Pretoria, Nov. 6 -- Kyler, a South African who has lived in Vietnam for a decade, has become fluent in Vietnamese, married a Vietnamese wife and turned into an unsung "cultural ambassador" between the two countries.

Language is the first wedge

Talking with a Vietnam News Agency reporter in South Africa, Kyler said language is the key that breaks cultural barriers. "I once heard a very good saying: if you speak to someone in English, you reach their head; if you speak their mother tongue, you reach their heart", he recalled.

That philosophy shaped his first step into Vietnamese culture: not guidebooks, but learning how to greet people. The small effort paid off. Locals responded warmly, corrected his pronunciation and told him about the...