totlanh

As some of you may know my wife is from Vietnam and we have a 4 year old daughter both of whom live here with me in Northern Ireland.We have just returned home from a 5 week trip to Vietnam and i must confess to being totally depressed about being back.I am seriously considering uprooting and bringing my family to live full time in Vietnam.I can see many advantages of doing this but of course i can also see many hazzards as well and most of the most serious concerns relate to my daughter.These primarily revolve around her education and the fact that im not particuarly happy about the satandard of the educational system in Vietnam(mind you with my spelling i would,nt exactly be a glowing example for schools here either )also and this is my BIG worry is the fact that my daughter does not speak any Vietnamee and showed little( if any)inclination to learn any whilst being away this year.My first question therefore is thusoes anyone have any experience of bringing a child to Vietnam or any other foreign country to live where that child did not speak nor understand the local language??If so did that said child eventually learn the lingo??Did the fact that she did,nt initially speak the local language cause any emotional upheval at all?/Basically without churning out to many questions could anyone with experience of this tell me how their child adapted.
I know a lot of you reading this will think that this is a knee jerk reaction on my part.By this i mean it may look like that ive got a case of the blues following a holiday and where there may be a slight element of that i am happy to concede however it is something always not to far from my thoughts.I honestly believe Vietnam would allow us a better quality of life.My wife has never been particuarly happy here in the UK and nor am i truth been told and perhaps now is the time to make the break.My plan is to sell our house where i expect to clear 100k+profit and teach English whilst my wife could easily find a job in the hospitality area.In Vietnam you can get up to 9.2%interest if you deposit money in the bank for over 3 years so that would also prove to be a healthy return and thus i forsee no problems regarding financing our life.My concern is therefore again my daughter and really she is the only one who counts in this and i want to ensure i do the right thing by her.I do believe Vietnam would be a better place for her to grow up in but i worry about the fact she does not speak Vietnamee and whether or not i can provide a good education for her.I am aware that there is an International school in nearby Danang but how good that is i dont know.Anyway,ive outlined the gist of my concerns and any views or advise on any of the above would be greatly appreciated.

ex reg

Apologies for not reading your post in full.

First, how can you ask such a question on a forum where the posters don't know you and you don't know them.

Second, isn't this a question which you and your wife can answer best yourselves.

Third, children will pick up the language much quicker and easier than you.

Anyway, best of luck with your decision.

totlanh

May i suggest you read the post in full

Amazing Grace

I have never been to Vietnam but have heard it is a very beautiful place. I think go with your gut instinct and if you feel it is right for you and your family then do it but obviously look into things like the schooling. You say there is an international school close by, look into it and find out as much about it as you can. When my children were little they went to an international school in Papua New Guinea and it was part of the way they are today, kind, understanding with a broader outlook on life and I am very proud to call them my daughters who have instilled their wisdom and knowledge into their own children.

Personally if I had my time over again and I was in your position I would be off without a second glance. I am waiting to go overseas again but when we retire it will not be in UK. I wish you and your family good luck in whatever you do and be happy

ex reg

Same answer.

totlanh

Yorkieabroad

If the only real concern is whether your daughter will get on with the lingo or not, I would say go for it. Kids are very adaptable, and at 4 years old she is still at the sponge stage - she'll soak up the language a lot easier now than she will in 10 or 20 years time. And dont underestimate the benefit of being brought up with 2 languages - just be prepared for the fact that you probably won't pick it up as well as she does ! (Speaking here from the experience of starting to try to learn my wifes language, chinese, in my late 30's, and now, in my early 40's, being embarrassingly far behind my 2, 4 and 6 year olds!)

As for the schooling - I've no idea what the international schools are like in Danang, but we spent some time in SEAsia a few years back and all the expats we came across were pretty impressed with the schooling their kids were getting. I knew a few in Saigon and Hanoi (who were happy with their situation), but none in Danang - if theres any sort of foreign business presence and expat community there, I'd have thought the schooling would be pretty reasonable, otherwise the companies would struggle to place senior expats.

And at the end of the day, your daughters only 4 - plenty of time to rethink the schooling if it seems inadequate after the first few years - after all, she can be learning as much from you as she would in the first few years at school. I may say differently if she were facing O or A levels, but at this early age, I wouldn't say theres much to lose. And as someone else said, it'll give her a different perspective that a lot of kids wouldn't have the exposure to.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

gmralston

Vietnam is great at making you miss it as soon as you leave. My wife and I currently live in Saigon, she is Vietnamese and we married in the UK a few years ago. We have lived here over 2 years but with visits back to the UK. I agree with the previous poster, your daughter will soak up the language up quickly, it's not a difficult language to learn but being a tonal language it's just very difficult to pronounce. You mention DaNang, is that where you intend to live? I lot of the problems I will mention relate Saigon and not so much Danang. Property in SG and HN has gone through the roof since we've been here, the rural areas are still cheap but it's like going back 300 years. I transfered money into an account here too and I make enough interest to live on but I have lost about £7000 because the VND is so weak compared to 2 years ago(thanks to the USD) The sacom bank gives the best exchange rate for the GBP. The amount of red tape here makes doing anything difficult, I have to renew my visa every six months even though my wife was born here. The one thing we don't want to do is raise a child in Vietnam, we will be moving back the UK when that time comes. I will always be a foreigner here, our child would be the kid with an "Ong Tay" parent, which is not a bad thing in itself but after a while you just want to be treated normal. After 2 years it's clear to see why this is still a developing country, the quality of life is not better, just different. I have seen a few negative things recently like the Dengue fever outbreak, so many terrible road accidents, the overcrowding of Saigon in at breaking point now I don't know whats going happen next, the infrastructure just can't cope anymore. Public transport is a disaster in SG. Electricity is much better now that the huge Phu My gas power stations are finished. Back to the subject, children here do have a lot, and mean a lot of respect for their parents and that seems to come from the schooling so it's a hard balancing act.