In Vietnam, Shouting Noodle Soup!

[tran minh chau]

Weird isn’t it? But that’s what local people call it here in Hanoi (Phở Quát). It arises a big concerning about service culture in Hanoi and some other parts in Vietnam.

Let me explain a bit for someone who has not been familar with life here in Hanoi, ‘Shouting Noodle Soup’ stands for noodle shops (very popular breakfast dish in all over Vietnam) that the owner treat their staffs and customers by shouting at them with different level of bad language (sometimes they really swear to people). Reasons are heaps, but I think one of the main reasons is the consequence of subsidy period that dated back before early 1990s in North of Vietnam. Society was subsistence and corruption violently occurred. It arise a habit of dependence. Further more, the buyer had no choice and totally depended on government supports so service culture was not existed. After ‘Đổi mới’  (The renovation to socialist-oriented market economy), people realized the old business minded is no longer suitable but likely is hard to be changed a habit that existed in years.

I came to a famous noodle soup in the other day with my wife and ordered 2 bowls of Beef Noodle, after about 10 minutes, I recalled and the owner said with cold face: ‘just sit there’! Well, I was in rush and nicely asked one more time after another 5 minutes waiting, the answer was: ‘do you see how busy I am? You can go if you can’t wait’! I was actually lucky because I over heard that there were much stronger worded in other places that now officially added in Vietnamese modern dictionary as ‘Shouting Noodle, shouting Congee , rice and so on’

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source:http://www.vietvaluetravel.com/blog

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