In 2015, when he left Belgium for Thailand to meet his younger brother who was living there, Pim visited Da Nang and realized that he wanted to stay there. 

“There are mountains and sea in Da Nang, delicious food and friendly people,” Pim Nguyen (the name he calls himself now) said.

To arrange a comfortable life in Vietnam, Pim tried to learn Vietnamese from local people. He spent six months discovering Da Nang and other cities and provinces in Vietnam before becoming a teacher of English and French.

Except for two years to return to Belgium during Covid-19, Pim has lived in Vietnam for nearly seven years, and now speaks Vietnamese well. He has even become a famous TikToker with 200,000 followers.

“Vietnamese grammar is simple, but pronunciation is difficult. At the beginning, I had problems with accents, so people could not understand me. Also, Vietnamese vocabulary is rich. There are many different words which have the same meaning,” he explained. 

He said the biggest advantage is that he can communicate with Vietnamese people every day. Pim usually get compliments about his Vietnamese skills. Previously, when he could only speak simple sentences, he was also complimented on his good Vietnamese.

“Vietnamese people are very generous with compliments, which was a surprise to me,” he said.

During the seven years in Vietnam, Pim has been to Hanoi twice. Asked about Vietnamese cuisine, he said he likes many Vietnamese dishes, but doesn’t like pho.

“Maybe I didn’t choose the right pho restaurant, but I am not impressed by pho. I like bun bo (beef noodle soup), bun cha (kebab rice noodles) and mi Quang (Quang-styled noodle) more,” he said.

Like many other expats, Pim complained about the traffic in Vietnam. On the first days in Vietnam, he was shocked by local traffic. “It is just like a constant flow and there are many careless drivers,” he said.

He found that many people in traffic are "stubborn". “They drive carelessly, but they won’t apologize if they make mistakes,” he complained.

“However, except for this, Vietnamese people are very nice to me,” he said.

“Belgian people are also friendly, but they are more reserved when communicating with strangers. It is cold in the winter in Belgium, so people just stay at home. They don’t go out and don’t communicate with others,” he explained.

While many people are making every effort to grasp the chance to study and live in Europe, Pim is the opposite. He said he likes discovering nature. In Vietnam, there are mountain, forests, rivers and streams. He also prefers the weather in DaNang.

He has been a vegetarian for three years. “In Vietnam, there are diverse vegetables and fruits. There are many restaurants for vegetarians and they offer dishes that fit my tastes,” he said.

As the owner of a TikTok channel with hundreds of thousands of followers, he has posted many clips showing him preparing bun cha, canhchua (sour soup) and com tam (steamed broken rice). Pim’s knowledge about Vietnam is reflected in his funny videos.

In 2022, Pim married his longtime Vietnamese girlfriend and both have experienced many different feelings since because of lifestyle and cultural differences.

They once argued about when to get married. In Belgium, many couples live together and have children before they get married. But in Vietnam, nearly all couples get married.

After a lot of discussion, Pim’s girlfriend no longer thought marriage was a must. In 2022, when his girlfriend turned 33 years old, they got married.

The couple is leading a happy life as they better understand each other and have accepted the differences between them.

Nguyen Thao