In the decade-plus of Saigoneer’s existence, we’ve had six offices strewn across different parts of Districts 1 and 3. Over that period, my homes have been located in Bình Thạnh and Thảo Điền, requiring significant commuting time.

In a perfect world, Saigon’s first metro line would provide a pleasant trip, but unfortunately, we’re living on another timeline. This means that most of my commutes have occurred on motorbike along the city’s congested thoroughfares, often leaving me drained upon arriving at work.

Sprinklers provide needed hydration to both the grass and passersby.

When we moved offices again last year, I punched the address into Google Maps and a thick blue line insinuated that Võ Thị Sáu would be my preferred route. Having traversed this street during rush hour in the past, I was not particularly excited by this revelation — no disrespect to the street's heroic namesake. Upon a second glance at my screen, I noticed an opaque grey line along Hoàng Sa Street, an alternate route along Saigon’s Nhiêu Lộc–Thị Nghè Canal that's only five minutes longer.

This suggested path has proven to be an utter delight; as close to meditation as one can have on their morning commute in Saigon. The canal twists and turns like a dragon’s tail and is flanked by modest urban development. Tree-lined and car-free before 9am, it’s a sensory cornucopia.

Rows of trees on both sides of Hoàng Sa are a welcome sight in the heat of March.

Automated sprinkler systems add to the whimsical atmosphere, as their malfunction often creates clouds of mist through which drivers have to pass. A mid-journey refresh. On lucky days when the grass is recently trimmed, a sweet scent of leveled green blades fills the nostrils.

A sense of calm is reinforced by the many temples that line the canal, providing a centering energy to my morning rides amid the scent of incense. The 15-odd minutes I spend driving along Hoàng Sa is sometimes the calmest time of my day. How many of us can say that about our morning commute?

Brian Letwin is the co-founder and CEO of Saigoneer.

Water has no hometown.

It flows through streams, oceans, swamps, clouds, fruit, blood and breath, no place more or less its home than any other. It flows through Nhiêu Lộc-Thị Nghè as the canal moves through Saigon the way a rooster cry navigates an alleyway.

Photo by Alberto Prieto.

Named after Nguyễn Thị Khánh and her husband, Nghè, who helped Vietnamese first settle the area as well as the legend of Đặng Lộc who ferried children across it to the Nhiêu School in later years, the canal once inspired young poets and writers who praised its clear waters that revealed perch, snakehead and mollusks. When the city was young and idealistic, it flowed fresh as clean parchment waiting to be scrawled with songs, stories, wedding invitations and records of rice harvests.

But as the city grew, homes began to encroach on its banks. Poverty spilled out from underneath corrugated roofs and Nhiêu Lộc-Thị Nghè became sullied with sewage, plastic bags, beer cans, and barge oil. Stink engulfed the surrounding neighborhoods. Its water ran black like the ink streaking an overdue bill slipped beneath a locked door.

In 2005, while renovation was still going on, the water quality was still dismall. Photo via Thanh Niên.

Trần Khánh Dư Bridge crossing the canal to connect Tân Định and Phú Nhuận. The canal was quite polluted in 2007. Photo via Thanh Niên.

In early 2002, a plan was launched, more than US$350 million spent, over 50,000 people relocated. Dredging machines rasped their saurian maws across its bed while men with rakes and poles peeled back matted gnarls of trash from its surface. Embankments, drains and sewers were installed, trees planted and sidewalks placed. Dengue and crime fled from its shores.

Today, it’s one of the nicest places in Saigon to stroll. The stench has been whisked away, the tatters of trash drifting across its stained surface are outnumbered by the fish flitting below. You cannot drink from it, should not eat anything caught in it (despite the plentitude of fishing poles dropped in from bridges) and distributaries remain unmitigated. It’s not perfect, but it's nice. It will never fulfill the lofty potential it once held, but its descent into disgust has been reversed, and it has the ability to improve more.

I look down into it and catch my reflection in its rippling waters and recognize it as a metaphor for my life.

There is no way to describe Saigon traffic literally and have it understood by someone who has not experienced it.

Photo by Michael Tatarski.

Saigon traffic is a load of laundry done after mistaking powdered pectin for detergent. Saigon traffic is convincing a child that sweetbread is a dessert pastry and not mashed thymus flesh. Navigating Saigon traffic is swimming laps in a hot tub wearing full hát bội dress and makeup. It wakes late and puts its skin on inside out; walks on stage to offer a bouquet of thistles and poison ivy to the actors after the play; remixes sounds recorded in a slaughterhouse into music for wedding ceremonies. Circus ape cage-scented incense. Week-old milk poured in a termite mound. TV station broadcasting nothing but static. Saigon traffic forces you to take deep breaths through a sandpaper straw. Hot, hot, hot, Saigon traffic is a waiting room built out of bee swarms and tin-foiled laughter. It’s a tongue touching the hot wiring exposed by a diseased tooth. Saigon traffic stuffs your precious nostalgia in a burlap sack and beats it with a rusted length of rebar before tossing it in the sea.

You cannot blame being late on Saigon traffic; you knew it would be like this.

Vignette is a series of tiny essays from our writers, where we reflect, observe, and wax poetic about the tiny things in life.

I learnt of the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation in my first year living in Hanoi, through friends that had worked for the fantastic organization, or that were regular donors supporting it. This year, I was super excited to see their “Blue Dragon Marathon Walk” annual fundraiser announced, with the main Hanoian event looping around Thống Nhất Park's lake. Embracing the opportunity to contribute, I put my hand up for a 10K walk and enticed friends and family from around the world to send donations to the wander-for-a-cause.

Thống Nhất is my favorite park in the city. And as I liken walking in Hanoi to playing dodge-ball whilst running hurdles in a sauna, I dare say I have not walked any 10K in this fine city. On September 10, as I donned my Thượng Đình kicks and shuffled down to the park, I looked forward to meeting Skye Maconachie, the Foundation’s CEO.

The Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation is a Hanoi-based charity focusing on improving the welfare of children across Vietnam through various programs, such as taking care of street kids, rescuing victims of human trafficking, and providing help for many other disadvantaged young Vietnamese. To date, the organization has rescued 1,388 people from trafficking, represented 256 people in court cases, sent 6,305 kids back to school and training, and more.

The green scenery of Thống Nhất Park. Photo via Kenh14.

The Marathon Walk fell on a fabulously humid day with the park full of its usual mayhem, from the miniature train running shaky loops, children scrambling wild through the bushes to the sweet smell of burnt xúc xích — a fine way to spend a Sunday in an urban frolick. I spotted Maconachie through the mass of walkers.

“I have a long 20-year relationship with Blue Dragon. I actually first came to Blue Dragon, because my dad owned a pub here in Hanoi. I came to visit him, loved Hanoi and it became my homebase for the next decade,” she reminisced. “Through my dad’s pub, I was introduced to Michael [Brosowski], the founder, in the very early early days when it was a few volunteers coming together to teach English to the street kids that were playing weekly football. I jumped in, very happy to help and discovered this amazing group of people that were trying to do whatever was in their means to help these kids. I saw the organization grow, we were growing together at different levels. I would go away and get a Masters and other experience, and finally I decided to fully commit to my relationship with Blue Dragon. Now, for the last eight years I have been working full-time for the organization.”

Skye Maconachie making a speech at the Walk.

Blue Dragon began as a small volunteer group in 2002, when the organization’s founder, Michael Brosowski, arrived to teach English at a university in Hanoi and met numerous street children in urgent need of support. During the past two decades, Blue Dragon’s work has evolved organically, and today it has offices in four Vietnamese provinces and initiatives reaching 20,000 people across Vietnam every year. Blue Dragon rescues children and adults who have been deceived and became trapped in modern slavery across Southeast Asia and within Vietnam. They conduct outreach work on the streets of Hanoi every night to assist street children and youth, many of whom have been exploited, groomed by pedophiles, or targeted by street gangs.

“We work within the legal system and with the authorities. We contribute our strengths and the expertise acquired through our grassroots work to this existing system, in order to make it work better,” Maconachie explained. “It's a long game. We have been doing that for many, many years, but we have seen significant changes in the laws, and in Vietnam's ability and expertise to conduct rescues. All of our work is done in cooperation with the Vietnamese police because it's not just about the rescue part, there is a long process that goes on. The investigation of the crime, working with the victim in order to identify and arrest a trafficker or trafficking ring, etc. There is a whole protection and prosecution process, and the rescue is one part of it. We see through our work that the system is quite functional.”

Supporting street children is among the goals of Blue Dragon.

Supporting girls from underprivileged communities with stationery and equipment so they can continue their education.

Because vulnerability takes many shapes and the drivers of human trafficking vary from one community to another, Blue Dragon tailors all interventions to the specific needs and circumstances of each child, family, and village they assist. For instance, to keep a child living in poverty in Hanoi safe and in school, their family may need some assistance to set up a street food stall that helps them earn a stable income. Meanwhile, preventing human trafficking in remote, mountainous communities often involves training neighbors to form Anti-Trafficking Boards, screen their communities for potential victims, report human trafficking cases to the authorities, and assist their fellow neighbors when and where they need it, and in their own ethnic language.

 “The regional trends in human trafficking that are affecting Vietnamese people are very much driven by the increased vulnerability people are facing post-Covid,” she said. “Before the pandemic, we already worked with people and communities who were very disadvantaged and vulnerable. And post-Covid, we have seen that exacerbated across the country. We have seen trafficking spread from the main groups of people who have been historically trafficked from remote rural areas — most of whom come from ethnic minority backgrounds — to it being so widespread that people with tertiary educations or business owners are now vulnerable to human trafficking.”

Hanoians at the walk.

One of the challenges faced by most non-profit organizations is the sourcing of funding. And Blue Dragon, with over 130 staff across the country is no exception. The Blue Dragon Marathon Walk is a global event that takes place every year to raise funds for the Foundation. Participants can choose to walk or run any amount of kilometers, individually or as part of a team. Maconachie and her 2.5-year-old daughter walked their marathon over the weekend.

“It’s just incredible,” she shared. “I was really moved by seeing all of these people and companies, not only here in Hanoi, but around the country, as well as around the globe who were just so grateful for the opportunity to be able to help people in slavery, and really with all of their heart and commitment. They spent months leading up to this where they were raising money and training and doing different things. So what we saw here in Hanoi was just a microcosm of what was happening around the world.”

Many supporters from the capital came to support the marathon.

The Blue Dragon Walk, however, was not always an international challenge. The first Walk took place in Hong Kong in 2011. Seven walkers from an Australian construction company based there took the challenge of walking 50 kilometers from one side of the island to the other. In 10 hours, they traversed the rugged and often very hilly Hong Kong trail, and in doing so, not only raised US$35,000 for Blue Dragon’s transformative work, but also began what is now an annual tradition for families, friends, and colleagues in Vietnam and around the world.

The next walk wouldn’t take place until 2015, when a team of Blue Dragon volunteers and a team of staff from the chain of Vietnamese restaurants Roll’d undertook the first Blue Dragon marathon walk in Australia, along the Great Victorian trail. Since then, the event has been celebrated annually with the Intrepid Foundation — the philanthropic arm of sustainable travel company Intrepid Travel — providing their support as hosts from 2018.

Runners in Sydney.

Osaka

As a serendipitous consequence of the constraints created by the pandemic, the Blue Dragon Walk got catapulted to the global scene. As walkers did not need to be present in the same location, Blue Dragon supporters from around the world decided to take the challenge wherever they were. Since then, the walk has been an international event, gathering support in places as diverse as Germany, Nepal, the United States, Singapore, and nearly 300 people around the globe joined the walk in 16 countries in 2022.

“A lot of the time in our work, because it is so difficult and challenging, we can become quite insular. So it's just really wonderful to see the support and the solidarity for Vietnamese people who are in slavery, or really at high risks of being trafficked and exploited,” she noted. “To see so many people who care about them and the issue, and that want to stand up and do something to help them, I was really moved, and touched by seeing the Blue Dragon seeping through this wider circle of wonderful human beings who want to see a better world and end human trafficking.”

Điện Biên

Houston

Throughout the years, the Walk has also received the support of companies like Australia Pacific Travel Group, who, for two years in a row, have made matching donations to the amount raised through their teams of staff walkers. Since 2018, the Blue Dragon Walk has raised nearly US$500,000; 2023 was an exceptional year with more than 500 people taking part, raising more than US$200,000.

I must say with a certain sense of pride that I surpassed my fundraising goal, thanks to the generous help of friends and family. My Thượng Đình also miraculously survived, and the layer of sticky sweat was very much worth the glorious trundle. But what about those of you who missed out on the walk? Fear not, there are many ways to contribute. “Contact us!” said Maconachie. “We receive support all year round, not only on the Marathon Walk. If people want to run their own fundraisers they are very welcome to do that. If they want to donate, offer their expertise or time, or want to spread the word about Blue Dragon to family or their community. Every little bit helps, and we have a whole team here who can share information to get people connected to those opportunities to be able to support the work of Blue Dragon.”

The Mekong Delta is called Đồng bằng Sông Cửu Long in Vietnamese — the Nine Dragons River, for the way the mighty Mekong splits into multiple strands as it nears its final destination, the East Sea.

To the estimated 18 million inhabitants of the Mekong Delta, the river is more than just a geographical feature; it defines their whole lives. Annual floods make many roads impossible to use. Meanwhile, the fact that the region boasts around 15,000 km of navigable waterways to only 2,500 km of compacted road offers another hint as to how most people travel.

Market ladies on a motorized boat.

The Mekong Delta is a beautiful part of Vietnam and one I was immediately impressed with on my first visit, an exploratory boat trip from Ho Chi Minh City to Rạch Giá in August 2010.

I was fascinated by how the area's inhabitants lived and their daily interactions with the Mekong River. I was so impressed with how the people of the region traveled that I went back several times and focused on how they crossed the water. The ferries are a microcosm of life along the river. The crossings are generally short and you get to meet all kinds of people on the boat. It’s a pause in your journey, filled with snacks, bargaining sessions and sometimes entertainment.

School day.

This series is the result of these journeys, traveling mostly in the dry season. I crossed with school children, interviewed ferry captains and their crew, attempted to speak Vietnamese with delivery men on massively overloaded bikes and haggled with vendors carting everything from vividly colored fruit and vegetables to toilet paper and cigarettes. I also bought a lot of lottery tickets.

Bringing the goods.

I boarded ferries built for mass transit with trucks and buses, as well as humble vessels fit only for a couple of passengers and a bike. All the journeys were different, all were memorable.

With Vietnam developing so rapidly, it is hard to predict the future of this region. The construction of new roads and bridges has made the Mekong Delta a lot more accessible, thus putting many boats out of business.

However, while the ferries still run I highly recommend you travel there yourself. Crossing is inexpensive and there is so much to discover.

50 Shades of blue.

A pilot's life.

Boat lady.

Embarkation.

A quick review of school materials before class.

Ready to rumble.

Stormy weather.

Portrait of a captain.

Rush hour. 

Sunset on deck.

In many countries, urban metros are a mundane convenience — so ordinary that their users often take them for granted. But until the birth of Hanoi’s Cát Linh-Hà Đông Metro Line, residents of Vietnam had enjoyed no such air-conditioned, traffic-immune method of transportation.

In November 2021, after nearly 10 years of construction and countless delays, Vietnam’s first metro line finally opened. Built by China Railway Sixth Group and funded partially through official development assistance loans from China, the project cost US$868 million.

Take a look at Saigoneer’s ride on Hanoi's metro line below:

Entering Cát Linh Station, located in Đống Đa District.

A one-way ticket on Line 2A ranges from VND8,000 to 15,000, while a day pass costs VND30,000. The machine only accepts cash.

A metro user takes the elevator to the platform. 

A train arriving at the station. Trains run every 10 minutes, with a capacity of 960 passengers each.

As of now, the metro is by no means extensive: it has a single line that spans around 13 kilometers, with 12 stations and an end-to-end runtime of 23 minutes. While it finished its first year in the red, VnExpress reported that its popularity surged this year with 2.65 million people hopping aboard in the first quarter alone.

Passengers waiting to board the train. 

The track and platform are not separated by railings, so passengers should mind their steps.

A second line is also under construction, with a targeted opening date of 2027; if all goes according to plan, there will be 10 lines by 2030. Seeking to meet residents’ transport needs, the project hopes to counter pollution and congestion in the population-dense capital.

A glimpse inside the metro operator’s compartment.

As the train exits the station, Hanoi’s urban skyline begins flashing by.

Line 2A is built entirely above ground.

A gloomy day in Hanoi as seen from the train.

Yellow tactile paving is included in stations to help guide visually impaired commuters. 

Neat lines of motorbikes in the station’s parking lot.

While the metro represents a significant leap in the city’s modernization, life as normal continues outside of the station.

“Living with Heritage, (Re)Creating Heritage: Vietnam and the World” is the title of the 14^th Engaging with Vietnam conference, a series of activities including academic panel discussions, keynote talks, art installations, music and fashion performances, workshops, curated visits to heritage sites and more.

Every iteration of the Engaging with Vietnam annual conference is focused around a central theme with the broader goal to “promote the production of cutting-edge scholarship about, or in dialogue with, ‘Vietnam’ in all of its forms, from Vietnam as a place to Vietnam as an idea,” according to the conference website.

Regarding this year’s topic of Heritage, the conference notes: “Heritage is an essential part of our identity, history, and culture. It shapes our communities, influences our daily lives, and inspires our future. However, heritage is not static. It evolves, adapts, and responds to the changing social, economic, and political contexts.”

Following the first Engaging with Vietnam held in Melbourne in 2010, the conference has taken place in Hanoi, Saigon, Honolulu, Tokyo and elsewhere. This year, events and panels will take be held around the city of Huế including at the historic Quốc Học High School, An Định Palace (Cung An Định), and the University of Arts – Hue University. 

The conference program is staggering in its length and breadth. A few items that caught Saigoneer’s eyes include the keynote topic, “Heritage Tourism and Museum Diplomacy; presentation topics: “Thai Duong Ha Village’s Fish Praying Festival on the Path of Heritage,” “K-Pop Fans in Vietnam: Practices, Meanings, and Beyond,” “The Rise of Nostalgia: The Return of Nhạc Vàng (Golden Melodies) in the Food and Beverage Industry in Vietnam,” “Snake Worship as Cultural Sediments in Vietnam’s Multi-Ethnic Cultural Heritage,” and “The Role of Digital Technology from the Perspective of Gen Z Travel Experiences” and a performance of hầu đồng by spirit mediums and artists from the three regions of Vietnam. Saigoneer Content Director Paul Christiansen, will co-host a poetry night. 

The conference is open to everyone with registration running through July 31. The cost for participants is VND500,000, though Vietnamese and foreign undergraduate students at domestic and international universities and colleges can attend for free. Find more information and register here. 

Engaging with Vietnam was founded by Phan Lê Hà (Universiti Brunei Darussalam & University College London) and Liam C. Kelley (Universiti Brunei Darussalam). It is organized in collaboration with the Department of Culture and Sports under Thừa Thiên-Huế People’s Committee, the University of Arts – Hue University, the International School – Hue University, and with the assistance of The Lighthouse Hai Dang Studio & Events, ACCESS design lab, HITO Entertainment and other international and domestic organizations.

[Top image designed by HITO Entertainment via Engaging with Vietnam]

As more institutions and enterprises in Vietnam adopt IELTS results as an official assessment of students' and employees’ grasp of the English language, high IELTS scores have gradually become a sought-after mark of prestige.

Dân Trí quotes an announcement from IELTS test organizer IDP confirming that a candidate from Vietnam recently attained a perfect overall score of 9.0 from getting 9.0 for all four skills: listening, reading, writing, and speaking.

Luyện Quang Kiên, a 31-year-old English-language tutor living in Hanoi, became the first test-taker in Vietnam to achieve the rare feat after sitting for an online test on June 3 at the National Economics University. It’s unclear if there are other Vietnamese who have achieved this at testing centers overseas.

Kiên told the online news source that he took his first IELTS test in 2014 while still in college, achieving an overall score of 7.5. Following his graduation, he developed an interest in teaching and has been undertaking IELTS exams 5–7 times a year since 2018 to assess if his teaching methods work. The latest date in June was the sixth test he’s been through this year.

Kiên shared that his mental state was very relaxed on the date and he was particularly happy with the Speaking component. Having sat for many exams, he knew by heart the marking rubrics and could gauge the scores right after finishing the test.

“That day I spoke quite fluently and used good vocabulary. Seeing the reaction of the examiner, I felt assured,” he recounts. Kiên plans to write a book detailing his tips for achieving the 9.0 band score.

[Photo via Dân Trí]

On a steamy evening in downtown Phnom Penh, Rebecca Chan takes the stage. The crowd — mostly Cambodian millennials and Gen Z's — is riled up from previous performances, but Chan’s composure tames their energy. She prowls around the raised platform in knee-high boots. Her skin-thin dress flaunts the contours of her body. She circles calmly and seductively to tantalize the hushed audience below. They track her every move in anticipation of what’s to come.

The moment Rihanna’s ‘Stay’ flows from the speakers, the crowd erupts in a frenzy. Chan raises her hand to calm them. Her other hand gingerly lifts the mic to her painted face, framed by cascading brown curls. Chan’s mouth opens, her lips begin to move, and, for the next few minutes, her performance transfixes the audience. Her quivering lips intensify her vibrato. She clenches her fists to channel the intensity of the chorus. The crowd sways, sings and snaps when she nails the song’s iconic fermata notes. Chan is lip-syncing, of course, so she’s not nailing any notes at all, at least not vocally. But this detail takes nothing from the performance.

Rebecca Chan performing at Pride Fest 2022.

“My favorite thing about doing drag is being on stage and performing my heart out,” says Chan. “Every time I’m on the stage, I actually feel like… everything is possible. It is a feeling I’ll never be tired of.”

Chan, a trans woman from Phnom Penh, is part of an ensemble of Cambodian drag queens that, after years of experience, know precisely how to work a crowd. Their performances oscillate between emotive singalong ballads — like Chan’s rendition of ‘Stay’ — to terpsichorean pop anthems embellished with sexualized acrobatics, including death drops, split jumps and high-heeled kicklines. In between acts, wicked banter in English and Khmer ensues, with the queens playfully hurling shade at one another. Three nights a week (Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays), the troupe begins here in Blue Chilli, Phnom Penh’s first drag bar, before moving to Heart of Darkness, the city’s infamous afterhours nightclub.

Pride Fest 2022.

The entire ensemble unites for a grand finale to end the set at Blue Chilli. The queens ascend the stage to perform Little Mix’s ‘Shout Out to My Ex’ and theatrically, often hilariously, fight over the lyrics. It’s long past midnight and Blue Chilli is about to close, but the show is far from over. The crowd’s energy is maxed out and they are itching to get to the next spot, but not before a final message from Chan. She grabs the mic and offers her heartfelt thanks for supporting the trans community. The audience responds with clapping, snapping and hoots of appreciation. Chan also reminds the crowd about Reajiny Pride, a gender-inclusive multi-stage drag pageant. The final takes place on May 27 during Pride Fest, Cambodia’s most ambitious queer celebration to date.

“This year is going to be very special,” says Phnom Penh native Rattanack Ath, or Nack, who leads the team organizing Pride Fest this year. “Pride started as a western concept, but we are tweaking it to focus on changing the hearts and souls of people — not politics. We are trying to communicate to Cambodian people the way they know how.” According to Nack, that means learning from the successes of previous pride events, working with celebrities who are willing to support the cause and organizing a compelling schedule of activities to appeal to broad swaths of the population.

Scenes from Pride Fest 2022.

Instead of throwing a parade to demand equal rights, which would be logistically and legally complicated in Cambodia, Nack and his team have arranged a fun run and tuk tuk race. The 5km Rainbow Run kicks off the day with buckets of powder paint and prizes for the winners. The Remork Race involves commandeering tuk tuks and embarking on a citywide scavenger hunt to find hidden clues and solve puzzles. Participants are encouraged to decorate their tuk tuks in the spirit of pride so that the race will be visible across the city. A kind of parade, but in disguise.

2019's tuk tuk race.

Reajiny Pride, the drag pageant, is another important activity. Showcasing drag at Pride Fest gives visibility to the trans community, a group that is sometimes sidelined in pride events elsewhere. But as drag becomes more popular with both queer and non-queer people alike, Reajiny Pride is also a way to appeal to Phnom Penh’s broader community. “This year, we have people from across the LGBTQIA+ community and its allies,” says Rebecca Chan, who has taken the lead in organizing Reajiny Pride. “This will make the festival bigger, more inclusive and help everyone feel the love.”

Pride Fest this year will see a wealth of activities, but perhaps the location will leave the greatest impression. Nack and his team piggybacked on the Southeast Asia (SEA) Games and received permission to arrange the bulk of the event at the National Olympic Stadium. This iconic 1960s modernist structure, designed by Cambodian architect Vann Molyvann, will be spectacularly lit in rainbow colors to celebrate Pride Fest. Securing the stadium also spurred the Pride Fest team to include a sporting dimension, the Asia Pride Games, with volleyball, badminton, bowling and running competitions. “It’s the first time for Cambodia to host an international LGBTQ+ sports event,” says Nack. “We’ve even had the games approved by the Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth.”

Editor's note: Over the weekend we received news that due to unforeseen circumstances, the event location has changed from the National Olympic Stadium to Diamond Island.

Physical feats on display at Pride Fest 2022.

Holding Pride Fest at the National Olympic Stadium is also of personal importance for Nack, as this is where, 20 years ago, he witnessed a hate crime. “I was playing volleyball when a group of boys yelled ‘Let's go beat up a gay!’” He recounts. “Back then, gay men were meeting in the bathroom of the stadium. I watched from afar as two young men were beaten up. Now, 20 years later, I’m able to arrange a pride celebration here.” For some attendees, the event will be cathartic: a place where closeted gay men once came to connect will transform into a venue celebrating queer people and promoting acceptance.

Pride Fest 2022.

Although Cambodia is making strides when it comes to queer acceptance, there is still some way to go, argues Punnavit Hantitipart, or Tum, co-owner of Rambutan, a pair of queer-friendly hotels in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. Bangkok-born Tum moved to Cambodia in 2007 and says that he has witnessed the big cities gradually become more open.

“I hope [Pride Fest] will show that the society is more accepting in them and… make people feel more confident to come out to themselves and society,” he says. Rambutan Resort, Pride Fest’s unofficial afterparty venue, will be wrapping up the event with a raucous celebration around its tree-fringed swimming pool on May 28. These famous — or perhaps infamous — pool parties are a reminder that, although Pride Fest is doing important work, the event can also provide an excuse to have fun and go a little wild.

Pride Fest 2022.

If you want to attend Pride Fest, it’s not too late to start planning. The Asia Pride Games run from May 25-28. Most pride events, including the Rainbow Run, Tuk Tuk Race and Reajiny Pride drag pageant final take place on May 27. Visit the official website for more information, a full schedule and accommodation recommendations.

One of the most elegant means to observe the textured heft and untethered strength of otherwise-invisible wind — there is plenty one could say about the poetry of flying kites. 

I could grasp at philosophical pseudo-koans about kites, like “the same string that keeps a kite tethered to the ground, enables it to remain in the sky”; share stories of Kim Yu-sin inspiring an army by tethering a flaming sphere to a kite, to suggest a bad omen had returned to the heavens; detail Ben Franklin's first harvest of electricity by looping a key around a kite string during a storm; offer an incomplete list of governments that have banned kite flying (the Taliban, Mao's China, 18^th-century Japan, 21^st-century Egypt, etc.); and passionately argue how “kite” the predatory bird out-astounds “kite” the flying contraption in every way.

But it's better to keep it simple. Because flying a kite in Thủ Thiêm is a simple pleasure. Simply show up at dusk when the summer heat begins to lift. Plastic chairs already line the boulevards built for developments that have yet to appear. Vendors sell cold drinks and basic street snacks. You can bring a kite or buy one there. Enjoying the event is as simple as jogging a few paces while a string uncoils into the air and the kite takes flight. You don’t even need a kite; simply ease back in the chair and chat with friends and family while watching colorful swaths of fabric drift across the sky.

Kites warrant no applause. You will not hear the ooh's and aah's that fireworks or sporting matches elicit. Pleasure is measured in small talk and smiles. Pleasure comes cheap. Perhaps that is what I appreciate the most about kite flying. Saigon is not a cheap place to live, doubly so for families. Not everyone can afford restaurant visits or structured entertainment, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have opportunities to enjoy fresh air and a night out. Kite flying ignores demographics, incomes, reputations, and past sins and welcomes all. I don't have to worry about how or even if I fit in. With the city’s expansive skyline towering in the distance, kites smear the skyline like children’s names written in beautifully crude crayon strokes.

While the past weeks have felt like living in a sauna for Saigoneers, north-central Vietnam provinces experienced even hotter temperatures this summer.

According to the Vietnam Meteorological and Hydrological Administration, a measuring station in Tương Dương, Nghệ An Province read 44.2°C on May 7, marginally edging out the previous record set in Thanh Hóa just a day before. On Saturday, May 6, the Hồi Xuân Weather Station in Thanh Hóa Province recorded 43.8°C at 4pm and a daily peak of 44.1°C. This extreme temperature reading broke the previous record of 43.4°C set in April 2019 in Hà Tĩnh.

Across northern and central Vietnam, 17 other provinces experienced temperatures of over 40°C. Two areas in Hanoi also saw similar heat patterns.

In the south, temperature records didn’t cross 40°C, but widespread sunny weather also wreaked havoc on the livelihood of workers and students. On the same day, a measuring station in Tân Sơn Nhất recorded 38°C, the hottest reading in the city. Among southeastern provinces, Biên Hòa in Đồng Nai Province went through the most punishing heat at 39.4°C.

Temperatures in Mekong Delta provinces mostly fluctuated in the 35–37°C range, though Châu Đốc in An Giang Province recorded 37.4°C

Lê Thị Xuân Lan, the former deputy head of the Weather Forecast Department at the Southern Regional Hydro-Meteorological Center, told VnExpress that May temperatures this year will be 0.5–1°C higher than previous years due to the impact of El Niño.

El Niño is characterized by dryer, hotter weather and fewer storms owing to the warm phase of the cycle of warm and cold sea surfaces. Countries that depend on weather patterns in the Pacific Ocean for agriculture and fishing, like Vietnam, will be majorly impacted.

The United Nations warned that the change in sea temperature this year will “most likely lead to a new spike in global heating and increase the chance of breaking temperature records.” From 2015 to 2022, the world continued to witness hottest days on record, even though three of those years were already cushioned by cooling effects thanks to La Niña.

A bánh mì stand to the left, signs for Bích Karaoke above an alley across the street, an open shopfront lined with bottles of Chin-Su chili sauce and G7 coffee sachets, a laid back restaurant where waiters dish out steaming bowls of noodles to customers perched on plastic stools.

No, this is not a description of Hanoi Old Quarter, but a bustling street outside Takadanobaba Station in central Tokyo — a slice of Vietnamese flair in the heart of a foreign city. This small cluster of streets boasts so many Vietnam flags that some local residents jokingly refer to it as Takadanobaba’s very own “Vietnam Town.” Yet, if the area continues to develop as it has been doing, that expression won’t seem like a joke for much longer.

Takadanobaba Station serves three lines and is the ninth-busiest station in the Tokyo Metro Network.

When the COVID-19 Pandemic hit in 2020, Vietnamese nationals made up the second-largest number of foreign students in Japan after China, up to a pre-pandemic record of 73,389. That number now looks set to continue growing after a small pandemic-induced lull. And that’s just the students. The number of Vietnamese nationals in Japan rose from around 52,000 in 2012, to a staggering 476,000 in 2022. This number is second only to China. It is exciting to imagine what effects this could have on both Vietnamese and Japanese culture.

Flags and Vietnamese-language signs are common in the neighborhood.

Indeed, it is tempting to imagine this movement might boost Japanese interest in Vietnamese art, music, and fashion. But first comes the food. Takadanobaba boasts several bánh mì shops, from the incredibly popular Bánh Mì Xin Chào to Bánh Mì Sandwich, the latter of which claims to have started the recent bánh mì craze in Tokyo. The neighborhood is also home to two Vietnamese-style karaoke bars, Vietnamese shops that make their own spring rolls on site, and countless sit-down restaurants serving everything from cao lầu to bún bò Nam Bộ.

A pork bánh mì and cà phê sữa đá in Takadanobaba.

Bích Khoang, a local business owner who lives in the district, kindly let me explore his imports shop, Việt Shop. Khoang’s staff uses the ground floor to prepare Vietnamese bento boxes and food for his nearby restaurant, Nón Lá. A narrow staircase leads to a small room brimming with Vietnamese food products, from Bia Hà Nội to Oishi potato chips. 

“There’s quite a lot,” this is the first thing Khoang says when I question him about Vietnamese businesses in the area, and he repeats the statement with a clear sense of pride throughout our conversation. And he is right. The sheer number of Vietnamese flags on show is not only arresting, but evidently empowering. This is a corner of a vast, sometimes alienating city that clearly feels like a home-away-from-home for many Vietnamese nationals.

Vietnamese businesses bring a touch of home to those living in Tokyo.

Diệu Linh, an International Relations student at a Tokyo-based university, backs up this sentiment: “Of course, it feels great when I see so many Vietnam flags, and to know that Vietnamese culture is getting so popular here. Sometimes, in that kind of area in Takadanobaba, it even feels like I’m back in Hanoi or something.”

It’s not only the home-away-from-home aspects that excite Diệu Linh, but also the understandable sense of pride in seeing a foreign country so clearly enjoying the culture of her birthplace.

Ka-ra-ô-kê and chili sauce, reportedly two of Vietnam's essential exports.

“When I go to a Vietnamese restaurant with my Japanese friends, or hear Japanese people talking about Vietnam or enjoying Vietnamese food, there’s a kind of feeling of pride around Takadanobaba and also at the annual Vietnam Festival in Yoyogi Park,” she explains. “It makes me feel more relaxed here to know there’s goodwill towards Vietnamese culture.”

A shop selling "bánh mì sandwich."

Meiko Tamura, a graphic designer who has lived in Takadanobaba for over ten years, believes Vietnam has the potential to become a cultural powerhouse in Japan. “Why not? Japanese people obviously seem to love Vietnamese food and culture,” she shares. “There are Vietnamese people everywhere and they seem to adapt really well to the culture here, too. To be honest, with all the Vietnamese flags and signs around, it [Takadanobaba] already feels like a ‘Vietnam Town.’”

Whether or not this scattering of Vietnamese shops and restaurants ever turns into a full-fledged “Vietnam Town” remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that Takadanobaba has already established itself as the place to be for Vietnamese food, which, right now, makes it a place that a lot of Japanese people want to go.

Late last week, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Planning and Architecture unveiled a proposal to install canopies across Lê Lợi Boulevard’s pavement.

As VnExpress reports, the canopies are part of a public amenity proposal the department submitted to the HCMC People’s Committee, aiming to improve the landscape of Lê Lợi after years of being fenced off for metro construction.

The project is estimated to cost VND20–30 billion, involving the installation of four-meter-wide metallic canopies over sections of the Lê Lợi pavement. The proposal promises “a design using colors that are harmonious with surrounding scenery.”

In May 2017, the northern half of the iconic Saigon boulevard was sectioned off to serve underground construction of the city’s Metro Line 1, resulting in the removal of 28 heritage trees on this pavement. Last year, from April to October, the metro project gradually returned the pavement and two lanes of the street to pedestrians and motorists, but the new sidewalk remains treeless and exposed to the elements. 

The canopy proposal has sparked heated debate on local cyber spaces as netizens express concerns over the need for new canopies. According to an informal poll put up by Tuổi Trẻ, 84.8% people surveyed (1.282 votes) voted no to the new setup. Many pointed out that trees would do a much better job of providing both shade and aesthetic appeal.

Proprietors of businesses along the pavement, however, are mostly in agreement, believing that the provided shade will help boost customer retainment during the hottest hours of the day.

In an interview with Tuổi Trẻ, a department representative shared that the covered walkway will not run throughout Lê Lợi, but only span certain sections. Smaller plants like vines and flower pots will be included, though tall trees won’t be possible due to the area’s infrastructure constraints involving the underground metro.

The pavement stretch from Phan Bội Châu to Nguyễn Trung Trực was an example given by the representative of a historic shophouse row that would get coverage and a painted makeover. “Beneath this area is the metro station and subterranean commercial floors so we need to carefully determine the suitable types of trees,” the representative added. “The installation will be aesthetically pleasing and long-lasting, not just a temporary structure.”

We all have them.

A favorite shop, stall, or restaurant that we frequented for years until one day, maybe a Tuesday, it closed. No going-away party, no teary-eyed owner handing out momentos and thank-you’s beside a locked gate. Maybe a social media announcement. Maybe not.

Some memories of these cherished haunts remain vivid in our minds: the stiff crink left in our back by its wooden chairs and the awkwardly low table we had to crouch over to type on; the warped reflection off the tube television’s concave screen when walking back from the bathroom; the shelf of decrepit paperbacks we were certain no person would ever read again, if they ever had. But over time, other details become hazy: the painted plaster walls were peeling, but what color? What music played in the background? Did we always go alone or ever invite a friend?

We all have such places, each is special to us but insignificant to the city as a whole. For what it's worth, mine was Cafe 81. I got to know it when it was located at 216B Nguyễn Văn Nguyễn, just a few blocks from my apartment at the time. It seems pointless to describe it now that you cannot visit it, though a Hẻm Gems feature we wrote about it serves as a time capsule of sorts.

Sometime in 2019, after I took up residence elsewhere in the city, Cafe 81 moved across the neighborhood. That location closed recently, too. It then opened at another address that closed as well late last year. I don’t know why. I could play Big J Journalist and make some calls, chase some leads, beat down some doors and get some answers. But what’s the point? You can’t ungrind a coffee bean, let alone return it to the plant it’s been picked from.

If you live in Saigon long enough, the addresses start to read like broken web addresses. 404: Page Not Found. The only response available is to start a new search and remind yourself that the city wouldn't be the vibrant place you love if it didn't change, and that applies to your personal favorites as well. 

[Top photo of Cafe 81 in April 2018 by Kevin Lee.]

Vignettes are little stories from our writers.

Editor's note: Adrien Jean is a Saigon-based photographer and a frequent contributor to Saigoneer's Darkroom series. His photos often depict the precise moments in time when the visual elements of our daily life line up just right to evoke a special feeling. In this special photo collection, which contains all of Jean's favorite shots of Saigon, he penned a loving ode, titled 'Love/Hate Letter to Saigon.'

Love/Hate Letter to Saigon

Ở đó ở đây Sài Gòn
Reflection of my inner demons
Enlivened by the will to constantly reinvent yourself
But can one move on while forgetting their past?

Fragile memory like the smile of this old woman who slaves
To sell her lottery tickets for a bánh mì
Dispossessed of her favorite sidewalk
Where she used to rule the game
Forced to stoop in front of this race to modernity
To which she hasn’t been invited

Saigon never sleeps
She dozes in the fog of a scooter parade
Introverted hiding behind the Joker mask
When you crack apart and lay yourself bare
In these ageless hẻms smelling the dawn of time
I find some missing parts in you
Maze of paradoxes

Ở đó ở đây Sài Gòn
Land of opportunities and theater of dreams
A place easy to love & hate
Just sip your cà phê sữa đá and enjoy the show

___

Stuck between worlds.

Old building.

Playing pool with style.

Intense gaze.

Dead end.

Divine apparition.

The yellow-helmet gang.

Hào Sỹ Phường.

Underground world.

Life is a rainbow.

Framed.

Under watch.

Tetris.

Schizophrenia.

Cut in two.

Money heist.

Life in a hẻm.

Emerging lotus.

Saigonese sitcom.

Skyline.

Rare capture of the 'Vietnamese Ninja.'

Dragon in motion.

The magical and soon-to-disappear land of Thủ Thiêm.

Sending my prayers.

I want to be like you

Knock knock.

Last train to Saigon.

Deep in smoke thoughts.

Catch me if you can.

Adrien Jean, a long-term resident of Vietnam, has traveled and photographed throughout the country, documenting ethnic festivals and life in less-visited regions, but capturing the streets of Saigon is what inspires him the most. Learn more at his website.

My lungs began to heave with raspy coughs as I ventured deeper into the alley of 124 Phạm Thế Hiển.

Tipped by a colleague, I found myself in an unfamiliar part of District 8 in search of Saigoneers with a story. Upon arrival, I made the amateur mistake of tearing off my mask to take a breath of air, not realizing that the atmosphere was filled with minuscule fragments of wood chips churned from the lumber milling nearby. It seemed as though my photographer colleague and I were transported into a snow globe, but instead of snowy flurries, we were surrounded by swirling clouds of dust made visible by the vivid sun.

The alley stretched no more than 40 meters but felt like an endless abyss, its spatial features distorted by mounds of aging antiques packed tightly next to and on top of one another. A mothy and moldy smell quickly latched onto my clothes and filled my nostrils, while a screeching melody hummed by metal tools would periodically ripple through the atmosphere.

The little alley that induced my respiratory attack is a bustling recycling and trading hub for second-hand furniture. Rendered irrelevant in their former households, doors, chairs, and cupboards — or gạc-măng-giê as Vietnamese grandparents would call it — are procured by craftsmen in this neighborhood to be repaired and sold to new owners. Decade-old wooden ware is piled on barges from the Mekong Delta by the tons and dropped off via river ports, while smaller shipments arrive stacked on tricycles from Saigon and other Southeastern provinces.

Once unloaded, each item is inspected to be given a quote based on factors such as wear and tear and material. Few of the pieces can be described as pristine, but many retain a sturdy build, their lacquer finish glossy and their nails unbudging — beacons from a golden age of Southern craftsmanship.

Others, however, seem to have suffered much more turbulent lifetimes, as they show heavy dents and scratches. Those deemed too unsalvageable end up stripped down to chunks or planks. Regardless of their state, the natural wood that makes up these pieces remains a precious commodity to the people that appreciate its durability and aesthetic.

Due to depleting local lumber resources, old forests taking years to grow, and high prices caused by dwindling supply, the alley has become a part of the informal circular economy that brings Saigoneers electronics, plastic pellets and apparently, chairs.

This recycling operation first started in the 1990s, or so we were told by Nguyễn Thị Láng, a 71-year-old whose entire family migrated from An Giang to found and run a second-hand furniture business here. “When I first arrived in 1992, there were already people living in this alley, but nobody was selling anything.”

Her brother, like many others, owned a warehouse to store boats and merchandise here, since its proximity to the Đôi Canal made the neighborhood ideal for access and transportation. Eventually, someone made use of his warehouse to store old furniture and resell them with success, causing the rest of the neighbors to follow suit, and a robust trade took off from there.

Supplies can be sourced from anywhere, but larger shipments often come when a family decides to downsize. As I made my way around the alley, I could see from the corner of my eye glimpses of the home lives of distant strangers.

There was an impeccably preserved altar for ancestral worship, a dragon-phoenix couch — the type that strikes fear into the hearts of hometown-bound kids — and a peculiar drawer where childhood photos and dean list certificates were left. It was hard for me not to be overcome with curiosity and sadness.

What kind of life did these people live? What circumstance drove them to let go of their family heirlooms? Did the baby photographed know that his mother loved him very much, and that her signs of affection were forgotten in a sold-away drawer? I could never know the answers, but I know it was probably better that the pieces were discarded in this alley instead of being left rotting in a scrapyard. Their presence here at least brings livelihood for the craftsmen that will soon send them on a journey with a renewed purpose.

Before they can do that though, craftsmen must restore the furniture to satisfactory condition. I caught anh Kiên working his magic as he painted a door in teal while blasting cải lương in the background. Kiên hailed from Thái Bình, but followed his wife’s family here and took up the offer when her father wanted to hand over the family business. “Doors are often made of crepe myrtle or golden oak,” he informed me, “while tables are made of redwood and pyinkado.”

The frame of this particular door deteriorated due to moisture damage and must be replaced with a new one that Kiên was assembling. Once that was done, he could sell it for VND150,000, which he admitted wasn’t much considering the time and labor spent, not to mention the frequent exposure to chemicals. On the bright side, with vintage mania in full swing in the city, Kiên can sell a whole lot more of these doors that open to nowhere as decorations to cafes that use them for a sprinkle of nostalgia.

While at a workshop, I also ran into another Kiên, this one a bit younger at the age of 34, who also ended up here due to a relative. He was relatively new to the job, having started just eight months ago. Kiên previously worked in mechanics, but struggled and eventually left the field because of COVID-19. His skills transferred quickly, he said, and he can now earn up to VND400.000 a day porting and refurbishing furniture, which is also the average earning of a worker in this area.

As I interviewed Kiên, my coughs began to act up again. He was removing the varnish of a couch that had lost its shine, while other workers nearby sawed up and sanded down their own tarnished pieces, all without safety equipment. The workshop, constructed from steel sheets and wooden boards, offers little ventilation, and much of the sawdust and heat can’t escape. When I asked him about the harsh working conditions, though, he expressed little concern. “The fan will take care of it,” Kiên assured me with the same confidence he has about the security of this job, “I’m planning to work here for a long time.”

Our most spectacular encounter of that day had to be with Trì, the owner of a store and a workshop, who can only be described as relentlessly charismatic. Trì refers to himself as Trì Gỗ — or Timber Trì, a title that much befits the expertise that he would later showcase. Seeing us meandering through his shop with a camera and recorder, the Long An native quickly approached us not with a sales pitch, but a crash course on woodworking.“Now you kids listen carefully,” he said while smacking a tape measure against a chair. It was his preferred instruction tool for the rest of our impromptu classroom. His first lesson: not all furniture is made equal.

“You’re looking at vanity wardrobes made out of red rosewood. This one was made in Hố Nai. This one was [made in] Saigon. And they’re not the same,” Trì explained that Saigon and Hố Nai were the two meccas of furniture in southern Vietnam. Trying to stay on top of the competition, the two manufacturing hubs were constantly putting out new, trending models that would often overlap in design.

A layman wouldn't notice the differences, but Trì was quick to point out that Hố Nai carpenters went for a softer look and adorned their creations with detailed carving, while the ones from Saigon opted for a sturdier build. The same thing goes for armchairs: one would spot armrests with intricate, delicate patterns, and the other would boast a bulky, utilitarian appearance.

Trì is in the camp of inner beauty, though, and openly vouched for the Saigon-made furniture, which he claimed was made with better material and craftsmanship: “It's all about the wood.” He advised buyers to search for doussie, rosewood or melaleuca, if possible, though he acknowledged the supply for second-hand timber is dwindling by the day. Productive as the current Vietnamese lumber industry might be, it simply cannot catch up because forests take decades and centuries to grow.

That brings us to the question of what will happen to the second-hand furniture market when second-hand furniture runs out? In reality, new furniture is still being made everyday, but mass production and the usage of lower-grade materials like MDF (medium-density fibreboard) to lower cost have given rise to a generation of furniture destined for planned obsolescence. Anyone who has put together something from IKEA or Shopee can vouch for this. The craftsmen whom I talked to, who treat solid wood like religious artifacts, consider plywood of any kind rubbish and dread that some of it is already sneaking into shipments.

Trì also shared that, although business is still good, many experienced craftsmen have abandoned the field, and that he wouldn't be able to pass the trade to his daughter either, because she’s pursuing a different career in school. Meanwhile, Kiên doesn't even have any plan for the next generation, believing that the trade “will gradually expire in a couple decades.”

I don't necessarily believe in the view that synthetic and industrial wood is useless — it's light-weight, versatile, cheap and straight to the point. But it's also devoid of grains, and thus, characters. Humans often revere the rings of trees and the grains of wood because they speak of centuries-old wisdom that humans can't attain in their lifetime. That’s why for ages, we’ve cut them down and put them in our houses in the aspiration of obtaining the unobtainable. And if “we are what we consume” is to be believed, what does this shift from binding the fabric of our existence with time and patience to binding it with hot glue and debris of something once greater, signify?

Vietnam’s bountiful abundance of street eats and hip cafes might satisfy even the pickiest visitors looking to ingest delicious things at any price range, but even its biggest metropolises would struggle to provide for the most low-maintenance tourists when it comes to public bathrooms.

In a recent ranking reported on by Nikkei Asia, both Saigon and Hanoi are down in the dumps when judged based on their public toilet availability. QS Supplies, a toilet retailer, compiled this report by looking at the number of public toilets per square kilometer across 69 cities in the world in order to help travelers plan their trips.

With just 0.01 public bathrooms per square kilometers on average, both cities in Vietnam nearly bottomed out the list and are only better than Cairo. Johannesburg’s toilet figure is also 0.01. The Nikkei report does not elaborate on the methodology behind the contentious ranking, but these figures mean that there are almost 21 communal toilets in Saigon for 9 million inhabitants, a statistic that might shock even native Saigoneers, because… there are that many?

On the other end, the world’s top 10 toilet performers are mostly in Europe with Paris clinching the No. 1 spot impressively at 6.72 toilets per km², nearly doubling that of the runner-up, Sydney (3.64). Tel Aviv and Taipei are the only Asian representatives on the list.

Compared to many of the list’s contenders, Vietnam is plagued by a dearth of public parks, parking areas, toilets, and other civic spaces. Even when a few bathroom projects manage to get off the ground, they are often ill-maintained and unsustainable in the long run due to lack of funding, as evidenced by this distressing photo feature by Thanh Niên. Public amenities have long been relegated to the back end of policymakers’ priority list, so finding out that two cities in Vietnam have shat the bed regarding public restrooms is not that surprising.

The Nikkei Asia feature frames the toilet discourse around how it will hamper Vietnam’s tourism opportunities, which, while not untrue, leaves out one of the major demographics whose quality of life would vastly improve with better bathroom coverage: gig workers like shippers and app-based drivers.

Tourists have the financial means and motivation to pay for better bathrooms at restaurants, hotels and cafes — we, by the way, have a list of Saigon’s best bathrooms to poop at here — but it’s Saigon residents that are always on the road who are most shafted by shitty public restrooms. Where to go to the bathroom while out and about is one of the most frequently asked questions on forums for app drivers and veteran workers often exchange lists of locations for resting and free trips to the facilities.

Complaints about Vietnam’s chronic lack of public bathrooms have fallen on deaf ears for years, but perhaps by shifting the discourse to tourism-related missed opportunities — where the money lies — we might finally attract the right kind of attention to fix our toilets.

[Photo by Nhật Thịnh via Thanh Niên]

The second animal sign in the 12-year cycle of the Vietnamese zodiac, trâu, has symbolic and practical importance in Vietnam.

A farmer and his buffalos in Yên Bái Province.

Buffalos have become of powerful icons because of the important role they have in the nation's history and economy. For much of history, they have been a farmer’s most valued possession, allowing them to be seen as family members and symbols of wealth in the countryside.

A woman looking after the family’s buffalos.

They were also essential to the success of Vietnam's revolutions against foreign invaders thanks to their ability to clandestinely transport materials across difficult terrains during times of war. 

The fields are a place for working and resting.

Folk proverbs such as “Con trâu là đầu cơ nghiệp” (a buffalo is a prerequisite for starting a business) and “Tậu trâu, lấy vợ, làm nhà” (Buying a buffalo, finding a wife, and building a home) reveal their prominence today, even if agricultural industrialization has made them less of a physical asset. They remain important images in literature, media, art and communications.

Grazing on a terrace field.

Moving with ease across a variety of natural and manmade terrain.

Their stubbornness is a virtue.

The family's four-legged pride and joy being brought through Mèo Vạc market.

Time to go home after a long day in the fields.

Ownership is obvious.

Adrien Jean, a long-term resident of Vietnam, has traveled and photographed throughout the country, documenting ethnic festivals and life in less-visited regions, but capturing the streets of Saigon is what inspires him the most. Learn more at his website.

The most recent Tết holiday witnessed an outstanding performance by Vietnam’s domestic tourism sector, while international tourism had a year of underwhelming figures.

If you’ve ever wondered why Saigon streets are noticeably less jammed than before, it was probably because everyone and their mother were gallivanting elsewhere in the country on vacation. Statistics from Tuổi Trẻ show that about 9 million tourists visited sites in Vietnam during the extended holiday while hundreds of thousands of others spent their Tết abroad. This amounted to a 50% increase compared to 2022.

According to industry insiders, the longer-than-usual break allowed Vietnamese to spend more time on the road, while many Vietnamese overseas also picked this Tết to be their first visit home after years of pandemic separation.

These optimistic results for the domestic market are not surprising considering Vietnam’s impressive growth in 2022. We ended the year with 101.3 million domestic tourists, 168.3% more than the target and surpassing the previous peak of 85 million achieved in 2019, reports VnExpress.

Two years of COVID-19 made Vietnamese travelers and tour operators turn their attention inwards to develop and enjoy domestic travel products while public health regulations made it costly and inconvenient to venture abroad.

Elsewhere in the international market, 2022 saw some growth compared to the devastation of pandemic years, but the end results both failed to reach the target and to measure up to pre-pandemic achievements.

Vietnam News reports that 3.36 million foreign tourists visited Vietnam in 2022, which was over 20 times compared to 2021, but much fewer than the 18 million of 2019 before the pandemic. The lackluster performance also fell short of the set goal to attract 5 million international travelers. Asia made up the majority of overseas travelers with 2.6 million tourists, followed by over half a million from Europe and nearly 400,000 from the Americas.

There are a few external causes of the underperformance, such as the significant decrease in Russian and Chinese arrivals due to the Russia-Ukraine war and strict COVID-19 restrictions, respectively. Both account for a considerable segment of Vietnam’s international tourism market on an average year.

However, according to VnExpress, several of Vietnam’s Southeast Asian competitors in the tourism sector like Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand have all reached their tourism goals in 2022. Experts point to Vietnam’s inhospitable visa policies compared to regional peers as a major factor leading to unsatisfactory tourism results. A lack of new tourism products has also turned tourists into the arms of competitors.

[Photos: The Đà Lạt Market is filled with domestic tourists on a weekend evening.]

In 2021, we decided to expand on the enduring appeal of our food series Hẻm Gems by coming up with new collections of articles zooming in on specific aspects of Vietnamese society and culture. Last year was a time for delving deeper into these series.

At Saigoneer, Natural Selection remains a popular series for both design and editorial staff, as everyone loves geeking out about the unique flora and fauna of Vietnam, from nostalgic favorites like đom đóm to villainous kiến ba khoang. 2022 was also the year that marked the introduction of Artist Takeover, a social media-exclusive series where we invited art practitioners of Vietnamese descent to introduce their craft and artworks on our social media for a week each month. Having been in touch with many Vietnamese artists throughout our tenure of Vietnam coverage, we have always known that local artists are abundant and talented, so with Artist Takeover, we made it a key goal to give some love to as many art mediums as possible. The result was an eclectic platter of fantastic contributions from artists doing food styling, travel photography, visual art, tattoo, sound art, diorama, typography, and more. Check out last year’s featured artworks here.

To celebrate 2022’s Pride Month, for the first time, our writers, designers and social media staff pulled together to produce a deck of articles surrounding LGBT culture and individuals in Vietnam. We profiled a queer jewelry designer, a male exotic pole dancer, and love poet extraordinaire Xuân Diệu. 2022 was a year of many sanguine developments for the LGBT movement in Vietnam, so it was our honor to be able to bask in that atmosphere of progress and have our works be enjoyed by many of you. Find our Pride articles via the hashtag #SaigoneerPride.

Here are some of the Saigoneer editorial team’s favorite features of 2022, in order of publication date. We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of our readers. Here’s to another great year of writing and reading!

Photos by Lê Thái Hoàng Nguyên.

Before Tết in 2022, we purchased a boatload of lunar new year treats and gathered all staff members around a table for an office taste test. Kẹo thèo lèo, candied coconut, Danisa cookies, watermelon seeds, candied ginger, etc. — all went on the chopping board to be eviscerated by picky palates. Each item was given points and ranked to deduce an ultimate winner. The eventual result might surprise you, but it’s Saigoneer’s Choice.

Read the food fight here.

Graphic by Phan Nhi.

Do you have a song, a movie or a TV series you encountered during childhood that you can’t get out of your mind? These sepia trinkets are the subjects of our Rewind series, where writers pen personal essays about media works that left an indelible mark on their formative years. In this long-form feature, our writer dissects the indie road trip romcom 1735km, one of Vietnam’s earliest indie movies.

Read the article here.

Graphic by Hannah Hoàng.

Kim Thúy's debut novel "Ru," named after "the most beautiful word in our [Vietnamese] language" by her admission, is widely considered the first Vietnamese Canadian novel. More than just her talent for revealing the interconnectedness of lives and events, Thúy’s gift for finding beauty and empathy in any situation propels "Em," her latest book. We had the honor to chat with Kim Thúy about her start with writing and her creative process.

Read the article here.

Graphic by Phan Nhi.

The endangered Owston’s civet is not targeted by hunters for meat like pangolins or for coffee production like Asian palm civets. But snares don't discriminate: if one was set to catch palm civets for civet coffee farms, it will still close around the leg of an unwitting Owston’s civet, or any ground-dwelling animal unlucky enough to step on it.

In this somber Natural Selection feature, we give the floor to cầy vằn bắc, an innocent critter caught in the crossfire of the coffee industry.

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Graphic by Phan Nhi.

In Vietnam, Xuân Diệu's name is intertwined with the famous line "to love is to die a little bit inside." One might assume that it was just a poet's forlorn lament, but the subtext behind his yearning, poignant poems contains much more than just garden-variety heartbreak — it's also the pain of going through a love that dare not speak its name in a society that deems your very identity a deviant sin.

Read the article here.

Graphic by Hương Đỗ.

Today Charles Phan is billed as the “inventor of modern Vietnamese cuisine in America” and a recipient of the James Beard Foundation 2004 award, often fondly referred to as the “Oscars of the food world.” His childhood, however, was spent in his parents' humble general store in Đà Lạt.

Behind the store, a mì xào giòn cart would set up shop, serving crunchy fried wheat noodles with a savory seafood gravy, while another cart would serve up hot, crispy, turmeric-tinged bánh xèo, forming the basis of some of Charles’ fondest food memories.

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Photo courtesy of Annigje Jacobs and Brice Godard.

Desertification is a significant problem threatening agriculture communities around the world, and Ninh Thuận Province — with strong dry wind and prevalent deforestation — is among the hardest-hit localities in Vietnam.

This is where Dr. Diệp Thị Mỹ Hạnh comes in. As a prominent botanist specializing in bamboo, Hạnh is working with her team to build "The Great Green Wall." The project uses fast-growing bamboo varieties to help improve the local soil fertility while ensuring that local farmers could also benefit.

Read the article and watch the video feature here.

Graphic by Hannah Hoàng.

Hnub, who was born and raised in Lào Cai, is currently working in Saigon as an áo dài painter. Through daily encounters with the traditional dress of Kinh Vietnamese, the idea to promote her own traditional costume started brewing in her mind. It pushed and motivated her to start collecting and promoting the clothing of ethnic minority groups, with a focus on H’Mông, the culture she grew up with.

This feature of H’Mông fashion is one of our most popular articles of the year, and for good reasons too. The works of designer and curator Hnubflower deserve to be celebrated, not just for their incredible aesthetics and quality, but also of how they’re bringing H’Mông culture to a bigger global stage.

Read the article here.

Photo by Stefan Hajdu.

It’s no secret that we’re huge fans of nostalgia at Saigoneer — so much so that we created this whole category of articles for it — and we have seen and featured a myriad of vintage images. This collection of Vietnam shots by Stefan Hajdu, a German traveler who visited the country in 1989, is one of the most outstanding sets of old Vietnam photos we have come across in recent memory.

See the full collection of photos here.

Two kittens that survived the poisoning. Photo by Lê Thái Hoàng Nguyên.

Back in May, the Olive Steakhouse at the 151 Đồng Khởi apartment block sparked national furor after its owners admitted to poisoning the building's resident stray cats. The handful of felines that escaped the killing were taken in by Team16, a grassroots rescue home. We initially contacted them to check in on the cats, but through talking to those involved in cat rescue operations, it's apparent that there is a looming animal welfare crisis in Saigon.

Read our feature here.

Graphic by Hannah Hoàng.

"For those who desire physical activities but can’t drag their bodies to the gym, the jazz dance studio is a perfect alternative. I can’t be on the treadmill for over 20 minutes, but I can dance for an hour straight without feeling bored," writes Lê Thanh Nhiên in her essay about taking up jazz dance for the first time in Saigon.

Read our feature here.

Photo by Alberto Prieto.

The most memorable encounters in Saigon are not those found in roundup lists and rankings, but those you chance upon yourself. In this unique Hẻm Gems, our writer recounts his experience of discovering the twin venues — Danshaku Cafe and Snack Bar Momoko — in Bình Thạnh. Both run by Kyushu transplant Koga Momoko, these share a building and serve as a magical portal into Japan 50 years ago.

Read our article here.