There are moments when I laugh so hard my jaw hurts, the kind of laughter you use as a shield, trying to keep exhaustion from leaking out. And those moments happen most often right before Tet, when people start chanting, "One hundred percent! Chug that dang beer down!"

As Lunar New Year approaches, ride-hailing drivers say they are working longer hours for small earnings, as low commissions, rising demand and mounting pressure from app-based platforms leave many questioning whether the job is worth the cost to their health and safety.

While many countries are debating a four-day work week, or even shorter working hours, the question of a standard 40-hour work week remains unresolved in Vietnam.

When Tet stands at the doorstep in Vietnam, for millions of Vietnamese living abroad it remains just another set of ordinary days.

In 2016, while working in Singapore, I wrote an article about cycling culture for Channel NewsAsia, sharing my perspective as both an urban researcher and a daily cyclist.

I got off work at 5 p.m., but I did not get home until 9 p.m., even though the distance was only 15 kilometers.

For years, I was told that children should start learning English as early as possible. If they did not begin at the age of three, many warned, they would miss the so-called "golden period" for language acquisition.

When I realized I had spent VND168 million (US$6,477) just to raise my child's IELTS score from 4.0 to 6.5 to gain more university admission points, I began to question whether foreign language certification in Vietnam has become more expensive than university itself.

Minh, the son of an acquaintance of mine, graduated with a solid business administration degree from a university in Ho Chi Minh City. After that he sent out lots of applications for jobs but failed to land one he considered worthwhile.

After checking airfares and other expenses, I decided I could not afford to return home for Tet (Lunar New Year).

Many universities in Vietnam now allow IELTS scores to be converted into admission points, a policy that has helped fuel the test’s growing popularity, raising the question of whether it truly promotes effective learning or simply pushes students into an expensive race for marginal advantages.

When I learned that many of my child's classmates already held IELTS scores of 6.5 to 7.0 while still in Grade 8, I realized that my child had entered the race later than most.

On the morning of Jan. 26, my phone was flooded with messages from friends and colleagues. All of them revolved around the same news: five confirmed cases of Nipah virus infection in West Bengal, India.

I recently found myself unsettled by a decision made by my four-grade child's parent association: contributing funds to hire someone to clean their classroom.

In Singapore, there is a nonprofit restaurant called Soul Food. What impressed me most was not a fancy menu but the people who run it. They are young workers on the autism spectrum, or ASD, and their philosophy is blunt and fair: "We want you to come for the good service, not out of pity."

When I was little, my younger brother, three neighborhood girls, and I used to crowd around the basement TV to watch the Spice Girls sing.

I made a decision that many people consider risky: I did not let my child spend all their time buried in books, even though they were capable of studying more to maintain strong academic results.

Vietnam's prevailing 48-hour work week - often extended further by overtime - is pushing many workers into chronic exhaustion, making them reluctant to spend on shopping, travel, or even healthcare.

At a late-year breakfast in Bristol, an elderly professor set down his teacup and spoke slowly. “Universities now pour most of their resources into checking whether students actually learn,” he said. “They no longer focus on improving teaching itself.”