At the bustling Han Market in central Da Nang, two Vietnamese vendors tease a middle-aged South Korean tourist by calling him harabeoji , or “grandfather” in Korean.
“I’m offended!” he jokes.
The women grab his arms and laugh. “It’s OK, it’s OK.”
The man had returned to their stall after buying 200,000 dong (US$7.60) worth of macadamia nuts the day before. It is a small moment of banter, repeated dozens of times a day in a city that many people from South Korea jokingly call their own unofficial seaside province.
Outside the market, storefronts display Korean-language signs. K-pop drifts from restaurants and massage parlours. South Korean tourists crowd the streets in the city centre.
In recent years, visitors have nicknamed the city “Gyeonggi province of Da Nang”, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the densely populated region surrounding Seoul.