UK vs Saigon as a Woman

Hello. Hi. I’m back.

I took a very long break from blogging, partly because I didn’t really have access to my laptop, and partly because my parents came to visit. And in true fashion, that meant early wake-ups, long days, and seeing everything humanly possible.

(Not complaining. I loved it. Had the best time. Just saying my parents don’t really believe in rest days...)

Somewhere between sightseeing and being on the move, writing fell to the bottom of the list. But I’ve been meaning to write this one for a while, because it’s something I keep thinking about in everyday moments.

Living in Saigon has made me notice things I didn’t question before, especially when I compare how life feels here versus in the UK.

This isn’t a blog about one country being better than the other. It’s not Vietnam good, UK bad. It’s just an honest comparison based on my own experience. How safety, pace of life, social norms, and day-to-day practicality shape how relaxed you feel, how independent you can be, and how much mental energy you’re carrying around without realising.

This is only my experience, as an expat woman. Other women will feel very differently. But when I compare my life here to my life in the UK, the contrast is impossible to ignore.

Safety

One of the biggest differences for me has been how safe I feel.

When my parents came to visit, my mum said something that really stuck with me. Almost immediately, she felt relieved once she arrived in Saigon. She told me she feels far more comfortable with me living here than she would in other major cities in different countries. Coming from a mother’s intuition, that felt telling.

I did my master’s degree in Leeds, and I would never have walked around at night without constantly checking behind me. Even during the day, there was always a low-level awareness running in the background: who’s walking too close, who’s behind me, is this street too quiet, should I cross the road?

I’ve been followed in the UK, alone and with friends, more than once. You learn to do little risk assessments automatically. You grip your keys tighter. You walk faster. You stay alert.

In Saigon, my experience has been very different. I’m not saying harassment doesn’t happen, it absolutely does, and I don’t want to dismiss that. But personally, I haven’t experienced it here. I walk alone at night, I wear headphones (I know I shouldn’t), I stroll through the city without that constant sense of vigilance.

Part of it is the city itself. Saigon never really sleeps. There are people everywhere at all hours, eating, walking, working. UK cities and towns, especially outside major centres, can feel eerily empty at night, and that emptiness amplifies fear.

Independence Isn’t a Luxury Here

For a long time, one of my biggest life goals was to live in a big city, London, Paris, New York, and live my best ‘Sex and the City’ life. Shop aimlessly, eat out with friends, and say yes to cocktails just because it’s Tuesday.

But the reality is, that version of city life only really exists if you either grew up there, have family support nearby, or have a lot of money behind you. Otherwise, the dream usually comes with compromises: tiny rooms, long commutes, and constantly having to say no because everything costs more than it should.

What’s ironic is that I’ve ended up living that city life anyway, just not in the place I always assumed I would.

If I’d moved to London instead of Saigon, my life would look completely different. I’d almost certainly be in a house share, probably with people I didn’t know very well, in a place that’s fine but not great, paying an eye-watering amount of rent for a small room with bills that eat up whatever’s left.

And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I’ve done it. Throughout uni, I lived in shared flats and houses with friends, and at the time, I loved it. For a lot of people, moving to London and living in a house share feels like a rite of passage. I completely understand why. It makes sense at that stage of life, and for many people, it’s exactly where they want to be.

But it’s just not for me anymore.

Here, I live alone, in the city centre, comfortably. That still feels slightly unreal to say.

And it’s not just housing. Travelling here is easy and affordable. A weekend away doesn’t involve £120 train tickets or extortionate accommodation prices. I can decide on a whim to go somewhere new, book it, and go, alone, without it feeling risky or inaccessible.

This part isn’t just about being a woman, it applies to anyone, but Southeast Asia is genuinely one of the easiest places in the world to build a solo life. It’s a backpacker and traveller hub. Doing things alone is normalised. Travelling solo as a woman here feels safe and it’s extremely common.

That mix of independence, mobility, and ease has made me realise that while I once assumed London was the end goal, I’m no longer sure it fits the life I want now. That’s not a judgement on London, or on anyone who loves that life, it just feels different from where I’m at.

The Fat Comments

Being visibly foreign means you stand out. And with that comes commentary, especially about your body.

In the UK, calling someone fat is deeply offensive. Here, it’s not. It’s observational. You will be called fat. Shop assistants will say it casually. Colleagues will mention it without hesitation. When you go shopping, you’ll often be taken straight to the XL section without anyone thinking twice.

It shows up in small, everyday moments too. The other day I was teaching my kids appearance vocabulary, and one of the activities was to describe each other. One of them looked at me and said, “Teacher, you’re slim.” I gasped dramatically and went, “Oh really? Thank you!”
She immediately laughed and said, “No.”

The timing was so perfect I couldn’t even be offended. That kind of bluntness is just normal here. Weight isn’t taboo, it’s treated as factual. Being tall doesn’t help either, people often assume you won’t fit into any clothes before you’ve even tried, even though there are plenty of Vietnamese shops where you absolutely do (trousers, however, remain untested).

At first, it’s jarring. Then you realise it happens to almost every foreign woman I know. It’s not malicious, but that doesn’t mean it never stings.

Oddly, it’s actually made me feel more secure in myself. I can’t really explain the psychology of it, and it’s probably very personal, but it just doesn’t land the same way here. Maybe it’s the environment, maybe it’s the fact that I’m happier overall, or maybe I’ve just grown a thicker skin. Either way, it hasn’t knocked my confidence, if anything, I feel more comfortable in myself than I ever did back home.

That said, if you’re having a fragile day, going shopping might not be the best idea. But on a good day? You brush it off and move on.

Space to Try

I am a completely different person here than I am in the UK.

I’m more confident. I’m calmer. I carry far less anxiety. And that’s not because Vietnam is perfect, it’s because the pressure feels different.

Back home, I was hyper-focused on doing things “properly.” Get the degree. Get the grad job. Make it work in a way that’s easy to explain and easy for other people to recognise as success. As the first in my family to go to university, that pressure felt heavier. I felt like I owed it to everyone, to prove it had been worth it, to make the conventional route pay off.

When that didn’t pan out exactly how I’d imagined, I was brutally hard on myself. I genuinely thought I’d failed.

Being here has cracked that mindset open.

I’m surrounded by people doing things differently, teachers, freelancers, creatives, people building businesses, people changing direction entirely. No one path is treated as more valid than another. And slowly, without really realising it, I’ve stopped measuring myself against a checklist that never fully fit me anyway.

I have more space in my day to think, to try things, to talk to people, to hear their stories, to gather perspectives. It feels possible to experiment without feeling like one wrong move will derail my entire future. That sense of “if this doesn’t work, I’m screwed” just isn’t there in the same way.

Teaching plays a big role in that. Working evenings gives me daytime hours to focus on what I actually care about, to explore ideas, to build things slowly instead of panicking about getting everything right immediately. That balance has been huge for me.

Being away from the hustle and bustle, has somehow made me more motivated, not less. I want to make things work because they feel achievable, not because I’m trying to catch up or prove something. And it’s taken leaving the UK to realise how stuck my thinking had become, how narrow my idea of success really was.

This Isn’t a ‘One Size Fits All’

Living in Vietnam hasn’t fixed my life, and it hasn’t magically turned me into a new person. Moving abroad doesn’t make your problems disappear. If you arrive with baggage, you still have to deal with it. This isn’t a solution to everything, and it definitely isn’t for everyone.

But it has changed how being a woman feels in my day-to-day life.

In the UK, I didn’t realise how much tension I was carrying. About safety. About money. About timelines and whether I was doing things “right.” Even when things were going well, there was always a low level of pressure in the background. Here, that pressure is still there, but it’s quieter.

That doesn’t mean Vietnam is better, or safer for everyone, or that the UK is worse. Plenty of people would feel the opposite. It just means different places suit different people at different stages. Right now, this place suits me.

Being here has made me realise how much environment affects how you feel in public, in your body, and in your own head. Sometimes you don’t need to change yourself, you just need to change where you are.

And for now, this is where I feel most comfortable.

With love from Saigon,

Anaïs