I am a Vietnamese girl, blood and all. Vietnam's this little country in Asia, and we often get mixed up with other Asian races such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc. I have nothing against anybody's culture/race/religion and such, but it REALLY pisses me off when someone comes up to me and is like, "Hey, are you Chinese?" It makes me want to throw my fucking binder at them dear god, not every Asian-looking person is Chinese. also, if you're looking to write an Asian in general, we're not all crazy smart (especially at math), we don't excel in piano playing, we don't kick ass at martial arts and are black belts in karate, we don't have names that sound like pan noises, we don't all wear glasses, we're not nerds.
WE ARE PEOPLE. Write an Asian character and make them different. It's fine if you used any of the stereotypes listed above, but don't make them completely predictable with an IQ that tops albert Einstein's and has names like Ching Chong Lee Mung. Make them, I don't know, a figure skater, a ballerina, an artist, likes pets, is punk, whatever you want.
If you're trying to write about a Vietnamese and not just Asian character, here's some tips coming from a Viet girl through and through: most of our people are manicurists (ya know, work at nail salons). My parents, and as well as other adults because us kids aren't interested in this stuff, watch this show called Paris by Night. Basically (google more for real research, this is just my personal experience of course), a bunch of musicians (usually old guys, half of them are like dead now but they're really famous, so think of them like composers like Beethoven and Bach and such) write songs. Then singers sing them at a live show on stage and everything and it's recorded into a DVD (so like live covers). It's hosted by the few same hosts (Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen and Nguyen Ngoc Ngan), with the few same singers (Minh Tuyet and Bang Kieu are a few), and they do shows around the world I think. Some more live shows are called Asia and Van Son.
Viets also love comedy skits. Some popular comedians are Hoai Linh and Chi Tai. These are often inserted between the singing in live shows, to entertain people a bit.
Also, Nguyen is a VERY common Vietnamese last name. In most cases, Viet people have an English and Vietnamese name. Viet people usually have two first names, so think of it like Mary-Jane or something.
Popular Viet food is pho (I actually hate pho to be honest) and egg rolls (chai gio), and spring rolls. My personal favorites are bun bo hue (google for more info, but it's a lovely rice noodle dish with beef and bean sprouts and viet mint leaves, it's delicious), banh xeo (like an omelet kinda), com tam (broken rice with thinly shredded pork and pork skin with more added sides you can choose from). We eat EVERYTHING with fish sauce by the way. It's needed like ketchup with fries, or gravy with mashed potatoes. Must have.
Asian parents are usually stricter than most parents, it's a common stereotype but stereotypes become stereotypes because they're often true. We do get beat as kids (not like that okay, not super harsh and not like a 50 shades of grey kind of thing), just slightly on our butts.
Coming from my parents, it was horrible living in Vietnam in their age. Teachers do hit students at school, usually in the palms of their hands with a ruler. And trust me, it hurts, bad. The bloody swelling up kind of bad. In fact, my parents still have scars to show you today.
Vietnamese parents usually have a lot of kids, which is bad considering it was a poor country and there wasn't really a lot to provide (my dad grew up with 22 siblings, very cramped in a little cottage).
Che is also a god awesome dessert in Vietnam. It's a type of pudding to me actually, usually made with sticky rice and such. SO GOOD. I'm telling you. My favorite is che dau (sticky rice with red/black beans). We pour coconut sauce over che.
We do celebrate Tet as a Viet tradition. It's so pretty, and fun. People associate Tet with red and gold. It's actually Chinese New Year, but we do go all out in Vietnam over it. Li xi is money in the little red packets with oriental designs on it. But it's so much more than that. Prior to receiving the packets, I have to bless the person giving it to me (something like 'this year I wish you full of prosperity, long age', etc.). Girls wear ao dai (long traditional Viet dresses and they're gorgeous). Beautiful trees with yellow flowers (called cay mai) are used as decorations during Tet, as well as cherry blossoms. We eat savory foods like banh tet and banh chung, basically the same thing but one is cylindrical and the other square. It's just meat and mung bean wrapped in sticky rice then wrapped in banana leaves (we use lots of banana leaves in Vietnam to wrap stuff up, I'd like to give someone a bday/xmas gift wrapped in banana leaves and they'd be like, "...tf you cheap," to which I'd reply, "nah, I'm just traditional").
Please remember to include Vietnamese words when including dialogue!! It makes it more realistic and flowy. Google translate is your friend.
That's all that I can think about for now. I might've not gotten a lot right and please point out if any of the stuff I said was wrong, because I'm basing my personal life on this. I hope this was useful!! (: have fun writing a POC character, and I'm so excited to start reading other entries to get more of a personal view for other people from different countries. x