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I'm sure there are some but I've never seen such a couple in my few years there.  I've also never seen one on the immigration visa forum that I follow.

I think the numeric imbalance stems from the cultural tendency, nearly universal, for women to want to "marry up," especially with respect to money.  With the possible exception of a few professions, most Vietnamese males who work for wages will be making less money than a female ESL teacher. Although the status of the male's occupation may be higher, the money will likely be lower.   Exceptions might be successful entrepreneurs and upper management in multinational firms.  Even doctors are partially constrained by the fact that most of them must work in a government hospital as a "day job" even if they do make more than an ESL teacher based on their at home clinics.

I suspect that one of my neighbors on my apartment floor made more than I did but he was at the second management tier (answering directly to the country head) at Coca-Cola.  I know that I made more than another neighbor who was an electrical engineer.  Both of these people held jobs that would be considered more prestigious as well as substantially better paid than being a teacher in the US.

OB, when you know more about what your neighbors do for work, let us know. Perhaps he is a Vietnamese-American. Such a couple wouldn't even raise eyebrows in Honolulu.

I'm sure there are some but I've never seen such a couple in my few years there. I've also never seen one on the immigration visa forum that I follow.
-@SteinNebraska

Same here, been here nearly 15 years come June & never seen a western woman with a Vietnamese man.

I think the numeric imbalance stems from the cultural tendency, nearly universal, for women to want to "marry up," especially with respect to money. With the possible exception of a few professions, most Vietnamese males who work for wages will be making less money than a female ESL teacher. Although the status of the male's occupation may be higher, the money will likely be lower.  Exceptions might be successful entrepreneurs and upper management in multinational firms. Even doctors are partially constrained by the fact that most of them must work in a government hospital as a "day job" even if they do make more than an ESL teacher based on their at home clinics.
I suspect that one of my neighbors on my apartment floor made more than I did but he was at the second management tier (answering directly to the country head) at Coca-Cola. I know that I made more than another neighbor who was an electrical engineer. Both of these people held jobs that would be considered more prestigious as well as substantially better paid than being a teacher in the US.

OB, when you know more about what your neighbors do for work, let us know. Perhaps he is a Vietnamese-American. Such a couple wouldn't even raise eyebrows in Honolulu.
-@THIGV

Na I dont believe this post,  I remember when Yingluck Shinawatra was prime minister of Thailand at the time made an official visit she famously said.....where are all the handsome men in Vietnam?

Na I dont believe this post, I remember when Yingluck Shinawatra was prime minister of Thailand at the time made an official visit she famously said.....where are all the handsome men in Vietnam?
-@goodolboy

Of course she would say that as Thailand is reputed to have the prettiest men in the world.  Not that many Western women would want to marry one of them. 

I have an Australian friend, she has a Vietnamese husband and they live in Sydney. They have been together for around 10-years and she is much older than him. When they applied for the spousal visa for Australia it was declined without an interview. We found out later that the Australian govt does the processing in Viet Nam. So, it shows that Vietnamese still have the mentality that a VN man would never be with an older foreign woman.

I also knew a gorgeous lady from Belgium, she had two Vietnamese boyfriends.

I have an Australian friend, she has a Vietnamese husband and they live in Sydney.
-@colinoscapee

If you think about it this confirms my idea that this is about income disparity.  For Western women who may be attracted to Vietnamese men, moving to their home country may allow him to realize his income potential.  Of course this is not happening if the man is a waiter or has a similar semi-skilled occupation, but if he is a University educated professional it certainly is.   I have a personal acquaintance (his wife is a good friend of my wife), who moved his family to Alberta, Canada with a visa based on his skills as an engineer, similar to a US EB-2.   If he were married to a Canadian woman instead, he could have just as easily been employed as he is now.

I have an Australian friend, she has a Vietnamese husband and they live in Sydney.
-@colinoscapee
If you think about it this confirms my idea that this is about income disparity. For Western women who may be attracted to Vietnamese men, moving to their home country may allow him to realize his income potential. Of course this is not happening if the man is a waiter or has a similar semi-skilled occupation, but if he is a University educated professional it certainly is.  I have a personal acquaintance (his wife is a good friend of my wife), who moved his family to Alberta, Canada with a visa based on his skills as an engineer, similar to a US EB-2.  If he were married to a Canadian woman instead, he could have just as easily been employed as he is now.
-@THIGV

Maybe to some degree, my friend moved back to access the free medical system, which is far superior to Viet Nams. He is a chef, no problem getting a job in either country. Certainly the potential for him to be paid well exists in Australia.

i read some comments on this thread, but couldn't help assumming most on here are westerners i.e european stock. it appears most still haven't shed off the prejudices and stereotyping of people in their home country before coming to live in viet nam. still being weighted down with bigotry. what a pity.

i read some comments on this thread, but couldn't help assumming most on here are westerners i.e european stock. it appears most still haven't shed off the prejudices and stereotyping of people in their home country before coming to live in viet nam. still being weighted down with bigotry. what a pity.
-@brian h hoang

Can you highlight the part which makes you think that bigotry is at play. People are just discussing what they see. The fact is and you may not like it, western women in general are not attracted to asian men.

i read some comments on this thread, but couldn't help assumming most on here are westerners i.e european stock. it appears most still haven't shed off the prejudices and stereotyping of people in their home country before coming to live in viet nam. still being weighted down with bigotry. what a pity.
-@brian h hoang

And that, brian h hoang, is a serious accusation you make against members of expat.com and, as I am sure you are aware, would be against the forum's "Code of Conduct".

Please provide specific examples in this thread where you feel "prejudices and stereotyping", as well as "bigotry", has been displayed. My own cursory review of the comments brought no such instances to light. Once you provide these examples, they will be reported to administration for review (and possible moderation).

I will note, however, that your own comment vis-à-vis "most...westerners" (i.e. people of "european (sic) stock") being inherently bigoted can and should be viewed as a reflection of your own issues, and may themselves be reported to admin.

BTW, I am still waiting for your response to my request for you to provide details on a different thread, here.

@Aidan in HCMC firstly, why there is even a thread about interracial dating and marriage. it is a controversial subject as it is. on what basis or data set you based your premises on, that a certain racial female group wouldn't be interested in dating a certain racial male group. one commenter on this thread quoted a former thai female PM commented "where are the handsome vietnamese men" perhaps he is insinuating that handsome vietnamese men do not exist. the same commenter commented "Of course she would say that as Thailand is reputed to have the prettiest men in the world. Not that many Western women would want to marry one of them." he went so far as to insinuate that even there is such a thing as a prettiest thai man, many western women wouldn't be interested in marry one of them. you all get the drift there. One commenter said " For Western women who may be attracted to Vietnamese men, moving to their home country may allow him to realize his income potential. ", " this confirms my idea that this is about income disparity". does he mean, in the remotest possibility that a western women who may date or marry a vietnamese, would help him realize his income potential, i take it as the men technically is a parasite on his western women. conversely, we assume asian women who date and marry western men is for their meager amount of pension monies the western men might posses. all your comment here do is to reinforce prejudice and bias in western societies. i don't accuse anybody of bigotry or prejudice although these concept is not exactly foreign to many. my comment was that i was assuming, and it is not a statement of fact. if it was i would have directly accuse whoever above quotation with bigotry. notice i said i assume most, but not everybody is racist. i am not speaking in vacuum here. remember interracial marriage was against the law in the U.S. this law was enacted to segregate the races in the u.s. some of this law is still on the book in some states. It is ingrained in the western emale conscious mind that their white society and especially white men do not accept white female cajoling with other male races. even the point of you folks talking about interracial dating and marriage show that this is still the cultural barrier of non-acceptance. Now on the flip side, you don't have any qualm about western men dating or marrying asian women. As a matter of fact we don't enact law prohibiting asian women dating or marrying western foreigner. As a matter it is the enlightenment that you are drawn to, and appreciate asian women, for their culture, and to date and marry them. any social force that bring and bridge people together is a positive development.

Looks like someone likes the sound of his own voice.

@why there is even a thread about interracial dating and marriage. it is a controversial subject as it is. on what basis or data set you based your premises on, that a certain racial female group wouldn't be interested in dating a certain racial male group.
-@brian h hoang

First off, every single person that has posted in this thread (with possibly the exeption of you as we don't know if you are married or not) is either married to or living with a Vietnamese person so I doubt they are racist.

Second, I made my comments strictly on my views of what I have seen both in VIetnam (have never seen a white women with a Vietnamese man) and in the immigration forums for people who have applied for either fiance or marriage visas to go to the US.  None have been white women petitioning Vietnamese men. Only the opposite.   It's not racist.  It's just the reality that I have seen with my own eyes.  Maybe it's not zero and I missed some but it's definitely not common. 

one commenter on this thread quoted a former thai female PM commented "where are the handsome vietnamese men" perhaps he is insinuating that handsome vietnamese men do not exist. the same commenter commented "Of course she would say that as Thailand is reputed to have the prettiest men in the world. Not that many Western women would want to marry one of them." he went so far as to insinuate that even there is such a thing as a prettiest thai man, many western women wouldn't be interested in marry one of them. you all get the drift there.
-@brian h hoang

Apparently you did not understand my attempt at a joke about men in Thailand who present as women.   My apologies for not explicitly labeling it as such or putting in an emoji like this one, but it looks as if the only one who did not "get the drift" was you.   

One commenter said " For Western women who may be attracted to Vietnamese men, moving to their home country may allow him to realize his income potential. ", " this confirms my idea that this is about income disparity". does he mean, in the remotest possibility that a western women who may date or marry a vietnamese, would help him realize his income potential,
-@brian h hoang

If you revisit the context of those posts, you should see that it is suggested that it is not the woman but the act of immigration that enhances the man's earning potential.  I don't know how you earn your living, but odds are that your earnings in the US are substantially higher than they would be in Vietnam.

Now on the flip side, you don't have any qualm about western men dating or marrying asian women. As a matter of fact we don't enact law prohibiting asian women dating or marrying western foreigner. you unilaterally determined that women especially asian women marry up, i.e to western, was due to income disparity.
-@brian h hoang

If you go back and read again, I think you may see that I described the tendency of women to want to "marry up" as "nearly universal" and did not at all attribute it only to Asian women.   To me "nearly universal" includes North and South Americans, Europeans, Africans, and Middle Easterners, as well as Asians.  Perhaps there are matriarchal and matrilineal societies in which this does not apply, so I would not say absolutely universal.   Read carefully please.

Additionally, your bio states that you are an American, so who are you referring to when you say "we don't enact law"?

@SteinNebraska

the majority of western female who come to asia and vietnam are usually tourist, their stay is short term before moving on to other tourist spot. unlike their male counterparts. these women don't search or look for asian or vietnamese men to date let alone marrying them. that is why it isn't common to see mix race couples around vn, except the other way around, you see plenty of elder western men with teenager asian women.

@SteinNebraska
the majority of western female who come to asia and vietnam are usually tourist, their stay is short term before moving on to other tourist spot. unlike their male counterparts. these women don't search or look for asian or vietnamese men to date let alone marrying them. that is why it isn't common to see mix race couples around vn, except the other way around, you see plenty of elder western men with teenager asian women.
-@brian h hoang

Not only elderly, in my apartment complex there are many young Western, Indian, Iranian, Taiwanese men etc with Vietnamese GF or wives in the same age group.

There are also some not many elderly like me with younger (but certainly not teenagers like you infer) Vietnamese ladies as wives, GF or partners.

What I have seen first hand is older Vietnamese men who "take care" of some pretty young looking Vietnamese ladies.

I can honestly say that for what ever reason...... in my 14+ years here I have never seen or know of any Western woman with a Vietnamese man & that's just me stating a fact.

@why there is even a thread about interracial dating and marriage. it is a controversial subject as it is. on what basis or data set you based your premises on, that a certain racial female group wouldn't be interested in dating a certain racial male group.
-@brian h hoang

First off, every single person that has posted in this thread (with possibly the exeption of you as we don't know if you are married or not) is either married to or living with a Vietnamese person so I doubt they are racist.

Second, I made my comments strictly on my views of what I have seen both in VIetnam (have never seen a white women with a Vietnamese man) and in the immigration forums for people who have applied for either fiance or marriage visas to go to the US. None have been white women petitioning Vietnamese men. Only the opposite.  It's not racist. It's just the reality that I have seen with my own eyes. Maybe it's not zero and I missed some but it's definitely not common.
-@SteinNebraska

All you are doing is stating a fact & based on what you have seen & experienced living here. Sometimes the facts don't go down too well with some people!

"you see plenty of elder western men with teenager asian women."

This proves that you are nothing more than a troll.

Admin needs to remove your baseless,vapid, ignorant and discriminative posts.

@goodolboy Thank you for clarifying that not only elderly individuals have Vietnamese partners in your apartment complex. It's interesting to hear your observations and your personal experience regarding the relationships between Western men and Vietnamese women versus Western women and Vietnamese men. It could be a combination of cultural and societal factors that contribute to this pattern. However, it's important to remember that every individual is unique and their relationships should be judged based on their personal circumstances, not their age or cultural background.

Hello everyone,

I don't understand why this thread has been opened on the forum. We are dedicated to expatriation indeed. If someone wants to share a bit of his personal life on the forum it is okay but let us not make the forum a place to gossip or to debate about people's personal life/choices.

No female expat has participated so far and I doubt any would.

I am therefore closing this thread.

[Topic Closed]