from the development company to circumvent that 50-year land ownership limit. But that can put you at risk in case said company folds. Oh and I've also heard a lot of stories about Viet…

>>>Oh and I've also heard a lot of stories about Vietnamese women becoming rather disenchanted of hip cool American backpackers, the latter of which presumably read articles like this and decided to try their luck. The backpacker area of Saigon is considered more like a slum that you try to avoid at night. Hanoi's French Quarter is the same way, and I'm glad the local women are hip to the game. They'll ask you "where…

Genuinely hope you die - you white cunt

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#224

Post by lazyasciiart »

glofish wrote: post #175
Descartes1 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is one of the only nations in the world that taxes its expats also. You can't escape the USA. You are the property of the tax farm.

I believe the reason for this is simple (though understandably unpopular): A lot of people that get rich because of America would just drop American citizenship once they do get rich to avoid paying back into the system that allowed them to become successful. There is no other country that offers as much upward mobility as the US to its citizens. Hence the tax.

Nope. First of all, social mobility in the US is not better than anywhere else (https://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobi...) . Secondly, it's not that much harder to renounce US citizenship than other countries - in fact, in some ways it's easier because the US is the only country I know of that allows you to renounce citizenship without having another citizenship already. My point was only that you don't have to "actively keep" your citizenship, by visiting the US or any other means.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#225

Post by afthonos »

glofish wrote: post #175
Descartes1 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is one of the only nations in the world that taxes its expats also. You can't escape the USA. You are the property of the tax farm.

I believe the reason for this is simple (though understandably unpopular): A lot of people that get rich because of America would just drop American citizenship once they do get rich to avoid paying back into the system that allowed them to become successful. There is no other country that offers as much upward mobility as the US to its citizens. Hence the tax.

This is a pleasant fiction, isn’t it? A quick look will tell you that the US is far below the Nordic countries in social mobility. For instance:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#226

Post by trianglem »

rhacker wrote: post #149
trianglem wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got billed $22,000 for a rabies course and I have good insurance. Four rounds of immunoglobulins are expensive.

Whoa, I always figured that Rabies would be like a state covered thing, given that generally every case makes a news article. Sorry that happened to you, did you for sure come in contact with Rabies or just suspected?

Stray dog so there was a small chance.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#227

Post by trianglem »

spodek wrote: post #147
trianglem wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but who would want to live in cold, wintery Iowa when you have the option of staying in a place that is warm year round.

Can't get much colder or wintery than Finland, Denmark, and Norway, but > For the second year in a row, the world's happiest country is... Finland! > Finland topped the list of 156 countries, which were ranked in the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network's 2019 World Happiness Report. The report ranks countries on several well-being variables including income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectanc…

They’ve done well with what they have. I wouldn’t put their happiness down to the weather, rather I think it’s in spite of it.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#228

Post by trianglem »

sandworm101 wrote: post #146
trianglem wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but who would want to live in cold, wintery Iowa when you have the option of staying in a place that is warm year round.

>> when you have the option of staying in a place that is warm year round. Bugs. There is something to be said for a deep winter when opening a window doesn't mean invading in an Attenborough documentary worth of wildlife into your bedroom.

There are plenty of temperate places that are not tropical and don’t host a ton of bugs. Speaking of bug, the Russian tundra or Alaska are an absolute bug nightmare come summer.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#229

Post by longcao »

dmitriz wrote: post #201
coconut_crab wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health care in Vietnam is not not too bad, at least for the price. Surely you can't expect state of the art cancer treatments here but everything else is pretty affordable. My father just had an operation to fix his retinal detachment, everything costed less than 800 USD, and only 200 USD after insurance. Another guy I know had an operation for appendicitis, and he only needed to pay 200 USD for it. And both of them…

> Health care in Vietnam is not too bad, at least for the price. Let us see... My partner got what looked liked food poisoning when we arrived to Hue. Local hospital refused to take us, sent to a special hospital "for foreigners". She was put on a bed and kept waiting in pain for hours. The doctor didn't bother to do anything for her for hours, despite not too many other patients. We felt hungry, yet they refused to…

Poor your friend with such awful experience.

I'm a native VNmese in HCMCity. My wife is a doctor, we also have lots of friends/relatives working as doctors, pharmacists,... so I hope my sharing is not quite irrelevant.

In VN, you can get medical service with the same quality as US, if you know the right place to go. Sometimes you can find doctors with excellent proficiency, since VN is a good evironment for doctors to practice their skill and knowledge (rare cases, severe cases due to bad sanitary & healthcare mindset).

But again, the biggest challenge is that "right place". Not all great doctors work in the biggest hospitals, and not all well-known doctors are great.

Re: Americans are retiring to Vietnam

#230

Post by ErotemeObelus »

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #42
CPLX wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there are some differences between Myanmar and Tokyo right? There’s a lot of countries in Asia.

Ironically some of the SEA countries probably have better medical services than Tokyo. You guys are criticizing me for calling Asia a monolith but I can assure you the difference between Tokyo and Myanmar is smaller than NYU and the Midwest

> You guys are criticizing me for calling Asia a monolith but I can assure you the difference between Tokyo and Myanmar is smaller than NYU and the Midwest

Oh man the USA is going to have very interesting times when the 2020 election results are in.

Post reply on HN