'On vacation every single day': I left the U.S. to live in Vietnam and only need to work 15 hours a week

When Kavi Vu was 3 year old, her family fled to the United States, following a decades-long war in their home country, Vietnam. After 30 years, she has returned to her motherland to "slow down" and experience her native country.

Vu moved to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, last year, where she currently works remotely as a freelance creative consultant and videographer, bringing in about $11,000 a month, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. She just needs to work about 8 to 15 hours a week.

"I was able to significantly lessen my workload — way less than if I were living in the States," she said. "I am very privileged in that, in Vietnam, I get to say how many hours a week I work, which I know is insane. Coming from the States ... I worked like 10 hours a day."

"I primarily came here to work less and observe more," Vu said. "I feel like the U.S. is a lot of doing, and here, it's a lot of being, being present [and] just like existing, and that's really nice, because sometimes you just need that space to untangle a lot of knots in your head."

Vu and her family fled Vietnam for the United States in the 1990s to escape the fallout of the Vietnam War, which is also known as the "American War" in Vietnam.

"My sisters actually were boat people (refugees who fled Vietnam by boat), so they were in refugee camps in the Philippines. [They] came to the States and were able to sponsor my parents and me over from Vietnam," she said.

Vu's family landed in Florida, where they spent 10 years before moving to Georgia where they lived on a small chicken farm. Growing up as a minority in the U.S., she never felt a sense of belonging, she told CNBC Make It.

"We were living the refugee experience," she said. "I mean, we were the only Asians