CoL and friendly people are major plusses though.
So it is pretty much like the US but with healthcare.
Have you read any piece of international news recently that's not about how bad Russia or China is?
The Reagan administration’s indirect war efforts in Latin America were forced underground (“clandestine”) due to public opposition.
Not worse based on what?
> Politicians don't spend all of their office time running instead of doing work.
Of course not. They just spend a ton of time on the phone with the people who are their actual constituents, i.e. their donors.
Until they're not. There's a pretty reasonable assumption of nonviolent transfer of power to the third/fourth party should R/D lose. I cannot safely say the same about VN or CN
Aha. I see. Good refutation.
China is indeed less democratic than America. I agree. But you haven’t provided a counter-argument to the claim in this subthread.
I can remember one woman being profiled in these "Americans are retiring abroad" stories. Usually it is a man and they are often married to a much younger local woman. They did not go there with a spouse.
It's hilarious going to a certain 3rd world country with my wife (where she was born). My wife is dual citizen (gained citizenship and good career before I met her) and makes more than I do. In this country impoverished women often marry rich westerners. When we go people assume I'm her sugar-daddy/visa-husband. The odd thing to me is I don't see our relationship as any more or less valid, who the fuck cares that we married for a different reason than someone else? Also in many nations marriage is as much about connections as it is anything else.
The presumption is more of a practical and amusing one. Many of the villages are funded in part by remittance from US and this country was saved by US from literal mass rape by Japanese in WWII and unlike other countries we never seriously fucked them afterwards so the people overall are very cheery in dealing with Americans in my experience.
1. The term predates the world-wide web to a time when women in developing counties would be in a literal catalog, and correspondence was done via mail.
You can educate them on all these things (many of these brides surely already know this) and yet many would still choose on their free volition to proceed ahead.
But they are the ones who created the gender imbalance. It's completely self-imposed.
>The odd thing to me is I don't see our relationship as any more or less valid, who the fuck cares that we married for a different reason than someone else?
It's only odd to you because you're not affected by it. Men in local populations have a MUCH HARDER time finding wives that are local. When a foreigner jumps in and snatches up one while barely speaking the language it's a little "wtf."
Let's put things into reality. The fact of the matter is women marry up. They are attracted to men with higher status. Globally, white men occupy this status. Not officially mind you, no white man or person of any race would say this, but subconsciously that's the hierarchy. That's why white men, if they date women of other races often have a much easier time. Women everywhere tend to just put white men on that pedestal. In terms of status, a white man can get better results if they date another woman of a different class and race then they would if they dated some women of the same race and status. That's reality. The statistics on dating sites verify this racial phenomenon.
So of course if the tables were turned and rich asian and black men came stateside and started taking away white women the resentment would exist in the other direction. And such resentment does sort of exist (not in the dating scene) in terms of employment and jobs.
It's normal there's nothing wrong or right about the situation, but it is what it is.
Asians are indisputably higher earners in US than white, on average. If anything it would make more sense that people view it that someone from an Asian country such as my wife married down and not up, if we're viewing through the race lenses you are viewing things through.
This is true but it is not the factored into the subconscious hierarchy. Globally and locally White people are viewed as the top.
Additionally, you should realize that the average income for asians here is highly skewed by a few top earners.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/07/12/income-...
Income inequality among asians is the greatest of any race.
Factoid: the second richest kind of heterosexual household in the US, on average, is Asian woman, white man. Interestingly, Asian-Asian and White-White lag significantly behind both.
Almost paradoxically, from a purely financial outcome perspective a white man is expected to be better off marrying an asian woman, while an asian man is expected to be better off marrying a white woman.
I didn't realize there was a pair like that where both male and female are statistically better off financially marrying the complement, but it seems white/asian pair is the winning combination for maximum expected income?
Why not simply improve their country? That would solve their problem.
I would say the subconscious sentiment is reversing only fairly recently. Groups like BTS are changing the game. Among the youngest generations Asians are seen very differently.
However the overall sentiment will remain for most our lifetimes.
This is a very new cultural assumption (something like the 1960s ?)
Prior to that marriage was a lot less about contemporary concepts like "emotional love", "my forever best friend" etc.
Vietnam still has a very old religious under pinning (idk the exact definitions, but something like daoist - bhuddist - ancestor worship). Marriage and family means something very different there than in the US meaning (nearly formless these days)
The aggressor ended up getting in trouble and appeared on the local news but I'm sure a lot of people shared his toxic views.
30K a year is a fortune in many places.
It’s rapidly developing so lots of nice builings and projects going up but the older generation (who grew up with the war) seem to be the ones lost. The new generation isn’t affected by it (same as how new generation Chinese don’t know what poverty is - I mean the city folk cuz rural folk are still poor)
This channel (Troy Vietnam) dives into the underbelly of it. So much poverty :(
This is also very true -- it's modernizing rapidly. For example, the first crypocurrency trader I ever met was in Vietnam, and there were many touristy but nice hotels with things like roof top bars/clubs, the younger people were very technically focused (social media, smart phones etc) where as the older people were very much paper (and some email) driven. There is a sharp contrast between generations compared to N.A. where most everyone of my friends' parents have a smart phone and use computers well enough to get by.