
Americans are retiring to Vietnam - diaphanous
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-12-25/americans-are-retiring-to-vietnam-for-cheap-health-care-and-a-decent-living-standard
======
fxtentacle
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 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.

One other thing that the article dangerously omits is the fact that food
hygiene and/or safety testing is still pretty much non-existent even in the
richest parts of Vietnam. If you're old, a bad food poisoning could well kill
you. And in Vietnam, you'll probably have one per year. That said, food is
super tasty and impossibly cheap.

~~~
CapricornNoble
>>>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 are you staying?" If you are anywhere near
Hoan Kiem Lake they will assume you are a broke backpacker and ghost you. When
I was staying at a serviced apartment at West Lake (a more upscale
neighborhood where foreign white-collar expats live) Tinder matches switched
to "OK I come to your place tonight."

>>>One other thing that the article dangerously omits is the fact that food
hygiene and/or safety testing is still pretty much non-existent even in the
richest parts of Vietnam.

I've also spent about 6 months in Vietnam, cumulatively over 6 six trips. I've
gotten brutally sick on 5 of those 6 visits. The lack of sanitation is the #1
reason I don't think I could EVER live there, no matter how much money I had.
You can't escape the E.Coli in every ice cube and tap water supply, the open-
sewer streets, and the choking air pollution.

~~~
JCharante
I live part time in Tây Hồ (fly back to the States for each semester of
school) and I just want to say that I've never gotten sick from the food. I'll
eat street food on plastic chairs, restaurants with and without AC, and places
that would be expensive even for foreigners. Of course I'll also eat what cô
cooks sometimes and it's delicious. I'm not denying that you've gotten sick,
but I'm just saying that it's different for everybody.

Ice cubes come from vendors and I'd be surprised if they're contaminated
(that's like the entire point of buying ice instead of making it from the
water supply).

The air pollution is something that is being worked on, but honestly it's not
really noticable (I buy a new n95 mask every other day, problem solved).

Regarding open sewer streets, I mean, some gaps between the sidewalk and the
roads are dirty but what place has sewage just flowing by? Seriously name the
street and I'll visit it today.

Also have you considered staying outside the foreigner bubble? (I bet you're
probably in Quảng An). Go see the real Hanoi, outside of menus that are in
English and don't even have Vietnamese on them.

~~~
vzttzv2
Any where the To Lich flow. Quan hoa is one example

~~~
JCharante
Wait that canal is sewage? I drive on that road everyday, never noticed it was
anything other than a cute waterway.

~~~
coconut_crab
Long ago it was a river, the French made it that way in the early 20th
century.

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pcurve
"They bought the four-bedroom, 3½-bathroom unit, measuring about 1,840 square
feet along with a separate veranda, for about $250,000 in 2011."

I'm sure it's a very nice place, but that sum is nothing to sneeze at. I
wonder how much it costs now, and what is monthly expense is.

Good thing is, American government has sensible reciprocal arrangement with
many countries that offer national pension system that you don't necessarily
have to wait until you hit full retirement age to live abroad and collect
social security checks from there.

~~~
colechristensen
$250,000 is more or less the median price for a house that size in Ames, IA, a
university town which regularly shows up on various "Best Places to Live"
lists.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
This obsession with cheap places to live intrigues me. In Memphis, TN you can
rent a decent apartment in a shitty part of town for $300 a month. And Memphis
isn't even close to the cheapest big city in the US.

In Birmingham Alabama, you can't get just as hot as you can in Vietnam, and
your rent will be pretty similar.

Yes, healthcare and food are more expensive, but not that much. And you'll
spend less on those two things over the year than if you come home once a year
to keep your citizenship.

~~~
lazyasciiart
You don't have to do anything to keep your American citizenship. You can't get
rid of it without a significant amount of effort.

~~~
Descartes1
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.

~~~
glofish
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.

~~~
selectodude
Also the services that the US Government provides to even their overseas
expats is pretty remarkable. I’m not sure there’s another country in the world
that can bail you out of a dicey situation within hours in almost any spot on
earth.

~~~
pseingatl
You don't know what you are talking about. The US overseas generally won't
lift a finger unless it has invaded the country in question. Canada, the UK,
Germany, Ireland, Japan: all in fact assist.

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teamwork007
One piece of information the article doesn't acknowledge is that property
rights in Vietnam aren't the same as they are in the US. So if a foreigner
"buys" an apartment in Vietnam, they can only have it for up to 50 years. In
other words, it's an asset that is steadily decreasing in value, and not one
that the "owner" can necessarily hand down to the next generation at a higher
or the same value unless changes are made to those laws.

~~~
jjeaff
Can they sell it at the end of those 50 years and buy something else? If so, I
can't see why purchasing one would necessarily be steadily decreasing in
value, except for the requirement of a rushed sale if you waited until the
very last minute to sell.

~~~
teamwork007
Because you wouldn't get your money back at the end of that 50 years. If you
sold it after 35 years, you would essentially be selling a 15 year contract to
own the apartment, which would likely be factored into the resale price.

~~~
teamwork007
With that said, 50 year property rights are likely a stepping stone to
something "better" since no one has hit that point yet, so the laws could
change before then. However a lot of other things could change before then
that might work against you (e.g.increase in corruption, attitudes towards
foreigners could sour, property rights policies could revert back to less
rights, etc).

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0x0aff374668
I've spent significant time in HCMC (about 6 months over four years). It is
vibrant, friendly, booming, tech heavy, and goddamn cheap. I didn't need
medical care, and didn't have to cook because food is amazing and cheap. I
computed about 1/10th to 1/12th the cost of my life in Northern Cali. I hope
when I'm older it is still cheap and not environmentally wiped out. (I'm also
biased because twice I met a woman who I thought was waaaay out of my league
and we ended up dating.)

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thaumasiotes
> Historically, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia were more common
> destinations for American retirees. But a higher cost of living, especially
> in coastal areas like California and New York, has pushed many farther
> afield.

Why would a higher cost of living _within the US_ push expats out of Malaysia
into Vietnam?

~~~
i_am_proteus
Increased demand for properties outside of the US as more people decide to
retire abroad.

------
bane
Something many people (especially Americans) forget to consider when selecting
a place to retire is the almost guaranteed need for lots and lots of high
quality medical care wherever you end up. I suspect many people here on HN
will retire with large enough retirement savings (and other assets) to settle
down like kings in many places in the world. But the distribution of high
quality care for _ahem_ people of advancing ages, is very uneven and most of
the places with better care have very high costs of living (e.g. Northern
Europe) or very high costs of medical care (everywhere U.S.).

There's also a desire to try to make daily costs of living stretch more and
many retired people will find themselves retiring to rural environments.
However, those places may also be very far away from the kind of emergency
medical care that's likely to be needed.

The intersection of decent cost of living, close to medical facilities, high
quality medical establishment, and affordable medical care leaves not too many
places in the world.

At the moment, my wife and I are considering retiring to South Korea (not
Seoul) or Japan (not Tokyo) since those seem to be places with that rare
intersection. I'm sure some places in Western Europe may also qualify.

~~~
quaquaqua1
Based on my medical care in the USA I can assure you Asian doctors are, _at
the very least_ , at the same level as US doctors. It sounds like an insult to
my ears.

~~~
pixelperfect
I can tell you from experience that an average doctor in a backwater county of
Arkansas is better than an average doctor in the capital city of Laos.

~~~
dmitriz
I can also tell from my own experience that an average doctor in Thailand's
backwater is better than in the capital of Ireland.

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

Americans, AIR?

~~~
latchkey
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.

------
tempsy
Seems like the reporter not so shyly pointed out that an incentive for these
men to retire to SE Asia is not just the healthcare but the women?

~~~
buboard
because men liking women is shameful?

~~~
tempsy
It’s not but the old white man/submissive younger Asian woman dynamic is one
of those uncomfortable stereotypes that ring true

~~~
fxtentacle
I'm not sure it's limited to Asian women.

I believe those old white dudes who can afford it are just trying to avoid
dating the stereotypical modern western girls.

Here in Germany, rich guys go for a Czech, Turkish or Italian wife if they
hope to have plenty of kids. And it's no secret that British guys will travel
all over Europe to try their luck at dating, because apparently most aren't
too happy with the supply at home.

~~~
tempsy
The dynamic is that these old white men aren’t actually that rich by Western
standards but are by SE Asian ones, so they don’t have the status or wealth to
attract a young attractive western woman but do in SEA.

If they were actually rich they wouldn’t need to retire overseas to stretch
out their retirement.

~~~
wruza
Personality arguments aside: if we assume that “buying” an asian wife is an
uncomfortable stereotype, doesn’t “status or wealth to attract a young
attractive western woman” fall into the same category? What’s the difference
(except life cost multiplier/divisor) that makes one uncomfortable and the
other comfortable?

~~~
krapp
>What’s the difference (except life cost multiplier/divisor) that makes one
uncomfortable and the other comfortable?

Both are uncomfortable stereotypes, but we find the latter more acceptable
because Western masculine ideals traditionally interpret the male in that
situation as expressing his virility and alpha-dog status (while denigrating
the woman as a gold-digger and whore.) Although many people are creeped out by
the age differential if it's wide enough, it's expected both that older,
powerful men will attract younger women, and that younger women will be
attracted to the money and power. It's a sentiment expressed and reinforced
throughout Western media and culture.

Meanwhile the Asian version of the stereotype has connotations of the
_failure_ of masculinity on the part of the male, as only a step above hiring
a prostitute, as well as implications of pedophilia and sex-trafficking.

~~~
wruza
This implies (well, directly states) that these asian women are only a step
above prostitutes, while in fact either both are, or none of them, depending
on the perspective. If the male cannot find a match, it is a failure by
definition, but I do not see how this fails his masculinity.

Masculinity doesn’t have to be linked with local wealth (pressing/buying
someone with money, connections and law doesn’t make one alpha-dog nor a
unique problem solver), and I would add wealth actually tends to hide smaller
balls, if you excuse a non-native speaker for this idiom. It is strange that
traditions link those two, as a person may be just not interested genuinely in
spending effort to accumulate so much bigger than usual money to simply get a
normal healthy date and life. Masculinity is a thing that allows you to skip
these steps altogether, unless women are heavily reprogrammed on money instead
and everyone is okay with that.

Basically, it is a failure of a man to find a decent woman, but it is still
unclear who is a failure in general.

~~~
krapp
>This implies (well, directly states) that these asian women are only a step
above prostitutes, while in fact either both are, or none of them, depending
on the perspective.

I meant to state that the _perception_ is that about Asian women not that I
consider it the reality.

> If the male cannot find a match, it is a failure by definition, but I do not
> see how this fails his masculinity.

A man is often seen as having _earned_ a Western trophy girlfriend, but as
having likely _bought_ the Asian counterpart. Why this is, and why the former
is more accepted, is probably rooted in negative stereotypes about Asian women
formed during America's wars in Asia (specifically Korea and Vietnam) and
about the perceived "submissive" nature of Asian women in general.

>Masculinity doesn’t have to be linked with local wealth (pressing/buying
someone with money, connections and law doesn’t make one alpha-dog nor a
unique problem solver),

It doesn't have to be, but historically, it has been. Trump bragged about
being able to "grab'em by the pussy" and it endeared him to (some of) the
public, as did Clinton's escapades, as did JFK's. It's been the case since
kings had harems.

>and I would add wealth actually tends to hide smaller balls, if you excuse a
non-native speaker for this idiom.

Yes, people often say ostentatious displays of wealth are a way to compensate
for a man's shortcomings.

>Masculinity is a thing that allows you to skip these steps altogether, unless
women are heavily reprogrammed on money instead and everyone is okay with
that.

There's masculinity, and there's "masculinity" as expressed by commercial
culture (call it corporate masculinity.) The latter is telling men that they
need wealth and status items (in other words, to participate in conspicuous
consumerism) for a woman to find them attractive.

------
neonate
[http://archive.md/zXfVz](http://archive.md/zXfVz)

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tboyd47
* Americans with Vietnamese spouses are retiring to Vietnam

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adnjoo
how about retiring in Bali, ID? :)

~~~
latchkey
US :: Mexico : Australia :: Bali

Bali is expensive and honestly not that nice. Kuta is a train wreck and places
like Ubud are now some weird yoga retreat city with too much car traffic.

------
MaupitiBlue
Everything you want.

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cagenut
I can practically hear the journalist giggling in my head as he writes some of
these quotes down.

------
gunnihinn
Turns out the Vietnam war was a savvy retirement plan setup: clear out some
space, return to the US to bask in the most generous ROI in history for 30+
years, return to that patch of land that’s conveniently clear now.

At least the conquistadors had to live there in the interim years.

~~~
ausjke
literally that land is not cleared well, many land mines are still in the
ground, [https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-vietnam-war-
is-...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-vietnam-war-is-still-
killing-people)

~~~
riffic
Among other toxins.

~~~
CapricornNoble
Yeah dousing carcinogenic defoliants all over your future retirement property
is pretty piss-poor planning.

------
starpilot
Is there a clever acronym for best low cost countries for Americans'
retirement? I think MVP = Mexico Vietnam Panama might work, but are there
others?

~~~
riffic
Can you not further overload an abbreviation that already has multiple
meanings? It's anything but clever.

