SO YOUR PARTNER IS VIETNAMESE

Nobody warns you that there is no word for "you."

You have met someone. You are serious about each other. And in three weeks you are going to sit down with their family, at a table where what you call yourself changes depending on who else is in the room.

Most guides to Vietnam are written for backpackers. They will tell you where to get the best banh mi in Hanoi and which beach to see before it gets busy. None of them will tell you why your partner's mother corrects you every time you use the wrong word for yourself, or what not to say about the thirtieth of April.

This is a short, practical guide for the non-Vietnamese partner, written by an outsider who got it wrong in front of people first and then asked a great many questions. It covers a family still in Vietnam and a family generations into the diaspora in equal measure, because what you are expected to know is not always the same.

INSIDE

• Anh, chị, em: the address system with no word for "you"


• What not to raise: the flag, 1975, and the date everyone avoids


• The toast you cannot refuse, and the three ways to slow it down


• What to call her parents before the wedding, and after


• The altar in the living room, and what you should never touch


• Tết, the new year that reorganises the whole calendar


• Dạ, and the polite way of saying no without saying no

Twenty-two short chapters, a cheat sheet you can read on the way there, and a glossary with pronunciation for every term in the book.

It will not make you fluent. It will get you through the first dinner.

So Your Partner Is Vietnamese is part of The Nervous Guest series, alongside So Your Partner Is Filipino, So Your Partner Is Nigerian, So Your Partner Is Chinese, So Your Partner Is from Hong Kong, So Your Partner Is Korean and So Your Partner Is Mexican.