Vietnamese Etiquette: What to Know

Vietnamese people are generally forgiving of foreign visitors who get things slightly wrong. Still, a few baseline habits make a big difference — particularly in family settings, business meetings, and pagodas.

Greetings

• A slight nod or small bow with hands neutral at sides is the default greeting between strangers.
• Handshakes are common in business; two-handed handshakes (clasping with both hands) signal extra respect, usually to someone older or senior.
• Don't initiate a hug or cheek-kiss with someone you've just met.
• A standard polite hello is xin chào (sin chow).

Addressing people

Vietnamese has no general "you." Instead you use kinship-relative pronouns depending on relative age and gender:

Speaker → Listener	Pronoun for "you"
Younger → older man	anh (about your age) or chú (your father's younger brother age) or bác (older)
Younger → older woman	chị (about your age), cô (mid), or bác
Older → younger	em
Equals around your age	bạn (friend) — neutral

You don't need to master the full table to be polite. Just defaulting to anh / chị / cô / chú roughly by visible age signals respect.

Names

Vietnamese names go family-name first, middle, given name last (Nguyễn Văn An). You address someone by their given name with the appropriate kinship title: Anh An, Chị Mai. Using the family name alone (Mr Nguyễn) is wrong — about 40% of all Vietnamese share the family name Nguyễn.

Business cards

Two-handed exchange, look at the card before pocketing it, don't write on it in front of the giver. Standard East Asian conventions apply.

At the table

• The oldest person at the table usually starts eating first; wait for them.
• Use chopsticks for solids; the spoon for soup. Don't stick chopsticks vertically into a rice bowl (it resembles incense at a funeral).
• Sharing dishes is the norm — small portions onto your own bowl, then eat.
• Drinking: when toasted, raise your glass. Một, hai, ba — yô! (one, two, three, cheers) is the standard. Trăm phần trăm means "100%" — drink it all.
• Hosts may continually re-fill your bowl or your glass. Leaving a small amount signals you're full.

In a home

• Remove shoes at the door. There will be a row of shoes; add yours.
• If you bring a gift: fruit, flowers, sweets, or something from your home country are all good. Avoid white flowers (associated with funerals) and gifts of clocks (homophone for "ending" in some contexts).
• Don't sit with feet pointed at people or at the ancestor altar.

In a pagoda or temple

• Shoulders and knees covered.
• Shoes off where indicated.
• Don't point at images or statues with a finger or foot.
• A small donation in the box near the altar is normal.
• Quiet voices.

Hierarchy in workplaces

Vietnamese offices, especially state-sector and traditional private firms, run on age and rank. Defer to seniors; don't disagree publicly with someone older; deliver bad news privately. Younger and tech-sector workplaces are more informal, but the underlying instinct is still hierarchical.

Things that read as rude

• Touching someone's head (even a child's) — heads are spiritually high.
• Pointing with a single finger; use the whole hand.
• Public displays of anger; raising your voice. Loses you face and loses the argument.
• Beckoning palm-up, fingers curling toward you — that's how dogs are called. Beckon palm-down, fingers waving.
• Tipping aggressively in places where it isn't expected (cafés, food stalls). A small tip in a sit-down restaurant is fine.

A note on photos

Ask first when photographing people. Children are usually fine. Adults at work in markets or fields — ask. Ethnic-minority villagers especially — ask, and don't push if they decline.