Hotline’s Success Illustrates a New Openness in Vietnam

Tearful and angry that her husband had left her for his mistress, the woman called looking for a shoulder to cry on. The fact that she didn’t know the person on the other end of the phone line was a measure of her anguish.

Vietnam is still a nation where revealing personal problems to a stranger is so foreign to the culture that a career in counseling is practically unheard of.

But the surprising popularity of a crisis hotline set up last year marks a small but telling change in a society long guided by religious strictures that preach that life is about suffering--and people’s fate is to endure in silence.

Founder Nguyen Van Anh reports that the hotline, the only one of its kind citywide, averages 100 calls a day from people seeking advice on everything from love and marriage to sex and drug addiction.

“I think people are beginning to feel more free to talk about their problems,” she said. “In the past, people had a habit of keeping things inside. Now there is more openness.”

Historically, like most Asians, Vietnamese have been reluctant to air private troubles, fearful of bringing shame on their families or losing face before friends, said social anthropologist Le Thi Nham Tuyet.

Cultural mores dictated that people keep problems to themselves or resolve them on their own. Confucian principles advised people to greet adversity with a smile.

But society is changing rapidly, noted Tuyet, who directs the Research Center for Gender, Family and Environment in Development. “Since Doi Moi [Vietnam’s 1986 economic reforms], a lot of knowledge, technology and ideas from other countries have flooded into our community,” she said. “People now know that lack of knowledge is dangerous.

“For example, 75% of young girls who get abortions simply don’t know how they got pregnant. Not being allowed to talk about certain things openly is harmful.”

Indeed, the majority of callers are young people, often curious about relationships and the more delicate subject of sexuality. (“Can I get pregnant from kissing?” is a common query.) Couples going through marital problems also call frequently, Van Anh said.

More serious issues of drug addiction, domestic violence and emotional illnesses do come up. Elderly callers complain of loneliness and isolation.

Working out of a tiny office from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m., Van Anh and a rotating staff of 25 people have handled about 40,000 calls since they opened the lines in 1997. Two workers handle the morning shift, and four others work the heavier traffic in the evening, when the phones constantly jangle.

Because counseling and psychotherapy are relatively new concepts here, there is still very little education and training available for would-be counselors. Most staffers are teachers or professors with backgrounds in philosophy or the humanities, chosen more for their patience and compassion than anything else, Van Anh said.

Although the hotline received little publicity in the beginning, many people became repeat callers and helped popularize the service through word of mouth.

Staffer Pham Duc Long recalled one couple he had counseled during marital difficulties who gratefully called to thank him for saving their marriage. They promptly called all their friends and recommended the hotline.

“They are inside the problem, but we stand outside, so our view is more clear,” he said. “When you can help someone, that’s the best feeling.”

Nguyen said she was inspired by a similar hotline set up in Ho Chi Minh City two years ago but that she received little encouragement when she first started the service in Hanoi.

Naysayers told her she was wasting her time; that while southerners might be more inclined to talk about their feelings, northerners were too closed to express themselves.

“They told me this could only be a success in the south,” she said. “If I had listened to them, this hotline would never have started.”

Van Anh also attributes the success of the hotline to the improved economic health of Vietnamese. For many years, warfare and poverty dwarfed all other concerns, she said.

“Now, people don’t have to worry so much about physical survival,” she said. “We can pay more attention to individual problems and emotional needs.”