I'm Korean and I've been dating my Vietnamese boyfriend in Canada for about five years now. Obviously this is just my experience with one person/family, not "all Vietnamese people."
I've dated people from different backgrounds before, but he's honestly been the best match for me.
One thing I didn't expect was how easy the food part would be. Food is pretty important to me, and we can eat almost everything together. We both like spicy food, and luckily I love cilantro too lol.
What surprised me more is how familiar Vietnamese home cooking can feel. Not restaurant food, but the simple stuff families make at home. Sometimes I make a basic Korean chicken or pork dish and he says it reminds him of something his mom made when he was little. He'll make something from his childhood and I'll think, "We have something really similar in Korea."
We still disagree about what counts as properly cooked rice though 😂 I like mine a little sticky. He also uses soy sauce way more than I do.
We watch a lot of Korean dramas and variety shows together too. He once told me that when he was growing up, Asian guys in American movies were rarely the handsome main character. Usually they were the nerd, comic relief, or side character. He likes seeing Asian men just being the male lead in Korean shows, and that actually made me think about it differently.
I'd really like to watch more Vietnamese shows with him now. Any good dramas, movies or variety shows with English subtitles? Especially something that shows normal family life or everyday culture.
There are also little things I'm still figuring out. For example, in my Korean family, if my parents are visiting, I would never lie down on the couch in front of them. My boyfriend will say hello to them and then happily lie down 😂 He insists this is completely normal in Vietnam. Is it?
His family also invites me over for meals a lot and they're incredibly kind to me. They always tell me to bring nothing. I never know whether I should actually listen to that or still bring fruit, dessert, or something small.
And after dinner I always have this Korean voice in my head going, "Shouldn't you be in the kitchen helping?" But I'm terrible at cooking and know absolutely nothing about Vietnamese cooking, so I'm probably more useful staying out of the way.
For Vietnamese people here, what would you normally expect from your sibling's or son's partner when they come over for a family meal? And are there any Korean-Vietnamese cultural similarities or differences you've noticed that foreigners might not realize?
