Water spinach is a hugely popular vegetable in Vietnam. True to its “delicious, nutritious, and cheap” nature, water spinach is a staple in everyday family meals. In fact, this vegetable even… grows wild in many canals.
While it is an extremely affordable vegetable in Vietnam, water spinach is considered a “luxury item” for international students abroad.
Recently, on the TikTok channel @chuyencuaminhoduc, a Vietnamese student in Germany shared: “As a student in Vietnam, I only ate water spinach at the end of the month when I was low on money. And then I decided to come to Germany, where a plate of stir-fried water spinach with garlic costs 20 euros (approximately 500,000 VND). To all my fellow students planning to come to Germany, eat as much water spinach as you can before you arrive”.
The student’s “advice” to juniors
Who would have thought that this extremely common vegetable would be so expensive abroad?
The advice may sound unreasonable, but it makes perfect sense. As an international student, you’ve likely experienced sticker shock when realizing that vegetables that are “cheap as chips” in Vietnam are considered luxury items abroad. “A bundle of water spinach for 500,000 VND”, “A few stalks of scallions for over 100,000 VND”… these are not typos, but the actual prices many international students have to pay to eat their favorite vegetables!
In the comments below the post, many netizens shared similar experiences:
– At the end of the month in Vietnam, I ate instant noodles to survive, but in Germany, I can’t even afford instant noodles at the end of the month because they’re more expensive than bread. So, whenever I go back to Vietnam, I stock up on instant noodles.
– Traveling abroad made me realize that Vietnam is the best place to live. Whenever I crave something, I can just run to the market and get fresh, delicious produce.
– When I was an international student, I never dared to buy the same vegetables I ate in Vietnam because they were too expensive.
– I feel the same as an international student. I crave vegetables all the time, but I can’t afford to buy them because eating a meal with vegetables means I’ll have to eat bread for the rest of the month.
– The best way to avoid sticker shock at foreign supermarkets: Don’t convert prices to VND, or your heart will break.
Previously, netizens were shocked by a Vietnamese student’s post about the price of a single cabbage in the UK, which cost more than… 100,000 VND, on the TikTok channel @_thai.vivu_.
The story of the “unsettling cabbage” shared by the international student (Source: TikTok @_thai.vivu_)
Specifically, this male student usually loves eating cabbage, but in the UK, he couldn’t find the same type of cabbage as in Vietnam. Instead, he found a similar variety called sweetheart cabbage. As it was out of season, he went to a local open-air market and bought a sweetheart cabbage from a Turkish vendor.
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