Drawing on Foucault's governmentality, this study examines five academic mentors' narratives of their experiences in a Vietnamese university. The data collected through semi-structured interviews show how the participants responded to the government's, the institution's and cultural influences on their mentoring practice. They were able to form their own judgment, knew of the institution mentoring's failings and reformed the discourses through which they were positioned. They downplayed the hierarchy in the relationship, negotiating their culturally and socially constructed patronage role and reporting power. By embracing the resistance discourse, they shaped themselves as active, knowing, and moral subjects. The 'gaze' from the government, institution, and culture, however, created a level of assimilation and prevented them from disturbing the mainstream mentoring. The study additionally advances knowledge of academic mentoring and Vietnamese HE governance.