> I'd much rather pay my "traffic ticket" on the street than deal with the bureaucracy
I'm not talking about low level corruption like that. That will change later, hopefully, once the wages of police increase.
I'm talking about high level corruption where a hospital is supposed to get built and instead the project gets stalled for years and then it turns out all the money mysteriously vanished. Or an entire minority village get kicked off their land to make way for a new resort, and a politician coincidentally gets a large cash gift. These are far more important to solve than police taking small bribes, and that's what they're working on now. I don't have enough insight or knowledge to comment on how successful they are likely to be but I wish them luck.
One point about the low level corruption, though: like you say, it's very convenient to pay a small bribe on the street to avoid a traffic ticket. Unless you make $150 a month and that small bribe is actually your day's wages and you can't eat that day. So yeah, it's convenient, if you're wealthy, and terrible if you're poor. Like so many things in life.
It isn't just central, it is the entire coastline.
> Unless you make $150 a month and that small bribe is actually your day's wages and you can't eat that day.
Oh totally. So many times I've seen them loading bikes onto trucks because people couldn't afford to pay. There is a lot of really f'cked up stuff there for sure.
I ended up just giving money away left and right, because I was lucky in that I could and it was the right thing to do. Nothing drives me nuts more than expats who complain about having to pay an extra 10k for something because the locals were 'ripping them off'...
> Nothing drives me nuts more than expats who complain about having to pay an extra 10k for something because the locals were 'ripping them off'...
Not all expats are rich. Many Vietnamese are rich. So yeah, it is kind of shitty that if you're a foreigner you'll be overcharged for everything all the time. It's racism, to put it bluntly, and not a good part of Vietnamese culture. I think it's totally reasonable to be annoyed about racism.
I'm not talking about low level corruption like that. That will change later, hopefully, once the wages of police increase.
I'm talking about high level corruption where a hospital is supposed to get built and instead the project gets stalled for years and then it turns out all the money mysteriously vanished. Or an entire minority village get kicked off their land to make way for a new resort, and a politician coincidentally gets a large cash gift. These are far more important to solve than police taking small bribes, and that's what they're working on now. I don't have enough insight or knowledge to comment on how successful they are likely to be but I wish them luck.
One point about the low level corruption, though: like you say, it's very convenient to pay a small bribe on the street to avoid a traffic ticket. Unless you make $150 a month and that small bribe is actually your day's wages and you can't eat that day. So yeah, it's convenient, if you're wealthy, and terrible if you're poor. Like so many things in life.