Vietnam Feels MORE Chinese Than You Think

Shout out to Steph Curry. Just signed with Lee Ning. So guys, I just finished a big bowl of cao lou, which is a Hoi An noodle dish. Hoi An used to be a Chinese Vietnamese trading port for many, many years. And this dish, cao lou, is probably one of the best Vietnamese noodles, if not the best Vietnamese noodle that nobody has ever heard of. Pop up a photo right here. And it kind of got me thinking, How Chinese-influenced is Vietnam? I know this is a controversial question. I don't want people to take it the wrong way, but they probably will anyway. But literally, I'm just a guy making observations because I just came back from a trip from Central Vietnam. I'm in Hoi An, I'm in Hanoi, I'm in Ha Long Bay, I'm in Ninh Binh. And I'll tell you this, there's a lot. Growing up in the U.S. amongst your Viet friends, you have such an interesting spectrum because some of your friends are Viet Viet, some of them are partially Chinese, and some of them are just full-on Chinese, have better Chinese than you, but their family's been in Vietnam for like 100 years. So what are they? I mean, this is just the nature of being Southern Chinese. You know, I'm half myself. And I just know we've been in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, literally every single part of Southeast Asia for like 400, 500 years. So it's like the lines get pretty blurry at some point. Listen guys, I don't want anybody to take this the wrong way but here are seven ways that Vietnam just feels more Chinese than you think. And this is just based off my travels. This is not based off any particular agenda or anything like that. I'm just saying, point number one, some Vietnamese food, not all, feels very Chinese. So I just finished a gigantic bowl of cao lou. And cao lou means like upper ceiling, right? But it also in Cantonese is cao lou. But I read that it also could be gong lou because cao lou from Hoi An, Hoi An is a Chinese Vietnamese trading city in Central Vietnam, could actually be like a dry noodle. And so it could basically, the word could be just from Cantonese or chiu chow, tia chiu, whatever. And yeah, it's just really interesting because I was having it and I was just like, wait, how Chinese influences Vietnam? Because, you know, you see it in a dish like pho kind of, but I could see how you could, you know, almost more lean French with pho a little bit just because of the bouillon or whatever and the beef. But really for a dish like cao lou or banh da cua from Hai Phong, which are both traditional like Sino-Vietnamese trading hubs for many centuries, those are just like very Chinese-y dishes. A lot of soy sauce, you know, just the type of noodle that they're using. It's very interesting. So, you know, Vietnam is such an interesting place. There's such a mix of different influences. Obviously more by the Mekong Delta, you've got like bun mam and you've got papaya salads and you've got a lot more foods that remind me almost of Thai, Cambodian, maybe cham, you know, foods. And then of course, you've got the stuff in the middle, like a pho, you know what I mean? Banh mi, almost a little bit more French influence. So, I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is I just didn't expect there to be ha cao for dim... You can find dim sum at the supermarkets. You can find dim sum everywhere in Vietnam. And this, you know, it's the same thing in Bangkok because Bangkok has a lot of like Southern Chinese, Cantonese, specifically DHO influence. You can just find like dan tat, like egg tarts, fried egg rolls, ha cao, siu mai, everywhere. I mean, honestly, I've found them in Japan too. Like Japan actually got way more wontons and siu mai than you think too. And cha siu, but they call it cha siu. In Vietnam, they call it sa siu. Bun coon, especially the Hanoi style bun coon. Even more than the Southern style bun coon, it's super like churn fun. Of course, if you go to Jelun, Chinatown D5, you're just going to find a straight up Cantonese style churn fun with the ha churn. But like, maybe they... I noticed Chinese Viet's canto is like, put a little bit more like fried lard on top just to add a little on top. You know, lap churn, lap sung, bun bao, bean baozi. You know, there's just a lot of stuff, man. So basically what I'm saying is, of course, every region is unique. I'm not even saying the Viet... I think the Viet version of the fried rice, the Chinese Viet version, the cam chiem, is even better. You know what I mean? Especially with the lap churn in it, the lap sung is even better than the canto yang chau tau fun, you know? So it's like, of course, there's influences and learning this way and learning that way. But it's just like, you know, even if you take away like the different regional ingredients, the techniques, especially in Central, but particularly Northern Vietnam with a lot of the soy braises and a lot of the stir fries, it just felt very Chinese on a food level. Pop these up. Anyway, point number two, guys, Northern Vietnam, and very few people will ever go there because most people are just going to come party at Bam Bam in Saigon, I don't blame you. But I'm just saying, you guys are going to live at the gallery, a Metropole, whatever, get a little Airbnb. Northern Vietnam looks like Guilin and it's got the same karst, karst, which is a material from the earth, limestone, you know what I mean? Actually, like Ninh Binh shares the same limestone ridge as Guilin. Like Ninh Binh, Ha Long Bay, dude, we're talking about this super watercolor, misty watercolor brush, like East Asian mountain fantasy, you know, like where Kung Fu masters would be fighting and floating on clouds and throwing all types of needles out of their hair and pins and things like that. It's just like only China and North Vietnam really do it. Yeah, there might be karst mountains in like Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, but they just don't got that same full, just misty, like moonlit look, you know, pagodas, just pagodas everywhere, you know, Zhangjiajie, which is like the Avatar mountains in China. Trust me. Listen guys, until you go to Northern Vietnam and see it for yourself, you're just not gonna know it until you feel it. Point number three, there are Chinese characters written all over Vietnam, both in modern and in ancient ways. But I think the ancient ways are the most significant because if a lot of you guys don't know, Vietnam's primary language was using Chinese characters for the longest time, whether it was classical Chinese Chu Han or then there's transliterated version to the more Khmer language that they speak here, which is Chu Nam to obviously the more Latinized version of Chu Nam that they have today. But basically, yeah, like, you know, all the oldest buildings in Saigon or Hanoi, they're all written in Chinese. Dai Viet Suu Kyi is written in Chinese. I'm not saying that obviously their history is their own, their culture is their own. I love the Vietnamese identity. I'm not saying anything like buy it. You know, like I said, some people are gonna take it the wrong way. It is what it is. But I'm just saying Chinese characters are just scattered everywhere around Asia. The Sinosphere was gigantic. Ancient Korean history books written in Chinese, ancient Japanese books written in Chinese, you know, temples, Buddhist things, just, you know what I mean? Like, and I just think for a lot of decades in Vietnam from what I've been told by my Vietnamese local friends is that it was kind of frowned upon because of like modern wars or maybe how people perceived the Ming dynasty's invasions a thousand years ago, et cetera, et cetera. But I just noticed in like 2026, I started to see this one restaurant called Nuoc, Nuoc restaurant right next to me. They almost leaned into a ancient Sino-Viet aesthetic with like the Chu Han characters all around the restaurant. So it seems like, you know, maybe because relations are stabilizing, people can more like own up to the very real Chinese influence that exists in a very deep ancient way. But I get it. You know, people felt some type of way about it due to recent misgivings. Point number four, guys, old Vietnamese buildings can look straight up Sino. You know, like we said, it kind of goes back to the language thing. It kind of goes back to the limestone karst, Guilin look. You just see this Indochina, Xinhua, like sort of like, it's like Sino Southeast Asia look, you know, Penang with the Pernicans or Malacca. Just like you see this colonial layer stacked on top of like a certain era of like ancient Southern Chinese style. And it looks really dope. People love that aesthetic. Crazy Rich Asians has that aesthetic. You know, but like I said, a lot of these things, you could argue that the Vietnam version is better. You know what I mean? Because maybe it would lean more heavily on the French influence and their version of Xinhua, you know, Indochina. You know what I mean? Like I know a lot of people love Malaysia, Singapore's version of it the most too. You know what I'm not saying like, oh, just because Chinese is this shared element and it's automatically the best. Like I like the Vietnamese fried egg rolls the most out of all of Asia. I think that that's like by far the best one. And it's not even close, regardless of where that original idea came from. Who cares? I'm just saying, I didn't know. Like, you know, I knew that there was a lot of Chinese culture in Southeast Asia, but you don't really, you know, you don't see it until you see it. And then you're like reading the Chinese characters on the temple and you're just like, oh. Point number five. I think that there are so many different looks in Vietnam, but particularly there is a lot of people that could pass as, you know, Chinese, even like Korean. That's like a new trend that I noticed is that like a lot of Vietnamese people, they can look Korean and they get, they will become a pop star or like a V drama star or a V pop star if they do. Of course, provided they can sing and they're focused and they're probably from a good family. And you know, they bribed their way into the industry or they got a powerful family backing them. That's the same way it is in the US guys. Payola, all that stuff. It's still around. It's a lot of politics. But anyway, I'm just saying that Korean look, it helps a lot. You know, shout out to Sun Tung and all these other people. But yeah, I was really struck like when I was in Hanoi or when I was in Ha Long Bay and stuff like that, there was a lot of people who had shops from Hanoi there. And I was just like, oh man, these people look more Asian than I do. And of course, Vietnamese people are Asian. So that's obvious, right? But I'm just saying that they have a really wide range of looks within Vietnam due to the long skinny latitude nature of the multi latitude nature of Vietnam. Like I've met, I have Vietnamese friends in America that literally get banged on by Mexican cholo sometimes for being like, hey, what's up for you El Norte or El Sur? And they're just like, bro, I'm Asian. So I'm just saying they got a wide range. Point number six, I feel like Vietnamese families kind of feel similar to Southern Chinese families. There is some differences for sure. I noticed they love being around each other more. There's more emotionality. There's more expressiveness. There's higher desire for EQ to accumulate EQ points yourself, but also holding other people to higher EQ patterns. That's something that's very different. If you guys know about Chinese, as long as you deliver the grades and the money, you can kind of have little cringe behaviors, which is different than a lot of other Asians, to be honest. That's a Chinese thing. The lack of like smooth, you know, the lack of care about not wanting to be awkward or weird. Chinese are cool with that. As long as you've got the money and the grades, we're just the most over-indexed on prioritizing those things. So Viets do definitely care about the smoothness, the suave, you know, a little bit more. But yeah, yeah, definitely. Like I think that a lot of, you know, Vietnamese families that kind of remind me of Cantonese families, but they're more ping-filled and then they're probably less institutional, formally focused and more just like hustle, go, go, go. You know what I mean? Because I think they believe in larger institutions less, which is true for, I think it's for all Southeast Asia in general, but like it makes more sense too because of the history and stuff like that. And you know, the interesting thing is that all-in instinct means that I have some Vietnamese friends that got super rich in America. Like I know a lot of Southern Chinese that went to America and did well, but like my Vietnamese friends was like doubling down every time at the casino table. Like, and I'm not just saying like at the casino, I'm saying like in life, throwing all their capital into their next project. So it allowed some of them, you know, the ones that were calculating and smart to really be like the richest out of all my friends. But yeah, guys, you know, there's so many points to cover on this. I know there's entire YouTube channels like Nation Faces that are dedicated to this topic, figuring out the racial, cultural composition of Vietnam solely, you know, and they have a ton of videos on this. I'll just link them right here. But my last point is that I just noticed that Vietnam is very interesting in the sense that North Vietnam has a lot more like trading hubs, like ancient trading ports with China. So like the native local culture there is kind of like feels more Chinese. But then in South Vietnam, because there were so many like Cantonese and Chiu Chau people that came here, like, you know, a hundred years ago for trade, like Chieu Lun, which is Chinatown D5 is like the most Chinese part of Vietnam explicitly in the sense that like they're still speaking Chinese with each other. But then Northern Vietnam almost felt like more organically Chinese, if that makes sense, you know, like almost more like, you know, you see that Baiyue like larger before there was nation states and border maps and like all these lines drawn, like I can see the Baiyue circling of like Guangxi and some parts of Guangdong with Hanoi and with like Ha Long Bay and you know what I mean? Like you could just draw that circle. So I see it, the Baiyue theory, that's real for sure. And there's a ton of Chinese tourists up there, too, because like I know when I was in Shenzhen, everybody was talking about how they go to Hanoi, like oftentimes, you know, so that was crazy. And yeah, I think the rest of the South, outside of like Chieu Lun, obviously, or Saigon feels a lot more Mekong Delta, more Khmer, more tropical Southeast Asia. I think Central Vietnam probably feels more Cham or Mien or Mong, obviously, Kin being the dominant ethnic group, you know, but yeah, it's a very, very interesting country because you guys know about culture. Culture tends to travel laterally because people don't like to shift climates that often. And if they do, they go north to south. Typically, that's like a human development pattern. But yeah, like a lot of cultural travels laterally. In Vietnam, it doesn't have a lot of width, but it's just like a very vertical, looks like a, it looks like Japan. Japan is pretty different, like from, you know, Kyushu to Tokyo too. And of course, modern day 2026 Saigon, it's just a blender of everything, man. Like I think everybody in Asia absorbed a ton of Japanese and Korean influence through the pop culture. But if you guys know about Japanese and Korean people, they tend not to really mix with people. They'll sell them products or sell them the music and the culture, but they're not going to mix with people generally. They're going to stay within themselves. I would say that they have a pretty strong in-group preference, but Chinese will really, everybody got a Chinese grandma or grandpa somewhere, man, in Southeast Asia. I'm not saying everybody, but you know what I mean. I'm just, it's really common. Anyway, guys, I am not saying that Vietnam is secretly part of China. They don't owe anybody anything just because there's some sinospheric influences across the country. You know what I mean? Like it's just dope to see the sinosphere fade into Southeast Asia because it is a real ancient thing and it talks a lot about history and it talks about a lot of things and just, you know, it's dope to see. And I didn't really know until I started traveling. And, you know, on my mom's side, they're from Shandong. I've got relatives on that side that grew up in Japan, grew up in Korea, all in that region. And on my Southern side, you know, I have people who grew up in Malaysia, people who almost moved to Vietnam a hundred years ago in my own family. So I could have been a D5, Chilin, Saigon, Chinese, Viet Hoa person too. So anyway, guys, I'm just talking about what I noticed. Tell me if you guys think it's significant. And do you think it's more common to talk about the Chinese influence in Vietnam in 2026? Maybe it was viewed as a taboo for several decades for a variety of reasons. Let me know what you guys think in the comment section below. Let me know what you think about my points. Let me know if you think I left anything out or I'm sure if you want to debate me, you'll leave it too. Anyway, guys, AI exists and it's getting better by the day in 2026. You can look up all this stuff or as much or as little as you want in the exact tonage of metaphors and similes and analogies that you want. Check out the Global Next show. This is going to be a crazy show where we explore businesses between the East and the West, China and America. I'm super excited for that. And yeah, all this from one bowl of Cao Lo from Hoi An. That's what just popped into my head. So anyway, guys, I'm out. Peace.