u/Used-Army-691

There are so many sellers on Amazon, I honestly can't tell who's reliable. My budget is around $100.

Looking for recommendations on a good quality gaiwan, ideally one that handles heat well and looks nice too.

Update: Thanks everyone for all the advic, I ended up buying a $60 Jingdezhen blue and white porcelain gaiwan from oriental-artisan.com.

I know you don't need to spend that much on a gaiwan if you're just using it to make tea, but I also wanted something that I could collect as a piece of art. I already have quite a few cups that cost over $100, so I was okay spending a bit more on this one.

Thanks again for all the recommendations

Hi everyone,

I'm writing this from work because I need to vent, this whole situation is messing with my head and honestly making me feel kind of down.

I'm 22F and I just started an internship at a small company in Vietnam. I only landed the spot because a distant relative happens to be the operations director there. The business is still fairly small and growing bit by bit, so getting in wasn't hard for me. Here's the catch though, my family has Vietnamese roots but I never actually picked up the language growing up, aside from a handful of words. Holding an actual conversation is out of reach for me. So day to day I end up leaning on English and Dutch, Dutch being my first language.

English isn't an issue for me, I've been using it since childhood. What's actually hard is that my coworkers just aren't getting what I say, no matter how slowly or simply I break it down.

I've started Vietnamese lessons on an app but let's be real, that's nowhere close to what I'd need to actually chat with someone or sound fluent. On top of that I have zero business vocabulary since I'm still trying to wrap my head around how the company even works.

It's barely been two weeks and I'm already having trouble getting my thoughts across, or even explaining how I'm feeling. The words just aren't there. It kind of feels like I'm living some version of Emily in Paris, except nobody around me speaks English so nobody gets it. Pretty much the only person in the whole company who's fluent in English or Dutch is that distant relative.

Also, in case anyone's wondering, I skipped the whole interview process for this. It's a small company and I really just wanted some real world experience. Since this is my first actual job too, I'm not only dealing with the language stuff, I'm also constantly second guessing whether I'm even doing my tasks correctly.

If anyone's been through something like this, how did you manage it? Thanks for reading this far.

I’ve been at this company for quite a while. My manager keeps telling me how valuable I am and how they see me taking on bigger roles in the future.

Then we had a really weird conversation recently.

There’s an internal leadership program that helps people move up. I asked about getting into it, and they immediately seemed hesitant. Their reasoning was that people who finish the program often end up leaving for better opportunities.

I just sat there thinking... wait, that's the plan?

They want to hold me back just so I won’t quit?

Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it honestly felt like I was being penalized for being a good employee. Ever since that conversation, I've started looking at other jobs. Now I can't stop wondering if this is the only opportunity they've held me back from.

Would this be a deal breaker for you, or am I blowing this way out of proportion?