Street market in Vietnam. Photo by David Hoang.
David Hoang, a passionate traveller, believes travelling is one of the best ways to realize how amazing your life is.
Hoang recently left his eight-hour-a-day office job to spend a month exploring his family’s home country, Vietnam. The adventure altered his thoughts about his seemingly boring and routine daily life.
According to Hoang, everyone in Vietnam lived simply and seemed happy. “It’s such a weird contrast,” he said. “Everyone in Vietnam looked so content with their lives as opposed to here when you walk in the mall everyone looks brain dead.”
He came to the realization that in Canada life is complicated and we spend much of our lives trying to make as much money as possible. In Vietnam, Hoang remembers his family being content with the money they earn and the small amount of things they have. Hoang learned that it is okay to complain, but to stop complaining about things that can be fixed.
“Everyone has their struggles,” he said. “Someone will always have it worse and someone else will always have it better.” Lack of money didn’t seem to be a huge issue because people seemed physically happy with their life, he added.
During his travels, Hoang noticed major lifestyle differences between Vietnam and Canada.
“It’s not a glamorous life. The hygiene and stuff is so dirty.” He noticed this right away when he saw a rat the size of dog run across the floor of a restaurant he was eating at. He was happy he had the reassurance he wouldn’t see that when he got back home. Despite being less fortunate than most countries, Hoang remembers how happy and positive everyone’s personalities in Vietnam are.
Throughout his month of travelling he became appreciative of his life back home. Hoang says, “I was able to go somewhere that was very different from Canada and come back a lot more free.”
