Vietnam Smiles

We can find smiles everywhere in the world, its meaning is entirely different from culture to culture. The Vietnam smile is a proper response to saying inappropriate things in most situations.

When Vietnamese smile, they can show happiness, agreement, acceptance, desire, and tolerance. But the same smile can show disagreement, embarrassment, confusion, anger, and contempt. Vietnamese smile is easy to understand, it also causes misunderstandings sometimes. So the Vietnamese smile can be classified into “simple smile” and “implied smile”.

Vietnam Smile – A friendly way to bring us closer

The simple smile has no implied meaning. Because of their happiness so they smile. For example, someone won a contest, others may succeed in finding a job, and friends see each other after a long time, etc.

Vietnamese believe that smiles give them a better life even they are not rich now. A smile expresses their wishes in life and makes them stronger to overcome difficulties.

For example, a farmer smiles looking at their field, a businessman smiles as he get a lot of customers, etc. Sometimes, Vietnamese also smile as a crowd smiles or they do not know what to do. For students, they smile because they do not know how to reply to a hard question from their teacher. Simply, they smile to express their emotions.

The implied smile has a specific meaning in each context. Vietnamese rely more often on nonverbal communication than other countries, so it is possibly a source of confusion. For Vietnamese, relying on a smile is not always because he or she is happy. It would be to express sadness. They occasionally smile when sad or miserable because they don’t want to drop their tears and not want to hurt others.

They want to keep it themselves and smiles make them stronger. Similarly, nervousness is indicated by a smile. It is due to hiding their nervousness which helps them to be more confident before doing something such as joining an exam, or an interview, etc.

While Westerners usually say “thank you” or “sorry” , Vietnamese smiles instead of thanks or apology. They do not expect a “thank–you” for trivial things such as picking something for someone, giving up one’s seat to women, children, elderly people, etc. Similarly, a smile can reduce someone’s anger as you unintentionally make a mistake.

In Vietnam, people usually use non–verbal communication, so smiles a way of greeting. A smile can be used instead of saying “hello, hi, good afternoon, good evening, etc.” In some cases, a smile is used to ridicule someone. People use a scornful smile for contempt instead of saying out.

For example, a student who gets a good result in the exam smiles scornfully at his friend. However, this smile was not appreciated in Vietnam because of moral standards. These are just some specific meanings of smiles in Vietnam. To know what a Vietnamese smile means, it’s very necessary to understand its culture and people.

Smile is the best medicine. When we smile, the body makes facial gestures and sounds which help us relax during a smile. Vietnam is famous for smiles.

No matter what it means, smile is always a symbol of happiness, fun, and friendliness. We satisfy our lives by smiling, and people worldwide will be satisfied within our country. People said, “A smile costs nothing but gives much. It enriches those who receive without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it lasts forever”.