"What you are about to say is distinctly lower middle class," my boyfriend's dad interrupts his wife. We are having a discussion about how certain words can denote one's class. In particular, how faux posh words mark one lower middle class with upper class aspirations. For example, scone, the traditional English accompaniment to tea with the vicar, I pronounce "scon" but if I were lower middle class I would, rather pretentiously, call it a scone, rhyming with bone.

As we move on to grape scissors, (apparently these are special scissors for cutting grape branches off the stalk, so as to avoid an unsightly tree like structure dominating one's fruit bowl), I think about how growing up somewhere means one can instinctively understand the country's customs, and even place them within a very specific section of society. And I wonder how I am going to cope in Vietnam, where the dominance of different religions, “communism”, and a dramatically different history, could make negotiating their customs a minefield.

I have tried to get to grips with these anxieties by reading "Culture Shock: Vietnam", which provided me with some very useful, if hard to remember, rules about what colour and what type of gifts are appropriate for whom, and at what time of year. Above all, I remember that the golden rule is that if you want anything off anyone, bring them some fruit.

However in between this I was distracted by the book's insistence that if you are going to live in Vietnam you are going to hire at least one maid, a cook, a driver, and a security guard. And of course, leave your children in an English boarding school eating scones.

This book was written only ten years ago. While I was prepared, even with my backpacker budget, to be rich in comparison to most Vietnamese, I certainly won't be hiring staff. I wonder how it feels not only to have the west's businessman locking themselves away from you in guarded compounds, but also to have the west's teenagers using your country as a playground to "find themselves".

I really hope that through teaching English I’ll be able to find ways of getting to know some Vietnamese people, and break through these barriers. I want to make friends with my students and fellow teachers; and only resort to the backpacker trail when I am in desperate need of some home comforts. So I'll be filling my pockets with fruit, rather than scones, however you pronounce them.