Part of the joy of living in Vietnam is finding humor and beauty in everyday life. Our favorite Facebook group, Another Side of Vietnam (ASOV), does just this. Its members post tongue-in-cheek photos from across the country, highlighting the ludicrous, the unbelievable, the magnificent, but usually just the hilarious side of the country.
Children wearing hats with English curse words, female DJs using equipment that’s not plugged in, motorbikes carrying ridiculous things, strangely named businesses, people brilliantly repurposing plastic stools as shoes to walk through flooded streets. Honestly, the list is infinite; go check it out for yourself.
The group’s founder, Adam Edermo, was inspired by a few Swedish humor pages he frequented.
“Typically they would include situation humor, e.g. objects placed in a weird context, or signs with silly misspellings,” said Edermo.
The group started out 6 pictures and 12 members in 2007 and slowly but surely, it gained momentum, now boasting over 20,000 members.
ASOV even held an awards ceremony at Zest last year where the group crowned members with honors such as “Best Troll” (What’s up, Jase?).
Aside from the entertainment value provided by the images, there are the comments. So many comments. Foreigners complaining about traffic or the noise from a neighborhood funeral predictably draw criticism from locals and culturally immunized expats. “If you don’t like it you can leave” has probably been typed more than once.
But when the dust settles, everyone gets along and in some weird, twisted way. The group has become an electronic culture exchange. Some anthropology PHD candidate could write their entire dissertation on this group.
The moderators keep the group free of real estate brokers, ladies night event listings and off-topic posts. At the end of the day, these guys keep the group on point and relevant.
Congrats to ASOV for hitting 20,000 members, we hope that number continues to rise.
Here are some of the types of photos you can expect to find:
