Vietnam

Individualism describes how people interact and develop a relationship with each other. With a higher score in this category, it means that people only look after themselves and have no sense of community. Vietnam has a low score of 20 showcasing that people take care of each other in society. In my experience growing up in Vietnam, people are very loyal. When you go to markets, street vendors always have the same customers so they would remember your face and know your story. I noticed that every time I go to the market with my mom, the vendors always try to give her discounts since she has helped them out during hard times. People in Vietnam rely on each other and develop stronger relationships other just buyers and sellers.

Uncertainty avoidance talks about people's behaviors and reactions to the unknown of the future. This also goes along with the beliefs and religions that people have in the culture. Vietnam has a low score in this category indicating that people have no preference for going out of their way to avoid future events. The most popular religion in Vietnam is Buddhism. The practice of Buddhism is that people have to find motivation in themselves and believe that they reach their goals. This leads to having fewer restrictions about certain rules because people know what they should do and maintain a calm attitude toward everything.

Power distance is the way people in a society relate to each other in terms of a hierarchy scale, meaning if a country had a lower power distance, then majority of the people within that country would value equal treatment. On the contrary, a high power distance indicates inequality issues and also low levels of social hierarchy. From my personal experience in Vietnam, people are okay with inequalities and the power authority distributed. Here in Canada, my parents and family aren't affected by the low power distance here. This is because they mainly care about themselves and their own incomes, in order to help support their family as a whole. In a country like Canada, my family doesn't experience inequality as it emphasized that equality is important here in Canada. My mom who is a CPA interdepends with Canada's tax and other major companies. People rely on her work to help contribute to Canada's tax stability and auditing.

Vietnam's indulgence score is 35, which is considered a low score. This means that in Vietnamese culture, people are considered "restrained", meaning people aren't optimistic and rather pessimistic. Not only that, but people don't like to spend their money on nice things as they feel that social norms are holding them back. Personally, when COVID-19 hit the globe, a lot of my family was incredibly scared and people back in Vietnam kept telling themselves about how scary and deadly this virus was. Some of my family we're incredibly cautious and even paranoid that they would soon catch they virus. Coming from a Vietnamese background, my parents liked to save money and didn't spend much on themselves. This could because that my parents came from poor families, and it could be a huge influence on their spending actions here in Canada.