Very well.

I spoke nearly no Vietnamese and bikepacked across rural northern Vietnam for 3 months after buying my bicycle in Hanoi.

People in the city can speak some English, but even if they can’t they’re so earnestly helpful that I was able to easily buy clothes, bicycle repair items, get my bicycle repaired, buy food everyday(pho lyfe) be invited to tea and then a family feast, take shelter from a rainstorm, the stories of their generosity go on.

It’s definitely a good country to visit.

The mountains are pretty magical, and every single person was extremely helpful and gracious, either in the city or way out in the tiny mountain villages

the coolest.

i was on a bike, so i guess he felt like he had to hustle.

Vietnam, Thailand, India, Guatemala, Taiwan is a good call.

in Vietnam, someone literally ran out of their house while I was stopping to adjust my headphones in order to invite me to breakfast at his home.

he had a tiny orchard in his front yard and we shared mango, dragonfruit and pancakes.

9 penises is his personal best?

“This is not entirely true.”

I’ll check.

“Malaysia…English teaching industry…Most countries…standards…VIetnam requires…employ illegally…risk…very high”

yea, solid disclaimer, most of that looks less than entirely true. Honestly, a lot of that is barely half true.

real quick: ESL is still booming in April 2025 with thousands of currently available ESL positions, pay rates are higher than ever, outpacing inflation significantly, the requirements are about the same as they were 15 years ago; native english fluency, college degree or TEFL certificate sometimes required based on the position and location for 25 hours of teaching a week, not including the breaktimes each class.

Most countries certainly do not have enough of an english speaking population to have affected the ESL market, hence the thousands of currently available ESL postings and dozens of platforms for teaching online.

Vietnam does not require “TESL diplomas” to teach English.

yes, because it is fun, and we don’t have to make it different just to be different.

I’d like to say that so are zombie films and media.

zombies have become an excuse to dehumanize and glorify justifiable violence against humans at this point.

Thank you, it was hide read posts.

Haha, OH MY GOSH thank you I’ve been trying to figure it out for…way too long.

thank you so much.

aside from being a native English speaker, you don’t need any.

The school will provide the curriculum, training, you’ll get to shadow a teacher for a few days and you’ll have an assistant in class to wrangle the students, so all you have to do is speak English in a native accent for 20 minutes at a time.

you can also watch any number of YouTube videos to learn what teaching English is like, or you can choose from hundreds of other remote jobs If you don’t want to teach.

as long as you make a few hundred a month, you can survive comfortably in Southeast Asia.

hostels are $100 a month, 200 a month for food is enough.

If you’re making 500 usd a month, you can get a private place for $250 or $300, and keep the same food budget.

I suggest going to Southeast Asia instead. tickets are a couple hundred, everybody is really cool about genders and pretty much everything else there, everything is cheap, you can live indefinitely on tourist visas and if you need money you can always teach English.