Too tall for plastic stool: Foreign diner’s awkward street food moment goes viral in Vietnam

The images, shared widely on Facebook pages, show a man estimated by commenters to be nearly two meters tall sitting at a curbside makeshift eatery.

His long legs were folded beneath him in what appears closer to a kneeling posture than the casual squat familiar to local diners.

The unusual pose quickly caught attention online, with hundreds of reactions and comments riffing on the mismatch between the diner’s height and Vietnam’s street-food furniture.

“Tourist has to kneel in front of Vietnamese food,” wrote Tran Mi, adding a laughing emoji, while another user, Quang Anh Nguyen, joked: “That must come from a great craving [for Vietnamese food] to sit like that.”

Others mixed humor with sympathy. “I feel sorry for him, but let’s laugh first,” commented Co Ut, as Le Duc Manh noted simply: “Sitting on the table is still too low [for him].”

“Upon returning home, he will recount that in Vietnam, one has to kneel to be allowed to eat,” wrote Chinh Nguyen.

Vietnam’s street dining culture is built around low tables and plastic stools that encourage a compact, crouched posture, a setup second nature to locals but often challenging for taller visitors.