Society - Saigoneer

From the Ground up Into the Air: The Evolution of Bitexco in 25 Photos

2026-04-29T14:00:00+07:00

Between Thủ Thiêm's ambitious new skyscrapers, the planned transformation of Thanh Đa Peninsula and a LEED-standard apartment complex that looks like Marina Bay Sands, Saigon's skyline seems to change every other day.

For this reason, you don't have to delve too far into the past to find a completely different view of Saigon. Just last decade, the city's Tax Center was still a fully functional retail complex and the Quách Thị Trang Roundabout still hosted the central bus interchange.

Perhaps the strongest example of this is the Bitexco Tower. Today, it's Saigon's most iconic modern building, but take a look at the city before 2010 and the lotus-shaped skyscraper is markedly absent from District 1, changing the landscape of downtown Saigon altogether and bringing us back to a moment in the city's history before the current skyscraper boom.

Here is a look at the development of Saigon's tallest building from the very beginning of its construction in 2009 through the first few years of the Bitexco's operation. Photographer Fred Wissink captures in black and white the rapid transformation of downtown Saigon.

April 2009. Along the canal, facing District 1 from District 4.

August 2009. The Khánh Hội Bridge crossing into District 1 from District 4.

View of Bitexco tower from the old pier in District 2's Thủ Thiêm. A ferry crosses the river in the foreground.

February 2010. Construction of the Thủ Thiêm Tunnel entrance in front of Võ Văn Kiệt in District 1.

October 2009. The Bitexco reaches its midpoint. Photos taken from the Khánh Hội Bridge and Tôn Đức Thắng Street.

October 2009. The Bitexco reaches its midpoint. Photos taken from the Khanh Hoi bridge and Ton Duc Thang Street.

October 2009. The Bitexco reaches its midpoint. Photos taken from the Khánh Hội bridge and Tôn Đức Thắng Street.

October 2009. The Bitexco reaches its midpoint. Photos taken from the Khánh Hội Bridge and Tôn Đức Thắng Street.

The Bitexco rises behind the Duxton hotel on Nguyễn Huệ Street on a rainy night.

November 2010. The exterior of the building has been completed but interior renovations continue. From the rooftop of the Eden Mall building, which came down shortly after the photos were taken.

November 2010. The Bitexco looms like an alien structure in a city too small to contain it.

April 2011. The Bitexco set against the 1930s Grand Hotel on Đồng Khởi in the foreground.

April 2011. The Saigon Zoo and the city draped in mist with Bitexco in the background, partially blocked by the Times Square building.

April 2011. The Bitexco set beside the river. Looking from Bình Thạnh District across the zoo.

October 2011. A completed but still mostly unfilled Bitexco is quickly surrounded by other Saigon skyscrapers.

April 2012. The Bitexco stands at the end of the newly opened highway and Thủ Thiêm Tunnel.

Photos by Frederik Wissink. To view more of his work, visit Fred Wissink Photography.

This article was originally published in 2015.

The Global Waste Trade Fuels the Rise of Waste Colonialism in Southeast Asia

2026-04-28T07:00:00+07:00

In August 2025, Malaysian campaigner Wong Pui Yi stood outside the UN headquarters in Geneva and made an appeal to Global North nations: “Stop treating the Global South as the rubbish bin for plastic waste you cannot handle.”

During that meeting, representatives from 184 countries failed to reach an agreement on a treaty to end plastic pollution. But the need for one has not gone away, particularly for Southeast Asian nations.

The region became the top destination for plastic waste imports following a solid waste import ban by China in 2017. Imports remain at a higher level in some of the region’s countries, according to data from UN Trade and Development. Data from the OECD, a group of mostly high-income countries, found that Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam remained the top non-OECD export destinations for waste from OECD countries in 2023.

Plastic waste washed up on a beach in Sarawak, Malaysia. The country and some of its regional neighbors have implemented bans on plastic waste imports, but experts fear this will lead to a reshuffling of waste to countries with weaker restrictions, perpetuating the cycle of “waste colonialism.” Photo via RDW Environmental/Alamy.

Some Southeast Asian countries have implemented bans on plastic waste imports. But experts fear this will only lead to a reshuffling of waste to other countries with weaker restrictions, perpetuating the cycle of what critics call “waste colonialism.”

This term, first recorded in 1989, suggests that the trade enables the high-consumption lifestyles of the Global North, with countries in the Global South left to deal with the consequences.

Exporting health and environmental harms

The global waste trade emerged in the 1980s as a means for countries with high recycling costs to send waste to countries where recycling could be done at lower cost. In countries like China, imported waste also filled a gap of raw materials to produce plastics, metals and papers.

Looser environmental regulations in importing countries made the plastics trade commercially viable. “They export the pollution to Southeast Asian countries, since we have less regulation and less control because of our historical context,” explains Punyathorn Jeungsmarn, a plastics campaigner and researcher at the Environmental Justice Foundation.

In theory, the trade is meant to create jobs while developing new revenue streams and recycling infrastructure. In practice, however, it has overwhelmed waste management systems in many importing countries.

Thitikorn Boontongmai is a program manager and researcher at Ecological Alert and Recovery Thailand (EARTH). The NGO inspected several “illegal recycling factories” in eastern Thailand and observed waste simply dumped in landfills rather than processed.

With heavy rainfall, much of this plastic ends up in the oceans by way of the region’s long rivers and coastlines: six of the ten highest plastic polluting countries are in Southeast Asia.

In Thailand, the availability of cheap imported plastics has led to lower demand for recyclables. This lowers prices for the waste pickers who collect and trade these materials, Punyathorn explains. He notes that pickers have threatened to stop collecting waste unless the government bans the import of plastics. “If they stop collecting, then the waste in the ground and on the streets is not collected, and you have a situation where the entire domestic supply chain is disrupted.”

An informal waste collector waits to be paid for a delivery of recyclable materials outside a recycling center in Bangkok. The compressed plastic bottles were collected by workers like him, and will be sold on in bulk to make new bottles. Photo by Luke Duggleby/Dialogue Earth.

The plastics trade has also affected human health. An investigation by Greenpeace Malaysia around a dumpsite in Pulau Indah found hazardous chemicals and heavy metals such as cadmium and lead. The report noted that these contaminants may cause health issues including cardiovascular, respiratory and cognitive diseases. Between 2018 and 2019, when plastic burning spiked in Sungai Petani, Kedah, community advocates reported a 30% increase in cases of respiratory diseases.

Southeast Asia pushes back

In response to their environmental impacts, several Southeast Asian countries have rolled out restrictions and bans on waste imports. In January 2025, the Thai and Indonesian governments announced the immediate halting of plastic scrap imports.

Fearing the arrival of waste diverted from those countries, Malaysia restricted the inflow of plastic waste. In July 2025, it banned shipments from countries not party to the Basel Convention on the waste trade. A further ban in February 2026 forbade the import of e-waste, introduced shortly after a six-month blanket moratorium on all types of waste import was proposed.

Sedat Gündoğdu, a marine biologist and member of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, says complete bans work because “shipping companies will avoid carrying any kind of waste to your country. This is what China did”. But some activists and experts note that bans have not always stopped imports. Thitikorn says EARTH had seen cases of imported plastic waste being declared as something else in Thailand. Campaigners in Indonesia have also documented paper scrap imports being contaminated with plastic, with up to 30% of the import being plastic. These have been sold to brokers or burned as fuel.

“At the end of the day, when it comes to a local level,” Punyathorn says, authorities with power to regulate or permit certain things coming in “may have vested interests that allow them to just… circumvent these [bans]”.

Lukas Fort, who researches Indonesia’s environmental governance at the University of Copenhagen, tells Dialogue Earth that the recycling industry’s dependence on imported plastics “raises the possibility that imports may continue in some form if enforcement is uneven.” He says this is especially so due to the often competing interests of government bodies, for instance the environment ministry and the trade or industry ministry.

Even if bans are effectively implemented, campaigners raised concerns that they would just change where plastic waste ends up. “Every year it’s a new destination,” says Kaustubh Thapa, a post-doctorate researcher at Radboud University’s Faculty of Environmental Science. “Waste traders always will find [new] destinations to exploit.”

An example of this can be seen in 2023, as plastic waste import restrictions were tightening in countries like Thailand. An investigation into customs data during this period revealed that much misreported waste from Europe and North America had been illegally dumped in war-torn Myanmar, transiting through Thailand.

Though Punyathorn thinks the effectiveness of restrictions are limited, he is hopeful about other measures being considered. In Thailand, these include the Sustainable Packaging Act, in which producers will be responsible for post-consumption management of waste, such as recovery and recycling. This act, along with proposed policies on circular economy and a pollution register, show that there is a “growing momentum towards trying to use domestic waste rather than imports,” he notes.

The global plastics treaty

As Southeast Asia deals with the continued influx of imported plastic waste, a global plastics treaty still hangs in the balance. The most recent round of negotiations in Geneva in August 2025 ended with a weakened draft text. Chief among the challenges faced were efforts by oil-producing states to block measures to curb plastic production and regulate chemical additives to plastic.

Even nations pushing for an ambitious treaty have avoided confronting the waste trade directly, Gündoğdu notes, referring to member states of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution (HAC). “How can a high-ambition group not be ‘high-ambitious’ about strict control of plastic waste trade to [countries in] Africa and other countries?” he says, noting that European HAC members are some of the largest plastic exporters to developing countries. Similarly, some Southeast Asian states have had to balance their petrochemical industry ambitions with resolving the negative impacts of imported waste.

“The last negotiation left off on a very uncertain note,” says Punyathorn, highlighting the resignation of former treaty chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso after nations were unable to agree on two drafts he proposed. Since we spoke to Punyathorn, a new chair was elected, revitalizing hopes of momentum towards an effective treaty.

An art installation of a tap spewing plastic sourced from a slum in Nairobi, displayed at the UN Environment Assembly 5.2 that took place in the city in 2022. The most recent round of negotiations in Geneva in August 2025 ended with a weakened draft text. Photo by Ahmed Nayim Yussuf / UNEP, CC BY-NC-SA.

Existing international legislation could provide a guideline for what an effective plastics treaty could look like. In 2019, the Basel Convention was amended to strengthen control of the trans-boundary movement of plastic waste, notably requiring prior informed consent before such waste crosses borders.

However, being voluntary, the convention is insufficient, says Gündoğdu. A treaty should address the waste trade in a manner aligned with the convention, while consolidating the existing codes for hazardous, non-hazardous and plastics under a single definition of plastic waste to make it more difficult to exploit loopholes, he notes.

One of the key dividing lines in the negotiations — for which next official rounds are anticipated at end-2026 or early 2027 — is whether the treaty will include a cap on plastic production, which is where the harms of the waste trade begin, Punyathorn says.

He explains that countries with more natural gas and oil than needed for energy production will use it to produce plastics, particularly disposable single-use items such as bags, spoons and straws, in order to flush out a high supply as quickly as possible. Once disposed of, these low-quality plastics are harder to collect, recycle and manage, and so are often exported to poorer countries.

He says the best way to stop this is to turn off the fossil fuel tap causing this overflow, “make plastics more expensive, and then you would only have necessary products that can be properly managed throughout the value chain.”

Top image: An officer from Malaysia’s environment ministry examines a container of non-recyclable plastic which was held by authorities at a port in Klang. The country restricted the inflow of plastic waste in July 2025, months after Thailand and Indonesia announced the halting of plastic scrap imports. Photo by Vincent Thian / Associated Press / Alamy.

This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth and was republished with permission. Visit the Dialogue Earth website for more.

Pedaling for a Purpose: The Coastal Cycling Challenge Bringing Homes to Quảng Ngãi

2026-04-24T11:00:00+07:00

During February and March, a group of volunteers from Saigon spent five days cycling up the coast, starting in Thảo Điền and ending up in the mountainous district of Trà Bông, nestled deep in Quảng Ngãi Province.

The group covered more than 820 kilometres of coastal winds, took on steep central highland climbs, and long stretches of highway before arriving in Trà Bông physically tired and emotionally spent.

Stunning views appeared often during the ride.

Not stopping there, their captain and founder of the organization Anh Chi Em, Colin Dixon, continued on to complete a second leg of over 1,700km. This time, he went from Hanoi back down to Saigon with Trâm, who was representing and raising funds for Blue Dragon. Both Colin and Trâm arrived safely back after two weeks of arduous peddling. All in all, over US$7,000 was raised for the work of Anh Chi Em and Blue Dragon.

Trà Bông District spans roughly 760 km² of forested terrain and is home to around 50,000 people, many of whom belong to ethnic minority groups. Anh Chi Em has been operating there for the past six years to help those cut off from the grid. At first, Colin’s army of volunteers brought rice and cooking oil. Now, the organization has its sights set on funding permanent homes for dozens of families living in precarious conditions, faced with seasonal floods.

The region's harsh and unpredictable weather is made worse by housing conditions.

The communities in Trà Bông don’t just face yearly flooding. Their day-to-day struggles are many. In their neighborhoods, roads are narrow and sinuous. Rivers thread through fertile valleys, and coffee and cinnamon plantations patch the hillsides, reflecting the region’s long history of smallholder agriculture.

However, in many ways, it is the limitations of that geography that define life there. Commerce moves slowly. Healthcare is sparsely distributed. School attendance is inconsistent, and access to schooling can be limited, with a number of secondary students dropping out.

Homes and roads in the area are in significant need of development.

Rice is the staple food, and clean potable water is sourced from streams. Most dwellings are makeshift: corrugated iron roofs, rough-hewn timber walls, patched together with whatever material could be found. Extended schooling pathways are not equally accessible for some youth, and early marriage is still observed in certain cases.

Anh Chi Em’s new Bricks for New Houses campaign has a simple yet profound logic: housing provides more than shelter. It delivers stability against storms, health risks, and the tenuousness of daily subsistence. A solid home is a foundation for education, safety, and the possibility of pursuing opportunities beyond mere survival.

Each home built through the project will cost around US$6,500 — a sum that would barely cover construction costs in an urban center, but that, in Trà Bông, can transform lives. So far, several houses have been commissioned, and funds from our cycling challenge have already contributed to the cost of building more.

Numerous national and provincial strategies aimed at inclusive development, climate resilience, and poverty reduction have been articulated, particularly in highland and ethnic minority regions. Programs like the National Target Programme on Sustainable Poverty Reduction and long-term planning for rural infrastructure and climate adaptation are intended to narrow development gaps.

Local creativity and resourcefulness can only go so far.

At the provincial level, Quảng Ngãi has emphasized agro-forestry value chains and community-based forest protection as pathways to economic resilience. Policy implementation outcomes vary, however, across locations. Remote districts like Trà Bông are often constrained by logistical challenges, limited public investment flows, and the sheer inertia of geography. In such contexts, localized initiatives such as community organizations, volunteer-led campaigns, and partnerships with grassroots actors still play a critical role in bridging gaps.

This cycling challenge was powered by many things: adventure, personal commitment, curiosity, and a desire to raise funds. But what it uncovered was more essential because it offered a visceral reminder that development is ultimately about relationships, not projects. Opportunity does not arrive as a headline or statistic. It arrives in the form of a solid roof over a family’s heads, a child’s ability to stay in school, and roads that stay open in the rainy season. Systems must be established that enable people to build resilience, not just cope with hardship.

Future generations stand to benefit most significantly from opportunities that result from concerted care and attention.

As Colin always reminds the group: "People here don’t need charity; they need opportunity.” And that distinction matters. A safe home is not everything, but it is the beginning of everything.

Photos courtesy of Tim Bishop.

If you’d like to find out more about Anh Chi Em’s work and donate to their Bricks for New Houses initiative, you can find more information here: bricks.anhchiemvn.org

Voọc Cát Bà: The Endangered Primate of Karst Land

2026-04-20T10:00:00+07:00

Imagine being born one color, and growing up into a very differently hued adult.

Such is the life of the Cát Bà langur (Trachypithecus poliocephalus), or voọc Cát Bà, which lives on the island of the same name off of Hải Phòng. The Cát Bà langur is one of the rarest primate species in the world, and they can only be found on their home island.

The Cát Bà langur is one of the rarest primate species in the world, and they can only be found on their home island.

According to the Cát Bà Langur Conservation Project, which works to protect all biodiversity on the karst-strewn island, there are currently as few as 76 individuals — down from nearly 3,000 in the 1960s, a population that has been decimated by poaching and habitat loss in the decades since. The conservation project closely monitors the voọc, who live deep in the national park, and any new births are announced on Facebook.

A newly born voọc Cát Bà is a striking sight; their fur a bright, uniform orange that stands out from the grey limestone and green foliage of their environment like an unexpected ray of sunshine on an overcast day. As the young langurs grow, their coat turns black, with the exception of their cheeks and neck, as well as the crown of their head, which turns into a golden-white tuft. I sometimes wonder how this fairly dramatic transformation impacts the langurs: do they recognize their color change? Do they wish they had stayed orange?

At this stage, I can’t actually remember when I first learned of the Cát Bà langur, but over the last few years they’ve become quite possibly my favorite of Vietnam’s many wonderful and often critically endangered endemic animal species. In early 2019, I visited the island and spent time with the conservation project, though I didn’t actually see any langurs — which didn’t come as a surprise.

The closest I’ve come to seeing an individual is the two rather frightening taxidermy specimens at the run-down, minimally informative museum at Cát Bà’s national park. I do have a voọc sticker on my desk, so a youthful primate is always looking at me, but at times I feel odd liking an animal that I’ve never actually laid eyes on so much.

Video by Fauna & Flora International

But given their appearance, and the fact that they are found in only one spot, why doesn’t the voọc Cát Bà have a more prominent image in Vietnam? China, for example, has its pandas, a headline species that has received immense conservation investment even though they prefer not to mate and have a wildly inefficient diet.

Now, voọc aren’t quite as goofy as a panda: if it snowed in their enclosure at a zoo, they wouldn’t slide down it for footage tailor-made to go viral. Unfortunately, they also don’t fall under the “charismatic megafauna” label — in fact Vietnam has almost no megafauna left — so they don’t act as an umbrella for large-scale conservation efforts that benefit the entire ecosystem, the conservation project’s amazing work aside.

I’m taking this opportunity — with no actual power — to nominate voọc Cát Bà as Vietnam’s national animal, which is currently the water buffalo, an ungulate that is neither endemic or endangered.

To be sure, we don’t need more tourists flocking to Cát Bà to see langurs, as well over two million people already visit every year, and Vietnam’s finest purveyor of cable cars, Sun Group, opened their latest sky-car rope-a-dope contraption, linking the island to a major highway, last summer.

As a symbol, however, I think the langur would be outstanding. Their unique appearance would surprise many who are unaware of their existence, though the critically endangered red-shanked douc langur of Đà Nẵng (voọc Chà vá chân đỏ) also competes here. This would simultaneously highlight a rare positive conservation story for the country, as the Cát Bà langur population is slowly growing after bottoming out in the 2000s with only about 40 individuals remaining at the time.

Did you know?

The Cát Bà langur population is slowly growing after bottoming out in the 2000s with only about 40 individuals remaining at the time.

Overall, this would be an aspirational move: the chances of you seeing a voọc in the wild are infinitesimal, but perhaps that’s the way it should be. Vietnam could use their furry visage to raise funding for conservation work, and what child wouldn’t a bright orange baby langur stuffed toy, but let’s leave them at peace in the rocky forests of majestic Cát Bà.

Considering the fact that humans almost wiped them out, it’s the least we could do.

The chances of you seeing a voọc in the wild are infinitesimal, but perhaps that’s the way it should be.

Photos courtesy of the Cat Ba Langur Conservation Project.

This article was originally published in 2021.

From Pain and Misery to Confidence and Community: How AnaWorkout Can Transform One’s Life

2026-04-08T08:41:47+07:00

Having gotten a wee lumpy around the middle, In 2020, I decided to start hitting the gym, but I needed a bit of extra motivation to make it there regularly. Luckily, I had a friend, Tu Anh (who also goes by Ana), who was reinventing herself. She became my first personal trainer, and I became her first client. More than half a decade later, she has gone from a fitness hobbyist to a professional, a journey that saw her completely reroute her career path and remake her own body in the process.

By the time she entered her late 20s, Tu Anh had long been aware of challenges caused by her weight. Chronic knee pain and low energy became more common, but she ignored her body’s warnings and those of her doctor as well. For her, food was a source of comfort and way to relax. “I just loved eating since I was a kid and exploring different types of food that were often carb- and fat-heavy,” she told Saigoneer.

Trying new restaurants became a favorite activity and an escape from the stresses of work. Despite sputtering attempts to improve her health, like hiring a personal trainer, consistency proved elusive.

She was so focused on money and developing her career that she never thought about the long term. Tu Anh knew that dramatic lifestyle changes would need to start with her job as working long hours at an agency was both stressful and time-consuming. In 2020, the universe provided the jumpstart she needed to make serious changes.

For Tu Anh, like many others, the Covid-19 pandemic changed the trajectory of her life, and fear proved to be the best motivator. “I had a bad immune system and I easily got sick for long periods of time. I was afraid it would hit me hard. I was afraid to die and didn’t want to die early.” That mindset was shared by one of her inspirations a few notches above her in her family tree. She regularly visited her grandfather, who always talked about eating healthy and doing sports. She remembered his common refrain: “I want to live for 100 years.” He lived to be 102, beating his own ambitious benchmark.

It started with walks, 3–5km per day. “That sounds easy, but Saigon isn’t really a city for walking.” But she stuck with it and, for the first time in her life, was able to find consistency, even adding walks to her work calendar. This also proved to her that through consistency, change was possible, and she dropped 20KG.'

Throughout our conversation, consistency was a central theme of both struggle and success.

It was around this time that she felt fulfilled in a way she never had before, and realized exercise and fitness were more than just a routine. When she got out of bed each morning, she felt good rather than lethargic. It was a feeling of liberation, one she wanted to share with other people.

With her newfound confidence, Tu Anh put a plan in motion. She saved money from her job in the first few years of the pandemic. And she began meeting friends to try her hand at personal training, not charging anything as she learned her craft and figured out how to motivate people.

After about a year, she decided it was time to quit her job and pursue her fitness career professionally. She had plenty of self-doubt, echoed by her family, who found it difficult to accept her leaving a well-paying job. But Tu Anh knew that if she were to find success and long-term health, she’d have to go all-in. She gave herself one year and never looked back.

She slowly built her client base, offering both in-person and online sessions for individuals and groups. She also broadened her knowledge by studying nutrition. Another huge driving force was the community. She sought out like-minded people in Saigon, some who had long been into fitness and others who were just starting their journey, and started a Facebook page, Saigon Healthy Lifestyle. Community has become a central source of inspiration and motivation for Tu Anh.

Community wasn’t a way for her to find clients, however, as Tu Anh instead needed it for consistent motivation. “Sometimes I’m still lazy, but activities with others force me to get out of the house.” Meeting so many different people also made her understand just how different everyone is, from what motivates them to their genetic and physical challenges. Tu Anh says that beyond the personal fulfillment the community has given her, it has made her better at her job by helping her better understand how to tailor workout and dietary plans for her diverse roster of clients.

Intimate community involvement has also impacted her philosophy on how to help clients achieve the best results. She’d seen many people fail by trying to change too much at once, creating nearly impossible expectations that would ultimately collapse. After training over 100 clients, Tu Anh found that beyond gradual changes, the best way to create lasting lifestyle and habit shifts was to identify healthy activities that people either enjoy or that give them a sense of accomplishment, and then build from there, step by step.

She pointed to her proudest accomplishment: working with a client who was over 20kg overweight at 21 years old. Her parents had tried a number of times to help her lose weight, to no avail. After a few sessions, they discovered that weight training was her passion. After a three-month course, her young client lost the rest of the aimed for weight on her own. In a poetic twist of fate, that client has since become a personal trainer herself, and sometimes helps Tu Anh train clients when she’s overbooked.

Five years into her career as a personal trainer, Tu Anh continues to evolve her business. She plans to optimize her time by keeping a few in-person clients, while extending the reach of her message through online group classes focused on exercise and nutrition. Though my tummy is not yet taut, I’ve slowly found consistency in my workout and dietary habits and point to my time with Tu Anh as the starting point for my own healthier lifestyle.

If you’re interested in joining Tu Anh’s community or learning more about her services, you can visit her website.

Vietnamese Indie Studio Skrollcat Announces 'Hoa 2,' Sequel of 2021 Award-Winning Game

2026-04-07T15:00:00+07:00

In 2021, the first Hoa title came out just in time to soothe our pandemic anxiety. Five years later, will Hoa 2 be up for the job in this new era of fuel crisis and global instability?

Hoa is a platform game by independent Vietnamese studio Skrollcat, first released in 2021, featuring a series of puzzles. Players control a tiny fairy that wakes up in the woods and has to navigate the wilderness to find her way home, while befriending other forest creatures and meeting old friends.

The game was well-received by fans, who praised its lushly illustrated art and tranquil soundtrack. It even won Best Art Direction, Best Music/Sound Design, and People’s Voice Best Art Direction at the 2022 Webby Awards.

Earlier this month, Skrollcat announced that they have been hard at work on Hoa’s second iteration, to be available to play at an unspecified date in 2026 on Windows, macOS, Nintendo Switch, XBox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5.

According to the team, Hoa 2 will take the whimsical world of Hoa to a 3D environment, alongside more creatures to solve puzzles with and a range of adorable costumes to collect.

The mellow soundtrack, one of the stand-out parts of the first game, is also returning with new tracks: “Immerse, explore, relax, unwind, all while accompanied by new original soundtracks from the award-winning team behind Hoa 1, recorded live.”

Have a peek at Hoa 2 via the images below:

Photos courtesy of Skrollcat Studio.

The Aesthetic Yet Functional Role of Shade in the Genome of Modernist Architecture

2026-04-03T10:00:00+07:00

Since the mid-20^th century, Vietnamese architecture has started to be made from industrial materials such as concrete, steel, glass, etc. This resulted in Vietnamese modernism, a branch of global modernism.

Vietnamese embraced the new architectural aesthetics of the epoch while retaining a taste for traditional architecture. One of the most important, and also the least observable, characteristics is the use of shadow.

Since the 1950s, reinforced concrete has been commonly used in institutional buildings, factories, shophouses, villas, and rural houses in southern Vietnam thanks to its versatility, convenience, and low cost.

In addition to creating a more permanent shelter, concrete offered creative homeowners a new material to compose diverse and abstract facades. Simple architectural elements like planters, brise-soleils, louvers, and pergolas were used to make a new “taste” that extends beyond their function. Saigon is a reservoir of this phenomenon.

Articulation of shadow started primarily to mitigate direct sunlight in living spaces. Thanks to abundant sun rays and frequent downpours, exterior corridors or balconies are omnipresent and indispensable elements in all shophouses, rural houses, or villas. Putting suspended structures over a house to provide shade and block rainfall has created regions of shadow over facades. For example, bẩy — the final overhung beam that supports a roof's extension — in traditional Vietnamese houses, temples and pagodas are hung on columns to extend the roof further, increasing shade in interior spaces.

In vernacular modernist architecture, bẩy has resulted in contrasting extrusions and intrusions on a building's facade. In fact, mid-century homeowners may have considered a facade to be canvas to create sculptural compositions by including various architectural elements, such as louvers, rails and planters.

Besides serving a structural function, these elements have an aesthetic role. Becoming mindful of the stylistic effect of shadow-casting elements like pergolas that provide shade to outdoor walkways, is a special phenomenon emblematic of Vietnamese architectural culture. It reveals the country's ability to conduct architectural experimentation and evolve its style.

The structural combination of beams, posts, louvers, and planters of the 61-63 Võ Văn Kiệt building is a great example of structural design. All of these elements lie over the suspended part of the building to shade the space beneath. But the way light and shade interacts above the elements are also carefully designed as well. The dense row of louvers at the edge, the blander surface of the balcony spreading over the front, and the delicate slices at the beams' ends and the distance between them were de-conceptualized in such a way that their structural framework becomes a sculpture. Viewers cannot separate function from art.

A special talent of Vietnamese builders regarding reinforced concrete is the ability to seemingly hide gravity. For example, the relationship between a planter and the edge beam on which it's anchored are always hidden, so the plants seem to float in the air beyond the facade. This is achieved by controlling or adjusting shades.

Repeating this design over and over resulted in it becoming a trademark of Vietnamese architecture. In almost all homes and shophouses, every floor has at least one planter suspended in front. This means a floating-over-shade effect appears in almost all Vietnamese modernist houses, not to mention other experiments by architects in public buildings such as floating roofs.

Even though the louver, planter, brise-soleil and pergola in modernist architecture may no longer bear imagery of sacred animals, folktales, or spiritual stories as in traditional architecture, its the equilibrium of shade persists. The shade it provides is constant in the consciousness of new compositions.

Common Vietnamese modernist architecture separated itself from global modernism thanks to its instinctual design choices that reveal the carefree identity of Vietnamese architecture.

From the overall to the minute, shade has been at the center of Vietnamese modernist architecture. All decisions during the design process seem to revolve around it. Shade has become a “material” — intangible but adjustable — developed and reproduced. Modernist architecture, therefore, became a new form of craft that preserved and developed a particular taste and aesthetics unique to Vietnamese.

Mostly created by homeowners or contractors spontaneously without any participation from architects, modernist dwellings in the mid-twentieth century have captured Vietnam's personality that shares lifeblood with art, cuisine, and culture. It not only preserves aesthetics but also lifestyles formed in accordance with local environments. The need to respond to sun, rain, and heat has helped balance the role of artistic interpretation and result in a stylistic consistency. Analyzing the result of this craftsmanship helps us investigate better the architectural authenticity of Vietnamese modern history.

This article was originally published in 2021.

Vietnam's Woolly Bat Is Being Hunted to Extinction to Be Halloween Decorations

2026-03-25T11:00:00+07:00

With hues of orange and black on its wings and a furry, fluffy face, the painted woolly bat is a stunner. But its beauty has become a deadly liability. People want to hang the bats — dead and stuffed — on their walls, display them as collectibles and even set them in jewelry.

In recent years, taxidermied and framed bats have become popular as Halloween décor and, oddly, as Christmas tree decorations, sold to customers in the US, as well as Europe and Canada. This macabre trade first came to light in 2015 when scientists found dead bats, including painted woolly bats, for sale in Vietnam’s largest metropolis, Hồ Chí Minh City. Then, nearly a decade later, scientists realized that it wasn’t just a few stores selling bats: There’s also a huge online market.

In 2024, researchers from the Bat Specialist Group at the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, documented nearly 800 bats for sale on Amazon.com, eBay and Etsy over a three-month period. Their “Dying for décor” study, published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research, suggests that the trade is global. A quarter of the bats sold online were from a single species: painted woolly bats, or dơi mũi nhẵn đốm vàng in Vietnamese (Kerivoula picta).

After a successful awareness campaign by conservation organizations, eBay and Etsy banned the sale of bat products on their sites in 2025.

Painted woolly bats are nocturnal and sparsely distributed in the landscape, roosting in small groups. Image by faridmuzaki via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Now, a new study finds that this ornamental trade continues to thrive in Vietnam. Two surveys conducted in 2024 in HCMC’s tourist markets found more than 50 taxidermied and framed painted woolly bats in souvenir shops, sold alongside other wildlife products.

Painted woolly bats, also known as butterfly bats, “are one of the most beautiful bats there is,” said study author Chris Shepherd, a senior conservation advocate at US-based nonprofit the Center for Biological Diversity. Native to 11 countries in South and Southeast Asia, they’re classified as near threatened, and populations are declining. A 2020 survey found that their numbers had dropped by 25% over the last 15 years, largely because of this trade.

While it’s illegal to hunt them in each of their range countries, commercial cross-border trade isn’t regulated or monitored, as they’re not protected under CITES, the global wildlife trade treaty.

The US is the biggest importer of these colorful bats and other related species, with more than 1,000 dead individuals entering the country yearly. So in 2024, Shepherd and his colleagues petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the painted woolly bat under the Endangered Species Act, which would prohibit its import, export, transport, trade and possession within the US In August 2025, the agency announced it was initiating a review of the species status based on the petition.

A taxidermied and framed painted woolly bat for sale in a shop in HCMC beside insects, documented as part of research quantifying the scope of the trade in bats. Image by Joanna Coleman.

Thriving trade in Vietnam

In mid-2024, one of the study authors visited HCMC markets to gauge the scale of the trade in the city and the prices that ornamental bats commanded. During an eight-day survey, they visited 85 shops in three different districts: 66 sold souvenirs and 19 others offered traditional medicine. They found 41 painted woolly bats in 13 shops at Bến Thành Market in the city center, dried and mounted in black shadowbox frames. Shops at other markets had none on display. The framed bats sold for anywhere between VND250,000 and 890,000 (about US$10–35) apiece.

The researcher returned to the same market a few months later, in November 2024, and found 18 bat ornaments for sale; six were painted woolly bats, including a pup. “They are mainly marketed to tourists, so this likely amounts to international trade,” said the study’s co-author, Joanna Coleman, a biology professor at the City University of New York in the US and a member of the IUCN Bat Specialist Group.

Since painted woolly bats were extremely popular in HCMC markets — representing a third of all bats sold — she said the demand “must be higher for them than for other bats” because of their striking beauty.

The researchers couldn’t definitively identify the other species for sale, but based on the labels attached, they seemed to belong to the genus, Pipistrellus, a widely distributed group of bats found in Southeast Asia, Europe and Africa. These shops also sold butterflies, beetles, scorpions, moths, lizards, spiders and double-winged true bugs — all dried and framed, just like the bats.

When asked about the origins of the bats they sold, vendors told researchers that painted woolly bats mostly came from the wild. One seller said these shops buy their bats from a wholesale dealer, who hires people to harvest, dry and frame them.

The painted woolly bat is in great demand for the ornamental trade, bought both online and offline for decorations. Image by Vetri Selvan via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Finding young bats in these markets was of particular concern. Baby bats cling to their mothers for the first few weeks of their lives and ride along with her when she hunts or forages. Finding young pups for sale indicates that “[h]unters are taking adults and dependent pups,” Coleman said. “When you remove adult females and their young from wild populations, you are even likelier to cause population declines, especially in animals like bats that reproduce very slowly.” Painted woolly bats birth just one pup a year.

Fieldwork revealed the trade’s impact. When one of the researchers visited the Mekong Delta between June and September 2024 — a region where locals said it’s generally easy to see painted woolly bats — they found just one female after an intensive search. This indicates that local populations are nearly extinct, and those for sale in markets either came from a stockpile or from elsewhere.

Bat scientist Dave Waldien called the findings “unfortunate, but not surprising,” since painted woolly bats are the most popular in trade. Waldien, a member of the IUCN Bat Specialist Group who wasn’t involved in the study, emphasized the importance of this research in highlighting that “the level of threat from the ornamental trade of the painted woolly bat is more significant than previously thought, and that robust and immediate attention is needed to eliminate this threat.”

This image documents ornamental wildlife for sale in HCMC, photographed during a recent study. This shop sold both adult bats and pups. Image courtesy of Nguyen et. al (2026).

Better enforcement and trade monitoring needed

Painted woolly bats are solitary and sparsely distributed, and scientists don’t know much about their life cycle, behavior, or even how many of them are in the wild. “Kerivoula picta is especially hard to study,” Coleman said. “That is exactly what makes the trade a likely conservation concern.” Data on their trade are also patchy; this study is the first to document how many are sold in one of their native countries.

Conservationists say governments of the bat’s range countries should step up to enforce their laws against hunting the species. In Vietnam, those laws come with major loopholes: It’s legal to capture the bats during their nonbreeding season and it’s also legal to sell captive-bred bats, with paperwork to prove it. But there are no known captive-breeding facilities for these insectivorous bats anywhere in the world, researchers say. Since pups have also been found in the trade, scientists say illegal capture is common.

The researchers urge the Vietnamese government to add the species to its national list of endangered, precious and rare animals, which would ban hunting year-round and impose stricter fines and prison terms for violators.

Given that the bats are primarily sold to foreign tourists, experts also suggest regulating trade in this species by adding it to Appendix II of CITES. However, the next CITES summit when that might be considered is at least two years away.

In the interim, range countries can add painted wooly bats to CITES Appendix III, to better monitor international trade from within their borders. That would be “a really big first step in helping regulate the trade and helping countries protect the species in the range countries,” said Shepherd from the Center for Biological Diversity. “Without [Appendix III] listing, there’s no mechanism for controlling or regulating international trade.”

But these mammals face additional threats. Logging and conversion of agricultural plantations into human settlements are erasing their homes.

With striking orange and black streaks on their wings, painted woolly bats are one of the most colorful bats in the world. Image by stingraysilver via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Conservation of this species requires collaboration between governments, conservationists and communities, Waldien said. “In addition to national and international legislation, this should include work with local communities to prevent further collection — and the protection and restoration of the species’ habitat.”

Few people realize the services bats provide. Protecting painted woolly bats — and all bat species — benefits human health and helps produce the food we eat. Like all insectivorous bats, they act as nature’s pest control, keeping insect numbers under check, so they don’t devour crops, and also limiting the spread of insect-borne diseases.

Removing this iconic species from the wild, especially for a senseless trinket trade, will hurt the bats and the ecosystem, Shepherd said. “People don’t need to be hanging this bat on the wall or on their Christmas tree or having it on their desk.”

Top photo: With this species highly sought after as decorations, mostly by foreign tourists, their numbers are dwindling. Image by Abu Hamas via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

This article is originally published by Mongabay. Read the Mongabay article here.

In Search of Ba Khía, the Mangrove Crab That Captures the Soul of Cà Mau

2026-03-23T16:00:00+07:00

The tide is low tonight. The mud flats, enveloped in the mangrove forest’s darkness, are dotted with the sporadic flares of headlamps. On bundles of exposed mangrove roots, shadows cast by black crabs crowd out one another. In my hometown, we call them “ba khía.”

I’ve never once wondered why these little crabs have that name. The words ba khía are so familiar and deeply rooted in me as natural as being; so I’ve never questioned the name or bothered to ask my parents. According to scientific sources, “ba khía” refers to the three grooves (khía) on the carapace of the species.

Photo via Vietnam.vn.

Ba khía, the tiny crab from the delta

When I was little, a telecommunication company once ran a special promotion for users of the Mekong Delta called “Ba khía SIM cards.” Not rice, shrimps, canals, but ba khía; perhaps because those features are prevalent in the delta, but not as exclusive as ba khía. The species, Episesarma mederi, only proliferates in the mangrove forests spanning along the coasts of southern provinces like Kiên Giang, Sóc Trăng, and Cà Mau.

Still, even if you’ve arrived at its hometown, it’s not a guarantee that you will be able to meet it. My grandma used to say that it’s an “ugly crab,” because it’s tiny, purplish black, and often burrows in mud. Ba khía, of course, doesn’t really care enough about what we think of it to hide away. It’s rarely seen because it’s gainfully employed and busy minding its own business, not free to show its face on the water for human spectatorship. During the day, ba khía is hard at work digging and building nests, and only leaves home at night to hunt and socialize.

Like many other crustaceans, ba khía dines on small species like fish and snails, alongside vegan options like mangrove buds, leaves, and detritus. Veteran ba khía hunters can tell with one look at the shell what the most favorite food of a specific ba khía is: those munching on mắm tree leaves will spot a shiny black shell with crimson tomalley, while a diet of white mắm fruits would produce greyish tomalley. Forest-dwelling ones feasting on mangrove leaves tend to be larger, with yellow tomalley and an attractive burgundy shell.

Thanks to its “organic diet,” ba khía flesh is tight, sweet, and filled with the flavors of the southern jungles, especially those caught from Rạch Gốc, Cà Mau Province. The southernmost locality in Vietnam is blessed with seemingly endless mangrove forests, the fertile breeding ground for ba khía. Living where the Mekong River meets the sea, ba khía that hails from this land luxuriate in alluvium-rich water, becoming the country’s best ba khía that’s well-known everywhere.

How to hunt the mangrove forest's runner

Ba khía is small and swift, quick to escape and hide in the mangrove’s nooks and crannies, so it poses a great challenge to anyone not well-familiarized with its antics. Older generations in the delta have observed their behaviors and habitats to come up with the best time to catch them: the 10th month on the lunar calendar. It is a time when crowds of black ba khía leave their burrows and congregate on mangrove roots to find mates — a time when they let their guard down to party like it’s 1999. Ba khía hunters won’t miss a prime opportunity to get access to a mother lode of crabs, so every year, during the low tides of the 10th month, the mangrove forests welcome groups of hunters packing their tools and baskets to catch ba khía.

Before becoming a delta delicacy today, ba khía was once deemed a poor man’s food, so catching it, too, was not a respected trade, even though it is quite literally a back-breaking job, involving resting and sleeping in the wilderness amongst mosquitoes, leeches, snakes, and countless other creepy-crawlies. It is often said that only the most courageous or the most desperate join this line of work.

Photo via Người Lao Động.

Today’s tech advancements have somewhat lessened the labor of ba khía hunts, but to reach these crabs, one would still need to hang around in the woods at night with a headlamp to examine every root bundle. A quick reaction time is a must, because they are sneaky and would scuttle off inside the mud.

Making mắm ba khía

Since the early days of border expansion, our ancestors have used ba khía as a source of nutrition reserve for a rainy day. To increase its shelf life, they salted freshly caught crabs to produce mắm ba khía in a process that’s just as rigorous as their capture.

Traditionally, crab hunters would bring a few jars of saltwater on their trips. They would give the ba khía a quick wash once caught, then immediately drop them into the brine. One second, they were ferociously resisting with their red pincers, but not long after, they would become unresponsive due to the salinity.

Photo via Người đưa tin.

How much salt to use to make the solution is a tried-and-true knowledge only gained after years in the trade. Not enough salt means the mắm can go bad easily, but too much salt will affect the taste of the flesh and structural integrity of the shell. Salting apparati like claypots and glass jars must be thoroughly sterilized and kept in dry places to avoid rainwater. It’s a tough job that had remained largely unacknowledged until 2019, when it was officially recognized by the Vietnamese government as a national intangible heritage.

Salted ba khía doesn’t take long to become edible, as its flesh is already brackish thanks to its natural habitat. Usually, after about 10 days, if the shells don’t change color, the crabs can be consumed. Freshly caught ba khía might inspire a diverse range of preparation methods, like salt-crusting, stir-frying with garlic, or with a tangy tamarind sauce, but salted ba khía can only be eaten one way. Are delta residents the most loyal eaters, or is this preparation so failsafe that we never thought to invent new ones?

Photo by Huỳnh Anh/TTX Việt Nam.

First, rinse the salted crabs in warm water to wash off excess salt, remove the apron, pluck off the pincers, chop the body in half, and then mix with raw garlic, chili, lime juice, and sugar. My family would make this crab “salad” every meal. My friends’ parents would do the same.

Ba khía is biologically a true crab, but culinarily, not really. Other edible crabs have substantial flesh inside their shell for our enjoyment. Ba khía is very tiny, so you can’t deshell it properly. The only way to enjoy ba khía is biting into the whole crab and sucking off the juice and meager meat inside alongside the sweet-and-sour sauce. The flesh would literally melt in your mouth, because there’s not a lot of it.

Ba khía, the iconic Cà Mau delicacy

Not all Cà Mau inhabitants grow up knowing how to relish ba khía. There were times when I detested the smell of the jars of salted ba khía mom packed for me from our hometown. I was once that person who neglected the plate of ba khía salad in our family meals. Even so, it was very hard to resist the audible sounds my family made when feasting on ba khía. The crispy clinks when my dad shoved rice from the bowl into his mouth. The juicy slurps of the tangy sauce. My grandma carefully poured small spoonfuls of the sauce on her rice and raved about the balance of flavors.

I gave in. I thought that it was worth it to try. The jar of ba khía was the most treasured home delicacy we shared with our closest friends and relatives when they visited. Maybe it’s extremely tasty? For the first time, I welcomed the smell that I once refused. The pungent aroma of seafood resonated with the citrusy notes of lime, the heat of chili, and raw garlic. I reached for a ba khía leg with a fleck of meat on it.

Photo by Huỳnh Anh/TTX Việt Nam.

The entire family watched in triumph as their son was won over by salted ba khía. My dad said that I had then tasted half the value of Cà Mau cuisine. The other half involves slurping up the sauce. It was thick with crab umami, in between the sweet, salty, and spicy notes of the spices. Once again, my resolve was toppled.

During the years living far from home, I rarely eat ba khía. Sometimes, my friends would invite me to try Korean soy-marinated blue crab. The nuttiness of the flesh and the salty soy reminded me a lot of the plate of ba khía salad at home. Of course, it was just a poor substitute. Nothing can replace the salted ba khía in my being, the one that my mom made by hand. She would vigorously shake an entire basin of crab with the spices. The entire kitchen would smell like lime and funky crab.

I would get myself a full bowl of hot rice and sit there waiting for her plate of saucy ba khía. I would leave behind all decorum to passionately suck on the crab legs and crunch through the shells to extract the marinated meat. That and a big spoon of rice — those make up the most satisfying feeling to a child of Cà Mau.

Hanoi Breaks Ground on Sports Complex With World's 2nd-Largest Stadium

2026-03-03T14:00:00+07:00

Hanoi is currently building the country’s largest sports complex that’s hoped to become Vietnam’s go-to location to host international events and tournaments.

On December 19, as Tuổi Trẻ reports, state officials broke ground on the Olympics Sports City at a 9,171-hectare patch of land south of Hanoi. Vingroup is reportedly behind the massive project with a price tag of nearly VND926 trillion (US$38 billion).

According to Vingroup, the complex is separated into four segments of A, B, C, and D. Zone B will be the cornerstone of the project, where major sporting infrastructures are based, including the Trống Đồng Stadium, Global Aquatics Arena, Vietnam Sports Tower, and E-Sports Arena.

An artist's rendering of the complex and the zones.

The remaining zones comprise residential compounds and other supporting facilities, including a hospital and research center. The complex will house about 751,000 inhabitants and is estimated to finish in 2035. Officials greenlit the project in hopes that it can host regional and global sporting events like the Asian Games and Summer Olympics.

Of the amenities in the list, the Trống Đồng Stadium is perhaps the most talked about since it was announced. Like the name suggests, the stadium’s design is inspired by the Đông Sơn bronze drum and chim Lạc, figures with major archaeological importance in Vietnamese history.

At the moment, the land is still mostly for agricultural purposes.

The oval stadium is planned on a 48-hectare plot at a maximum capacity of 135,000 seats, over three times more than Mỹ Đình Stadium’s 40,000. Once finished, Trống Đồng will surpass India’s Narendra Modi Stadium (132,000) to be the world’s second-largest stadium, just behind North Korea’s Rungrado 1st of May Stadium (150,000). While the exact estimate is unclear, local media reports that construction on Trống Đồng is expected to finish in 2028–2030.

Images via CafeF.

How the French Curriculum is Deeper than the French Language at La Petite Ecole

2026-03-03T12:16:00+07:00

When people hear that La Petite Ecole Ho Chi Minh is a French school, they assume this means it teaches the French language. While this is true, there is much more to it. Educating students in French and English from Kindergarten through Primary (ages 1–11), the bilingual school adheres to the French National Curriculum established by France’s Ministry of Education. This instills an analytical mindset and a confident, empathetic outlook that transcends any singular language. The value of these skills and traits is reflected in the student population. Half of the students come from families without a single French parent, suggesting that a French education is about far more than merely being able to speak French.

Critical Thinking that Allows Students to Understand Better

“Of course, you need knowledge, but knowledge to do what?” said Bertrand Malifarges, the new Headmaster of La Petite Ecole Ho Chi Minh, when explaining to Saigoneer what constitutes a French education. “You have to be able to think based on this knowledge.”

Bertrand Malifarges, Headmaster of La Petite Ecole.

As a French school adhering to the curriculum established by France’s Ministry of Education, La Petite Ecole follows state-developed frameworks and objectives for conventional subject areas, including mathematics, literacy, sciences, arts, and citizenship. The school’s educational philosophy means that “The French Curriculum does not aim to produce students who know more, but students who understand better,” Bertrand noted.

Critical thinking and a self-motivated search for the reasons behind answers underpins this school’s educational philosophy. Students consider answers and their reasons in the context of history, culture, and art through an open-ended humanist lens, according to Mary Malifarges, La Petite Ecole’s Pedagogical Advisor. Reflection and analysis are stressed alongside the ability to argue one’s viewpoints via written essays, as opposed to tests that simply require memorization.

The Importance of Kindergarten

"In the French education system, kindergarten is a crucial stage,” Mary said when asked how La Petite Ecole differs from the other western education options in Saigon. “It is based on a structured programme of skills to be acquired while also fostering self-confidence and a positive attitude toward mistakes, which are seen as a normal and necessary part of learning,” she continued.

Mary Malifarges, La Petite Ecole’s Pedagogical Advisor.

Bertrand shared an anecdote of his time working to establish a French school in Iraq that underscores the importance of kindergarten in France’s educational approach. The Iraqi Minister of Education was shocked when Bertrand assigned his three most experienced French teachers to the kindergarten. Mary explained that this decision is completely in line with her understanding that the first seven years of a child’s life are “the most important for the development of the child; and before five, it's huge.”

The Power of a Global Community

La Petite Ecole further sets itself apart in the Saigon international education landscape by its inclusion in the Agency for French Education Abroad (AFEA), a network of 600 French institutions across 138 countries. Students can seamlessly transition from and into any of these schools and continue the French curriculum without interruption. This allows families a great degree of flexibility and security; parents who move frequently can be confident there will always be a reputable French school for their children to attend. “Families today are not only choosing a school — they are choosing an educational pathway.”

The AFEA network includes Saigon’s French high school, Lycée français international Marguerite-Duras, which many La Petite Ecole graduates attend. But even if students post-La Petite Ecole transition to schools outside of the French curriculum, they are prepared for success. As Mary explained, the philosophy of La Petite Ecole that stresses creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking, along with soft skills like confidence and determination, will be reflected in programs like the International Baccalaureate.

A Truly Bilingual Education

While adhering to the French curriculum, there is freedom to adapt to the needs of the school and students. At La Petite Ecole, this means a fully bilingual education with half of the classes taught in French and half in English, both by native speakers. While it may seem daunting to learn two or even three languages at once, the science proves students are not only capable but actually learn better when given the opportunity to develop more than one language simultaneously. Doing so establishes the neural pathways that promote lifelong flexibility for not just learning languages, but learning in general, as well as the empathy that comes with being able to enter more conversations and cultures.

To keep pace with the rigorous academic expectations, the lesson materials are not repeated in both languages, but rather alternate while moving forward. To accomplish this, pairs of teachers must work closely to ensure their classrooms coordinate precisely, with all core subjects, including math, science, and art, taught in both French and English. Similarly, La Petite Ecole prides itself on the necessary collaboration amongst teachers and families. This close, committed community ensures that professional monitoring of students can take place as well. Mary stressed that students’ emotional and mental well-being must be ensured alongside high achievement, which is only possible by closely observing each child and responding to their individual needs. Bertrand noted that “Academic success and well-being are not competing priorities — children learn best when both grow together.”

Being able to not just speak but think across languages is likely to prove incredibly useful in the exciting, uncertain decades ahead. Anchored by the French Curriculum and open to anyone, La Petite Ecole could be the perfect environment for students who don’t just know a lot, but understand a lot. Interested families can contact the school to arrange a visit to see the learning in action and decide if it's a good fit for their children.

La Petite Ecole Ho Chi Minh will host an Open Day on Saturday, March 14th. Interested families can register here.

La Petite Ecole Ho Chi Minh's Facebook Page

La Petite Ecole Ho Chi Minh's website

La Petite Ecole Ho Chi Minh's Email

+84 (0) 28 3519 1521

172-180 Nguyễn Văn Hưởng, Thảo Điền, Quận 2, TPHCMC

Saigon Approves Plan to Extend Metro Line 1 to Long Thành International Airport

2026-02-26T12:00:00+07:00

Plans for eventual metro access to the Long Thành International Airport are taking shape.

With Sagion’s new international airport having already received its first flight and regular operations expected to begin in the middle of this year, authorities are moving forward with plans to establish access via urban railway. Notably, this month, the Hồ Chí Minh City People’s Council approved a resolution to extend the currently operational Metro Line 1 to Long Thành International Airport under a public-private partnership.

The need for rail access to the airport is obvious, as current transportation options are limited. Travel via the HCMC–Long Thành expressway, National Highway 1, and National Highway 51 already experiences congestion that will be exacerbated by airport traffic. Conservative estimates place current travel time at 2–3 hours.

Đồng Nai Province will be the executing agency for the recently approved line extension, set to run 41.4 kilometers across three sections. Beginning at the Suối Tiên Station, it will stretch 6.1 kilometers to the Đồng Nai provincial administration center, then 28.2 kilometers to Station SA, which is planned to connect to the Metro Line 2 Bến Thành–Thủ Thiêm section, and then 7.1 kilometers to the airport. Implementation is expected to last from 2026 to 2029.

The extended line is designed to operate at 110 kilometers per hour in the open and 80 kilometers per hour in tunnels. Funds for the plan, which is estimated at more than VND60.26 trillion (US$2.29 billion), include VND3.41 trillion for site clearance in Đồng Nai and VND915 billion in HCMC.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, Thaco announced ambitious plans to have the metro line from Bến Thành to Thủ Thiêm and a connecting railway from Thủ Thiêm to Long Thành Airport operational by 2030. Authorities have yet to decide on who will implement or fund these projects, but Thaco, an urban development and residential real estate company, is preparing for the responsibility, as evidenced by the addition of a Railway Project Investment and Construction division.

Plans for the portion of Metro Line 2 extending from Thủ Thiêm to Long Thành Airport. Image via VNExpress.

Of course, these plans and proposals, including a direct connection to Tân Sơn Nhất, are nothing new, with discussions of them going back at least a decade. Dates for opening operations have similarly been offered and revised over the years, alongside vigorous calls to speed up implementation. In the meantime, a robust expansion of bus lines is in the works, with seven proposed lines connecting to urban hubs alongside various road, bridge and overpass embellishments.

[Top image via HCMC Tourism Magazine]

A Brief History of Ngựa, a Non-Native Animal Vietnam Has Made Its Own

2026-02-08T15:00:00+07:00

Are horses a Vietnamese animal?

In terms of whether horses are part of Vietnamese culture, just look around. While examples might not tumble to the forefront of your mind, once you start looking for them, you’ll notice horses everywhere.

Thánh Gióng Statue at Ngã Sáu Sài Gòn. Photo by Shing Chan.

Trần Nguyên Hãn Statue. Photo via SGCP.

Thánh Gióng, the legendary boy who vanquished invading Chinese troops, did so atop a metal horse. He is honored along with his majestic steed by a statue at Phù Đổng Roundabout. Similarly, 15^th-century General Trần Nguyên Hãn, was depicted on horseback in Quách Thị Trang Square. The statue was removed when the public space was dismantled for the metro construction, though there have been plans to reinstall a new version, which will again place a horse front and center in the city.

‘Ethereal Horse,’ lithograph, Lebedang. Image via Mutual Art.

Horses are not just for public display, as many people, or their grandparents at least, have paintings of a herd of horses triumphantly running across a river hanging above their living room couches. Meanwhile, a trip to any gallery or museum reveals that horses provide inspiration to visual artists across styles and time periods, as underscored by “The Horse in Visual Art,” an exhibition with more than 60 pieces that opened this year at the Hanoi Fine Arts Museum. Artists like Lebedang are said to be drawn to them because of the animals' innate desire for freedom as well as their ability to endure arduous labor alongside humans. The most circulated artwork to feature them in Vietnam was surely on the back of now-defunct currency.

Image via Smithwick Numismatics.

You’ll also discover horses in humble domestic spaces. If you snoop around bathroom medicine cabinets, you might notice them on a variety of men’s health and virility products owing to horses’ perceived strength and stamina. And, while no major Vietnamese fashion brand or corporation uses them as a logo, the Year of the Horse has ushered in a plethora of brands to use them in advertisements, promotions, packagings and promotions.

Products for energy and virility utilizing horse imagery. Photos via Central Pharmacy and Lazada.

Horses have made their linguistic mark here as well, particularly in idioms such as “cưỡi ngựa xem hoa,” (riding a horse to admire flowers); “một con ngựa đau, cả tàu bỏ cỏ” (one sick horse, the whole stable refuses grass), and "đường dài mới biết ngựa hay” (only a long journey reveals how strong the horse really is). Horses are also popular in songs, be they nostalgic movie soundtrack hits or ballads like ‘Lý Ngựa Ô,’ that a miền Tây uncle might pick out for karaoke.

A horse employed in the 1960s. Photo by Thomas W. Johnson.

A horse-drawn carriage outside Bến Thành Market in 1938. Photo by Eli Lotar.

Even though you can easily spot depictions of and references to horses in your daily life, it's rare to encounter the living animal here. This wasn’t always the case. Not too long ago, horses were an important part of the economy. In colonial times they were used as pack animals and for transportation. Even after the advent of motorized vehicles, they were a practical and more affordable means of delivering materials and people.

A horse pulling an advertisement for a movie showing. Photo via 2Saigon.

If you spend any time in photo archives, you’ll see horses pulling carts laden with construction goods, city dwellers, and even roaming through the city to advertise products and theatre performances. And while their days of pulling carts in Saigon have long since passed, they continue to do so in parts of the Mekong Delta, especially within Khmer communities. While certainly in their last days as a functional replacement for trucks or motorbikes, there are hopes that horse carriages can serve tourism purposes. The lullaby-esque clop-clop-clop of horses pulling carriages with colorful curtains in the countryside can provide a romantic nostalgia to citydwellers.

Horses used in An Giang in 2020. Photos via Tuổi Trẻ.

In addition to practical cogs in the urban machine, horses have been sources of entertainment in Vietnam as well. Particularly, District 11’s Phú Thọ Horse Racing Ground was a popular place for gambling and high society fraternizing since its construction by the French in 1923. Still recognizable on maps after its 2011 shuttering, the race track was amongst the largest in Southeast Asia. While horse racing may be gone, a niche community of equestrians around the country keeps and rides horses, often in accordance with the international prestige accompanying the expensive hobby.

Phú Thọ Horse Racing Ground between 1964 and 1969. Photos via Flickr user manhhai.

Taking all of that into account, I think we can indeed consider horses to be part of Vietnamese culture. But are they from Vietnam? Short answer: no. All domestic horses are believed to descend from populations in the western Eurasian steppe in modern-day Russia 4,000 years ago. Breeds changed and adapted as they spread across the world, including those used in military campaigns by people from Mongolia and Southern China. Researchers believe that is how horses first entered Vietnam about 800 years ago, resulting in the development of the ngựa Bắc Hà breed found in Northern Vietnam today. This small squat variety is well-adapted to rugged terrain and agrarian labor. Easily recognizable by their diminutive stature, they recently caused a stir online when used by police in parades.

Vietnamese police atop Bắc Hà horses in 2020. Photo via Chào Hanoi.

For hundreds of years, these horses were integrated into Vietnam’s militaries. During the Lê Dynasty, for example, an emperor in southern Hanoi ordered all the children of mandarins and nobelmen be skilled at horse-mounted archery, with cavalry proving critical for battles against Song China, Champa, and Khmer kingdoms. War horses were also relied upon by the later Nguyễn dynasty. You can observe remnants of the culture that surrounded these horses today in the form of statues in Huế and a particular style of hat, nón ngựa, produced in Bình Định that was sturdy enough to wear while riding and also fashionably designed for aristocrats.

Horses were used during the Nguyễn Dynasty, including as royal messengers, as pictured above. Photo via Thanh Niên.

Horses may roam in the memories and relative margins of Kinh society, but within northern mountainous communities, they occupy a far more central position. The regional spring markets that operate for H'Mông, Tày, Nùng, and Dao communities to gather, celebrate the new year, and buy and sell goods, including horses, evolved organically to include horse racing exhibitions. Over time, these smaller races, which, for a while, included rifle shooting elements, became centralized and organized as a tourism product and a means of preserving culture. Authorities have designated the Bắc Hà Horse Racing Festival in Lào Cai as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage. These festivals provide visitors with an opportunity to enjoy thắng cố, a H'Mông horsemeat stew that incorporates all parts of the animal along with mountain herbs and aromatics.

The Bắc Hà horse race. Photo by Xuân Phương for Vietnam Coracle.

For H'Mông communities, horses are more than race animals, sources of labor and food. They play a role in spiritual beliefs as well. Death is frequently understood as a white horse that comes to bring a person to the afterlife when it's their time. For this reason, a wooden horse is traditionally buried with a person who has passed. Horse statues are also seen on the tombs of people from H'Mông and other highland communities.

For festivals, ethnic communities adorn their horses with traditional costumes. Photo via Du Lịch Bắc Hà.

So, can we consider horses to be a Vietnamese animal? Wild horses are essentially extinct, with a single very small population of reintroduced horses surviving in Mongolia. If you ever see a herd of horses living freely in nature, it is not really wild, but rather a feral group descended from a domesticated breed. Thus, all horses as we know them exist because of humanity’s collective efforts and activities. Perhaps any society or nation that has developed a unique culture with and in response to them should be able to claim them.

A Bắc Hà horse in Lào Cai used by the H'Mông community. Photo by Flickr user Manfred Sommer.

In Đồng Nai, a Rustic Abode Emerges Under the Canopies of Cashew Trees

2026-01-30T10:00:00+07:00

A clear directive was issued before construction of the home: all 26 cashew trees occupying the 100-square-meter plot must be preserved.

G+ Architects rose to this challenge when building Nhà vườn Điều (Cashew Garden House), a humble homestay just outside Cát Tiên National Park. While embodying the area's abundance of nature, the minimalist structure, conceived as a second home and short-term accommodation, makes accommodations for the cashew trees. A central pond was created to further support biodiversity as well as maintain cool temperatures for cashew trees and humans alike.

Reclaimed wood, old clay tiles, unfinished plaster, and natural stone fit the aesthetic. A lead carpenter from Bình Thuận helped ensure the integrity of the style and integrity remained intact. Moreover, an existing building frame was used for the new kitchen and dining area with the assistance of local labor. The interiors are simple, but the abundance of natural light and earthen materials makes them inviting while also discouraging insects.

While its humble features and rustic design appear simple, the architects performed rigorous testing to achieve it. To understand how the layout would perform in real conditions, they even built a 1:1 mock-up on-site. The final product's stooped roofs, sloping walls, and directional verandas thus take advantage of natural airflow and sunlight patterns, reducing heat and increasing comfort.

Since its completion, the garden surrounding the home and covered veranda has thrived in the microclimate. Have a look at the building plans and more photos of this incredibly inviting abode below:

Photos by Quang Dam via ArchDaily.

Meet Tâm, a Crossing ‘Guardian’ Protecting Saigon Traffic and Trains From Each Other

2026-01-28T15:00:00+07:00

In a small kiosk overlooking the crowded Nguyễn Trọng Tuyển Street in Phú Nhuận, Nguyễn Thị Tâm routinely checks the clock and reviews the day’s train schedule meticulously. She’s repeated these tasks countless times, a crucial component of a job that she’s done for two decades as a train crossing attendant.

Since 1976, when the Renunification Express started to connect the Northern, Central, and Southern regions of Vietnam, the country’s railway department has witnessed numerous changes. Tâm and her many colleagues stationed at crossings across the national track have also been there with every passing locomotive, safeguarding them from street traffic and protecting vehicles and pedestrians from incoming trains.

A level crossing on Nguyễn Trọng Tuyển, Saigon.

I grew up in a neighborhood bordering a train track and a busy arterial road, and have seen many times that, when the train alarm goes off, people often take it as a sign to speed up, not slow down. The flashing red alert seems to instill a sense of rush in commuters instead of stoppage.

Every time this happens, crossing guards act as the final layer of shield. In Vietnam, they not only lift and lower the gate arms, but also keep a close eye on nearby civilians to intervene when there are troubles, in order to ensure that trains get to their stations on time without pausing road traffic too long.

As precise as an alarm clock

Having been in the position since she was 25, Tâm knows more than anybody else the high levels of discipline and accuracy that her career calls for.

Nguyễn Thị Tâm has been a railway staff for two decades.

“You can’t miscalculate when you do this job. Each level crossing has very clear gate closure times,” she explains. For crossings of level 1 and 2, like where she works, the gate arms can’t be down for over 3 minutes.

If they’re down too soon, especially in densely populated districts or during peak hours, that could cause serious congestion. If you’re down too late, that’s a major collision risk. As every action is high-stakes, each step must be technically correct and precise in timing.

Attendants use a logbook to record the train schedule, gate openings and closures, in addition to any other incidents.

Nowadays, each crossing kiosk comes with CCTVs to monitor staff operations. After receiving the signal from the shift operator, Tâm would turn on the alert light in the room to notify shift supervisors, and then step out to observe both ends of the track. Everything happens just minutes before the train comes, so the atmosphere is always tense. The attendant has to heed the system’s signals while overseeing nearby traffic to detect barrier bypass violations.

Tâm tells me that this is the hardest part of her job: “Sometimes people just don’t understand and complain when I close the crossing early, like ‘the train is not here, why are you closing now?’ or ‘if you close, the traffic will jam up.’ But actually, these things are part of the safety guidelines.”

The main control for crossing signals.

During unexpected incidents such as a vehicle being stuck on the track or other extended accidents, the crossing guard must break the seal and press the alarm button in the control kiosk.

Beside lighting and flag signalling systems, they also have detonator signals in their arsenal. Detonators can be strapped to the rail and will explode when the train passes over them. In cases where visibility is limited or the lights malfunction, they will emit loud, audible alerts to warn approaching trains from afar to slow down. This is the last resort in the playbook, and is only used when all signals fail.

“When the alert seal is broken, all lights along the track will turn red and trains must stop during the emergency,” Tâm shares. This is the reason why attendants have to always be on guard, learn by heart every signal, and cannot leave their position during a shift.

Detonators are employed during emergencies when all else fails.

Tâm remembers like it was yesterday a shift she did one afternoon in 2008 at the Nguyễn Kiệm Crossing. A motorbike suddenly toppled over and got stuck on the track when a train was just a few dozen meters away. Not thinking too much, she rushed in to pull the driver away from the track.

“At the time, I reacted on instinct to pull them out. Luckily, there were a few xe ôm drivers around who helped drag us away from the brush with death. The train made an emergency stop too, but the line between safety and tragedy was so thin that I will never forget it.”

A youth spent alongside trains

Each of Tâm’s shifts always commences a lot earlier than business hours. She lives in a faraway suburb but works in central Hồ Chí Minh City, so before work, she wakes up at 4am so she can be present for a 6am shift. For shifts later during the day, she also starts getting ready over an hour before to commute and carry out the handover procedures.

Crossing guard’s uniform hat and light signals.

During any given shift, she will handle from nine to over 20 trains, depending on the time of the day and time of the year. Once stationed, the attendant is not allowed to leave the kiosk, even if the day is New Year’s Eve or the first day of Tết.

“You need to follow every shift through. Bring your lunchbox and eat fast, because the operator gives the signal, you need to carry out the warning procedure,” Tâm says. It’s rather repetitive work that can look simple at a glance, but just a moment of neglect can have catastrophic consequences.

Tâm takes care of plants on the track as part of the Railway Department’s “Flowers on the Track” initiative.

The work is intense, but it is even tougher for female staff. Some female attendants need to return just six months after giving birth; the baby is left at home with the grandparents or enrolled in public nurseries. Crossings at major avenues like Hoàng Văn Thụ or Nguyễn Văn Trỗi have giant heavy barriers that could give one a bruise if lifted improperly.

On days when the weather is stormy, everybody at the kiosk must also double as a cleaning crew to remove branches, debris, and rubbish that the water drags into the track. It’s not uncommon for Tâm and her colleagues to regulate traffic, operate the barriers, and watch out for signals while their uniform is soaking wet and the gale lashes their faces.

Apart from train-related tasks, crossing guards also ensure that the track is free from debris.

In the past years, the railway department has implemented upgrades to make the work of attendants less arduous. Some crossings were converted from manual to electric, reducing the weight of gate arms and the time of operation. A digital monitoring system can assist staff in overseeing traffic, detecting accidents, and providing clarity when there are disputes with civilians. Besides, staff benefits have improved when it comes to yearly trips, help for struggling employees, and working conditions for female workers with young children.

While the welfare policies don’t really lighten their actual technical work, Tâm feels validated. “It’s less tiring these days, I’m happy that the authority cares more about us,” she shares. Her daily schedule is not just filled with hardships; there are wholesome moments with passersby, too.

Sometimes, commuters nod their heads in gratitude when she just finishes a shift. Another time, on March 8, she was in the middle of the night shift when a group of students dropped by to give her a small bouquet in honor of Vietnamese Women’s Day. She never forgets those flowers, because they made her feel appreciated, and that her work is seen and meaningful to somebody.

While the job is strenuous, Tâm keeps a positive mindset.

Chatting to Tâm reminds me of ‘Hai Đứa Trẻ,’ Thạch Lam’s famous short story. In the text, the night train piercing across town was once seen as the symbol of light, of hope, of a bigger world out there for tiny humans in the rural area. Perhaps, in her 20 years guarding crossings, Tâm and her colleagues were the people hard at work keeping that light ever burning.

IB Recognition Will Complement Emphasis on Vietnamese Language and Culture at VNTH

2026-01-26T05:40:00+07:00

After several years of preparation, Viet Nam Tinh Hoa by North London Collegiate School (VNTH) has achieved recognition as an IB World School, joining a global network of over 5,700 schools worldwide.

The International Baccalaureate (IB) is a global standard in education that helps students attain the tools and skills to excel throughout their lives. The program is an integral part of VNTH’s entire approach to education, which includes academic rigor supported by North London Collegiate School International and prioritizes Vietnamese identity via language and culture.

VNTH integrates the IB curriculum into the school’s philosophy of placing students at the center of learning while fostering critical thinking, curiosity, and a global mindset.

Introducing the IB System to Saigon Families

Many families understand the concept of academic excellence, but not necessarily the philosophy behind the IB. Thus, the school often starts by explaining the 'why' before the ‘what.’ This means emphasizing that the IB nurtures independent thinkers, confident communicators and compassionate global citizens. While the IB Diploma awarded to students serves as proof of a mastery of subjects including the English language and critical thinking skills for university admissions offices around the world, that isn’t the entire point. The IB curriculum develops each student to be a multi-talented individual who values their ability to contribute to the communities around them.

Introducing the IB system is an exciting opportunity to strengthen the connections between families and VNTH. The school hosts parent workshops, open classrooms, bilingual communications, and one-to-one meetings so families can be active participants in the learning journey. Adminstors note that amongst the most popular is the ‘Window into Learning’ where parents received an introduction about inquiry-based learning and then got to sit in their child’s class and see it in action.

The Role of English Rigor via North London Collegiate School

VNTH benefits from its profound relationship with North London Collegiate School (NLCS), which is a world-class IB Family of schools with 175 years of exceptional education in the UK, Korea, Dubai, Singapore and Kobe. NLCS provides support for implementing a curriculum framework that meets all the requirements of the National Curriculum for England and scaffolds the IB. The rigor and structure provided by NLCS’s formal standards balance the IB system’s more holistic and difficult to assess inquiry-based learning methods.

Students celebrate the ending of the year.

Maintaining Vietnamese Identity

VNTH graduates will go on to exciting opportunities around the world, but they must do so without ever losing connection with their home and culture. A key component of this is Vietnamese fluency, which is developed naturally and mindfully in coordination with the IB and English curriculum. It may at first seem that achieving bilingual fluency while also pursuing the rigorous English curriculum requirements and IB system presents an overwhelming task, but it’s not only possible, with bilingualism serving as an asset, not an obstacle.

The IB PYP values mother-tongue development because it strengthens cognitive growth, identity, and academic achievement. Vietnamese at VNTH is a living language in the school, reflected in literature, cultural experiences, and classroom practice. Students learn to think, problem solve, and express themselves in both English and Vietnamese, giving them cognitive flexibility, stronger literacy skills, and a deeper connection to their heritage.

Moreover, achieving all the Vietnamese language and knowledge standards of students who attend local public schools has a profound impact on their ability to maintain ties to their communities. They can communicate fully and connect deeply with family members, friends, and neighbors which enables them to feel a part of their local communities.

Putting it All Together

Vietnam’s national curriculum, the English national curriculum, and the IB’s required interdisciplinary units can complement one another when designed and delivered carefully. The best of all worlds can be blended together for an education that is even greater than the sum of its parts.

For this blending to occur, NLCS’s teachers and leadership work together closely. A key strength of the school's model is the partnership between Western and Vietnamese teachers. Planning is done collaboratively. Teachers co-design units, share expertise, and align instructional approaches so that the learning experience is coherent across languages and subjects. Western teachers bring international pedagogical approaches and inquiry-led methodology, while Vietnamese teachers bring cultural insight and language expertise. When this succeeds, students develop learning approaches that are both internationally minded and deeply connected to Vietnamese culture. Small class sizes and modern, purpose-built facilities, including the STEAM Lab, Makerspace, Art Studio, and Science Lab, assist in offering authentic learning opportunities.

The IB program, like the focus on Vietnamese language and culture, is intended for every student’s lifelong benefit as leaders, thinkers, and contributors. The school is united around their desire for families to understand their long-term goal: to help children grow as thinkers, collaborators, and leaders, confident in who they are and prepared for the world they will inherit.

Viet Nam Tinh Hoa by North London Collegiate School (VNTH)'s website

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Learning to Coexist in Peace Is the First Step to Protect Vietnam's Last Remaining Elephants

2026-01-19T10:00:00+07:00

A trail of enormous footprints, criss-crossing slabs of cracked concrete, lead to a battered ranger station in Vietnam’s Pù Mát National Park. Park staff say the wild Asian elephant that left the tracks is as friendly as it is lonely.

Separated from any of the country’s remaining wild herds, the solitary giant satisfies her social appetite by interacting with people at the station. Rangers say the 29-year-old female has been solo since her mother died more than a decade ago. Signs of her visits to the rangers are hard to miss, with craters in the soil left by weighty feet, a fence bent from a playful push, and a dented sign toppled by a frisky trunk.

“The elephant usually comes here to play,” says Nguyễn Công Thành, a ranger at Pù Mát in Vietnam’s north-central Nghệ An Province, as he points out the damage. The wild elephant herd which lives deeper in the forests of Pù Mát — made up of around 15 individuals — is far less friendly, he says.

Nguyễn Công Thành, a ranger at Pù Mát National Park, holds a battered sign which was knocked down by a solitary wild elephant.

Lộc Văn Hùng, a fellow ranger, with a section of the station’s fence that the elephant damaged

Only around 100 wild elephants are estimated to survive in Vietnam, separated into 22 groups across the country. These last survivors of Asia’s once 100,000-strong elephant population face a myriad of threats, including conflict with people, exacerbated by habitat loss.

Drawn to fruit trees, corn, rice and other agricultural produce, a herd of wild elephants can destroy a farmer’s livelihood in a single meal. And when Vietnam’s remaining wild herds interact with humans, the results are often fraught and sometimes fatal.

As pressure mounts from agricultural expansion and other human development, conservationists warn the dwindling number of elephants will soon approach the point of no return in sustaining a viable population.

In the last two years in Pù Mát, rangers allegedly suspect two elephants may have been killed by poisoning in possible acts of retribution following conflicts with humans.

An Asian elephant takes a bath in Vietnam’s Yok Don National Park in May 2023, when a record-setting heat wave swept Vietnam.

With Vietnam’s elephant populations trailing on the very edge of viability, each incident of conflict threatens the continued existence of the species there.

Vietnam’s elephants on the brink

Asian elephants are listed as critically endangered on the Vietnam Red Book of rare and endangered species, while the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List categorize them as endangered at the global level.

A tourist draws a rescued Asian elephant during a tour hosted by NGO Animals Asia in Yok Don National Park, which is estimated to be home to 28–60 wild elephants.

Vietnam’s wild elephant population has been in sharp decline for decades. Huge swathes of forest were destroyed during the 20-year-long American War, and the animals’ habitat has continued to shrink as the country has developed.

Hunted for ivory and the elephant skin trade, and captured from the wild for use in logging and tourism, Vietnam’s wild elephant population has fallen from approximately 2,000 in 1980 to between 91 and 129 in 2022, according to the Vietnam Forest Administration.

The few surviving wild herds live in areas close to Vietnam’s borders with Cambodia and Laos. The largest groups are in three national parks: Cát Tiên, Pù Mát and Yok Don. Even then, Cát Tiên and Pù Mát are home to fewer than 20 elephants, while between 28 and 60 are estimated to live in Yok Don, according to data from the Vietnam Forestry Administration. The rest of the nation’s wild elephants are sparsely scattered across nine provinces, with four provinces counting just a single wild elephant.

Wild Asian elephant herds have declined steadily for decades in Vietnam. As of 2022, 91–129 elephants are estimated to survive across 12 provinces, with the largest herds restricted to three national parks. • Data source: Vietnam Forestry Administration • Graphic: China Dialogue, Anton Delgado

The Vietnam Forestry Administration lists Lâm Đồng Province as elephant habitat. However, no data on the number of individuals is included.

A national plan to save elephants

Vietnam is currently crafting a national action plan on elephant conservation to protect the country’s remaining wild herds. This program will run from 2023 to 2032, and will set a vision to 2050.

Mai Nguyễn, wildlife program manager at Humane Society International (HSI), an animal welfare and conservation NGO, says that national agencies, along with authorities from those provinces where wild elephants cling on, have been meeting with conservation groups in “consultation workshops” and “technical meetings” to develop the action plan.

A sculpture of an Asian elephant herd made of snares and other wildlife traps in Vietnam’s Pù Mát National Park, which is estimated to be home to fewer than 20 wild elephants.

HSI is leading on writing a draft plan, while also providing technical support and encouraging authorities to find “appropriate interventions” to mitigate conflict between elephants and local communities, Mai says. The plan must be signed by Vietnam’s prime minister or the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development before it comes into effect.

But reducing human-elephant conflict is complex, and more information is needed to inform responses, Mai says. “The conflict is unique and it’s also very complicated. To sort this out is not easy and it takes time… We should keep monitoring and learning about the characteristics of the conflict.”

Retaliation and reconciliation

Some traditional methods used to scare elephants away from crops in Vietnam can be harmful to the animals. While many farmers will bang pots, flash lights, and set off firecrackers, some have also used more violent means.

Locals in Cát Tiên have told conservationists about an incident some four years ago in which they threw a Molotov cocktail at a wild male elephant and lit it on fire in an attempt to drive it away. People in the area later reported the elephant is one of the more aggressive animals now.

An Asian elephant munches vegetation in Yok Don National Park, which is home to Vietnam’s largest wild elephant herd.

Conservationists had initially hoped that “bio-fences” such as bee boxes and chili plants could be used to deter elephants, but these passive interventions have been mainly unsuccessful.

Another potential solution, which some are pushing to be included in the conservation plan, is a countrywide compensation program for property destroyed by elephants. These initiatives are intended to prevent acts of retaliation against the animals, and though some exist on the local level, there is no such countrywide mechanism.

“We hope some compensation to local people can settle down the conflict and hopefully we can protect the elephants,” said Thông Phạm, a research manager with Save Vietnam’s Wildlife.

Phước, a fruit vendor, playing with his three-year-old son at an elephant fountain in Buôn Đôn Square, Đắk Lắk province.

Mai Nguyễn at HSI is working to submit a final draft of the action plan to the government in the hopes of it being signed by the end of this year. “To sort this out is not easy,” she says. “We must represent the elephant voice.”

Training for better responses to human-elephant conflict

In late May 2023, Cao Thị Lý, an elephant expert and retired professor from Tây Nguyên University in Đắk Lắk, led a training course on mitigating human-elephant conflict. At the event, approximately an hour’s drive from Pù Mát National Park, we met with conservationists, rangers, and members of a “community quick-response team” dedicated to mitigating human-wildlife conflict around the park. The training course was arranged by nonprofit Fauna & Flora International (FFI), which runs conservation efforts in Pù Mát and backs the response team.

“Out of 13 Asian nations [with extant wild elephant populations], Vietnam is the one with the fewest wild elephants left,” says Lý. “We have to change to help the elephants.”

Cao Thị Lý, a retired professor from Tây Nguyên University in Đắk Lắk and author of a book on human-elephant conflict in Vietnam, leads a training course on the topic with conservationists, rangers and researchers.

Habitat destruction has exacerbated human-elephant conflict, says Đặng Đình Lâm, a member of the quick-response team.

Rubber plantations and slash-and-burn farming near Pù Mát National Park have shrunk elephant habitat and thus availability of elephant food, Lâm says.

“The conflict has two sides. Elephants lack habitat, and because they destroy crops and property, people dislike them,” Lâm says. “I hope that the government and people will be more responsible about protecting elephants.”

Engineers of the forest

“When I was young, I could see elephants everywhere,” says Quỳnh Phạm, driving an e-cart into the 115,000-hectare Yok Don National Park in Vietnam’s verdant Central Highlands, which is home to the country’s largest wild elephant population. Quỳnh is the ethical elephant tourism manager for Animals Asia, a nonprofit working in Vietnam and China to improve the welfare of captive wildlife.

In December 2021, Animals Asia signed a memorandum of understanding with the province of Đắk Lắk (where Yok Don is located) to end elephant rides completely by 2026 and transition to ethical elephant tourism. As of 2022, there were 37 domesticated or captive elephants in Đắk Lắk province, and between 28 and 60 in the wild.

Ten animals previously used for elephant rides now live in Yok Don, under the care of Animals Asia. The elephants roam freely in the park during the day, with mahouts traveling with them to ensure their safety; they are kept on long chains in the park overnight. Visiting tourists can watch the animals grazing, bathing, and mud wallowing from a safe distance.

While far from the hundreds of Quỳnh’s youth, the 10 retired elephants can now play their key natural role in the forest ecosystem.

Trampling through the forest, two females graze on bamboo and plough through thick vegetation — a long way from the elephant rides of their past. Wild Asian elephants do this for 18 hours a day, dispersing seeds and creating new forest trails for smaller species as they go. As elephant populations have plummeted across Asia, this important role as an “engineer” has been left unfilled.

An Asian elephant, rescued by Animals Asia, feeds in Vietnam’s Yok Don National Park. Elephants can eat up to 150 kilograms of vegetation per day.

Prasop Tipprasert, who has worked in elephant conservation for more than 30 years in Southeast Asia, explains that the presence of elephants in the wild indicates a healthy, biodiverse landscape.

“If we cannot keep elephants from extinction, we lose the potential of keeping our forests healthy,” says Prasop, who now works for the Laos-based eco-tourism agency MandaLao Elephant Conservation.

Cao Thị Lý, an expert in human-elephant conflict, points out a sign warning of frequent wild elephant sightings in Vietnam’s Pù Mát National Park.

Lý, the retired professor, says that for elephants to maintain their role as ecosystem engineers in Vietnam’s forests, the country’s government must actively restore and reconnect their habitat to give different populations opportunities to interact and interbreed.

While elephants could once travel through suitable habitat from northern to southern Vietnam, forests have become increasingly fragmented, with conflict with humans becoming “systematic” as forests shrink, she says.

“Due to the conflict between humans and elephants over the small leftover shared resources, bad outcomes arise,” she notes. “The confrontation between humans and elephants has intensified.”

An approximately 40-year-old Asian elephant rescued by Animals Asia treads through Vietnam’s Yok Don National Park

Elephants on the brink in neighboring countries

The decline of elephants in Vietnam is mirrored in neighboring nations. The wild Asian elephant populations of both Laos and Cambodia are estimated to number less than a thousand. In China, barely 300 wild elephants are believed to survive, with their once enormous range now limited to a pocket of the south-western province of Yunnan.

Conflict over resources is a major concern for China’s remaining wild herds. In 2021, 14 elephants usually resident in a nature reserve in Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna region began to move northwards. On their months-long journey, the elephants destroyed property, creating a challenge for authorities in finding a balance between elephant conservation and protecting citizens’ dwellings and livelihoods. According to local authorities, 150,000 people were evacuated from the elephants’ path to avoid potentially dangerous incidents, and the government paid out a total of US$770,000 in property damages.

Farmland surrounds Pù Mát National Park, one of the few locations where wild elephants cling on in Vietnam.

Sitting just steps from where Pù Mát’s solo female elephant is often spotted, Cao Thị Lý underlines how important habitat protection is if there is to be any chance of saving the last elephants of Vietnam.

“Vietnam is the weakest in everything in elephant conservation,” she says. “We have the chance to help the elephants to keep growing their population in the future, but we need to rebuild forests.”

This story was originally produced by China Dialogue in collaboration with Southeast Asia Globe with additional reporting by Nguyễn Háo Thanh Thảo. It has been republished with permission from China Dialogue.

A Glimpse Into the Epic Underground Shows of Vietnam Pro Wrestling

2026-01-12T10:00:00+07:00

Back in 2018, Saigon witnessed the birth of Vietnam Pro Wrestling (VPW), the first and only Pro Wrestlers in the whole of Vietnam, and a lot has changed since then.

Trần Phong jumps on his former best friend-turned-sworn-ennemy, Damien Wolfe.

What started as a teenage dream has become a full-grown Pro Wrestling promotion with nothing to envy of its Southeast Asian counterparts. Judo mats have now given way to a proper ring that they managed to afford, thanks to a crowdfunding campaign organized by Vietnamese-American Pro Wrestler Viva Van, who used her popularity to support them in their quest to create a Vietnamese Pro Wrestling scene from scratch.

Mayhem often happens outside of the ring, for the pleasure of the front row seaters.

The roster has also become more diverse too, with three generations of wrestlers, from old school founders Rocky Huỳnh (The Awesome Taurus), Sid N’guyen (The Prince of Wrestling) and An D (The National Treasure) to the first Westerner in the team the Evil British Horror and newcomers Billy & Bobby (The Classic Night) with their slapstick.

The British Horror accidentally unleashes his secret weapon on his partner Black Orchid.

The crowd has grown too, with around 300 new and old fans of all ages gathering at each show, bringing the intensity to another level with their cheering and booing. Some wrestlers are even known to occasionally use the front-row audience members as props to knock out their opponents.

The crowd can get pretty rowdy and sometimes the fans look even cooler than the wrestlers.

Vietnam Pro Wrestling can sometimes feel like the Wild West — or is it East? To keep the shows rich and entertaining, VPW makes sure to always have plenty of surprises, with special guests and wrestlers from other new promotions coming to defy them.

For one night, VPW and Rooster Beers held a show at BLOQ in District 2.

The growth of VPW can also be measured by the international attention they are getting: some of the wrestlers have been invited to fight abroad (Singapore, Thailand, etc.); they received a 4-page feature in PWI (Pro Wrestling Illustrated) — something no other Southeast Asian promotion has accomplished — and they were invited onto the podcast of one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, the American Canadian Chris Jericho.

The Filipina wrestler Crystal sits on top of Singapore star Alexis Lee at VPW Burning Dawn.

The shows are great as standalone episodes, but there is much fun in following the character's efforts and evolution, in thrilling yet sometimes heartbreaking turns of events, across events. It's well worth trading some Netflix time.

Interested people can see the VPW in action, this Saturday at Vietnam Pro Wrestling: Brawl Hallows Eve and check out more photos below:

The British Horror sets foot on Rykioh’s flat, beaten-up body while Black Orchid cheers.

A fan whispers words of support to a tired Rocky Huỳnh, the founder of VPW.

Rykioh crashes cans of beer on his way to smash them on The British Horror’s face.

A packed house at VAIB Studio (D7) looks on while An D grabs the high-flying Sid Nguyen.

Singaporean Jack Chong uses his signature pig face move on Billy (left) while Once long-haired Khoa Trương loses a HAIR VS HAIR match against Kira, who gets to scalp him on stage (right).

The crowd gathers outside VAIB Studio during the intermission .

Although pro wrestling comes from the west, the Vietnamese promotion never forgets where they’re from and they honor traditions.

Rykioh explains one thing or two about life to one half of the Venomshank twins.

An D, aka The National Treasure, finds it hard to swallow his defeat (left) while the one and only Xavier Patricks (aka X-Pat) always brings his A-game as the charismatic and emotional show presenter (right).

A third generation wrestler, ARES is the powerhouse beast to be reckoned with.

The human beast ARES triumphs over Rocky, thus winning the Heart of Darkness cup.

Rocky catches one half of Venomshank mid-air in what promises to be a painful landing.

This article was originally published in 2023.

HCMC Approves VinSpeed, VinGroup's Railway Arm, to Build Metro Line to Cần Giờ

2026-01-08T10:00:00+07:00

A roughly 50-kilometer-long urban railway route will run from September 23 Park in downtown Saigon to VinGroup's Green Paradise project in Cần Giờ, beginning in 2028 at an estimated cost of VND102.43 trillion (nearly US$3.9 billion).

Last month, authorities approved VinSpeed, the infrastructure subsidiary of VinGroup, to develop the line, which will terminate at the business conglomerate's gargantuan 2,870-hectare coastal urban and tourism development located amidst the UNESCO mangrove biosphere reserve. The line is expected to alleviate traveler congestion to an area currently only accessible by ferry.

Phase 1 of the project will include operational stations at September 23 Park in Bến Thành and a site adjacent to the VinGroup project. The second phase will add stations in Tân Thuận, Tân Mỹ, Nhà Bè, and Bình Khánh. Site clearance is set to begin by the end of the year; it's estimated that the metro project will require about 328.26 hectares of land.

The VND12.78 trillion land clearance costs will be covered by the state, while VinGroup will contribute over VND15.36 trillion in equity capital, and the remaining VND87.06 trillion coming from credit institutions and other permitted sources, as well as potentially state-approved loans and government guarantees.

Traveling at 350 kilometers per hour, the ride will take passengers less than 20 minutes, with trains coming every 20 minutes between 6am and 11pm during the first phase of operation. Six carriages, consisting of six cars each, will operate on the fully-electrified double-track railway with a 1,435 mm gauge. The second phase, which has yet to receive a specific timeframe, will decrease the wait and travel times.

A rendering of the Vinhomes Green Paradise project. Image via Saigon Times.

The Vinhomes Green Paradise project broke ground in early 2025 on 1,357 hectares of reclaimed land and 906 hectares of leveled terrain. Designed to house nearly 230,000 people and attract millions of tourists per year, the US$9.3 billion project is envisaged in different use zones. Points of VinGroup pride include an international convention center, a hospital, a marina, a golf course, and an oceanfront square alongside housing and hotels. It is expected to be fully complete in the next 10 years.

Environmental experts have expressed concerns regarding the negative impacts of development in the mangrove ecosystem, which is essential for preventing coastal erosion, mitigating storms and flooding, and providing a home for valuable flora and fauna. Meanwhile, building on reclaimed ocean requires sand dredged from other locations, which usher in other environmental concerns.

Drone footage of on-going development in Cần Giờ. Photos by Ngoc Hien via Tuổi Trẻ.

In addition to the railway, a 7.4-kilometer-long bridge from Nhà Bè to Cần Giờ is fully complete with VinGroup recently expressing interest in a 14-kilometer bridge and tunnel from Cần Giờ to Vũng Tàu. Meanwhile, VinSpeed has dropped out of consideration to develop the highspeed North-South Railway.

Diving (Literally) Into Hoàng Hoa Thám's Mountains of Secondhand Clothes

2025-12-30T15:00:00+07:00

In a hẻm, clothing sprawled out on platforms lined with the plastic sacks the clothing came in, overspilling onto the tarmac road. This was just a glimpse of the thrifting scene in Vietnam.

Since the late 1980s, the secondhand apparel industry has been present and thriving in Vietnam, but what might have once been thought of as inferior or a result of poverty has now been “rebranded” to being trendy, environmentally conscious, and stylish. It is no longer “you thrift! (derogatory),” but “oh my gosh, you thrift! (so cool).”

Often called “đồ SIDA,” secondhand clothing in Vietnam traces back to postwar times, specifically to an aid program from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) that provided Vietnam with large packages of lightly used clothing from across Europe. This acronym was unfortunately shared with SIDA (Syndrome d'immunodéficience acquise), the French term for AIDS, which was widely used across Vietnam; so for years, there was a stigma associated with wearing secondhand items in Vietnamese culture.

The thrifting landscape has since evolved: the aid program ran its course, yet the demand for secondhand deals is still alive and well, so markets focusing on secondhand items now get their packages from wholesale warehouses from the US, Japan, Korea, China, Australia, and surrounding Southeast Asian countries. Globally, the secondhand apparel market will reach US$350 billion by 2028, up from US$197 billion in 2023 and US$141 billion in 2021, growing three-fold faster than the overall global apparel market.

On a cloudy Saturday morning, I decided to blow off some steam by embarking on a thrift-athon, and I would challenge myself this time, going for the casual vibes of Hoàng Hoa Thám Market instead of neatly arranged thrift stores over the city. Long reigning as one of the best thrifting destinations in the city, Hoàng Hoa Thám Market is located at 19 Hoàng Hoa Thám Street in Saigon's Tân Bình District. Its layout was not intuitive. Arriving at the scene, I would have been lost, had I not done prior research.

Mainly occupying the market were new merchandise, bootleg designer items, food, and flowers — characteristic of Saigon markets. With plain names like “Siêu Thị Đồ Si” or not named at all, the clothing-focused thrift stores I was interested in were scattered throughout the side of the road opposite to the market’s gate, and in a hẻm cutting horizontally behind the market. Used footwear, fabrics, undergarments, jewelry, and accessories vendors on that loosely L-shaped path might also intrigue. Go on weekends and Mondays for merchandise at a higher price for an overall better quality, or Thursdays and Fridays for lower-priced steals with less of a quality guarantee.

The nonchalantly displayed bulk and layout of clothing is reminiscent of Goodwill Outlet Stores, colloquially known as Goodwill Bins, an initiative more occupied with volume than quality from Goodwill, the famous American nonprofit. A notable difference between the two thrift destinations, though, lies in sourcing: all Goodwill items on sale are donations from individuals, and all Hoàng Hoa Thám items are from overseas packages.

Having sufficiently hyped myself up for the ordeal, I dove right into one of the unnamed stores. Leaving my shoes out front, as is customary, I climbed and waded through the endless array of clothing before settling atop a satisfactory mound. In the organized chaos, I made out that the mounds were separated into items: denim, tank tops, blouses, knits, crochets, dresses, and so on and so forth. Everywhere, fellow shoppers sat criss-cross applesauce, making themselves so comfortable that it was hard to tell them apart from shopkeepers. It was also hard not to think of past shoppers who had sat or stepped on the pieces of clothing I was now so happily sifting through. Yet despite the chaotic sensory experience, I was able to find beautiful, good quality Y2K-adjacent tank tops, office-siren-core button-ups, and vintage watches. Intricately patterned dresses three sizes too big for me were calling my name, begging to be DIY-ed and altered anew. Be sure to bring a mask in preparation for lint, dust, and sand.

Across from the store I was haunting was another row of promising shopfronts. There seemed to be a well-functioning, symbiotic collaboration between all stores in the narrow hẻm, as they allowed me to criss-cross shops between their offerings. Notably, I was not scolded or given a stare-down for taking a look at something and not getting it.

Suddenly, rain began to pour in true Saigon fashion: a heavy, consistent shower came after no build-up, and displayed no signs of decline. I was stuck, accompanied by fellow thrifters from different walks of life. To my right was a family of four, running amok, searching for new seasonal outfits. They looked and pondered based on need, searching for a windbreaker for the dad as his last one had ceased to be usable, and jeans for the children as they had grown out of their previous pairs. To my left, a girl looking to be in her twenties, wearing a spaghetti strap dress over baggy capri pants, went through a gargantuan mound with precision and decisiveness that betrayed her pro status. With a mind for what was on trend, her eyes and hands worked mechanically, scanning for satisfactory colors, shapes, and fabrics. She then pulled with slick force and threw her spoils into an already-stuffed basket. She would probably go on to resell these in her quaint vintage store elsewhere in town or on online platforms such as Instagram, Ebay, Poshmark, or Depop. Such behavior reflected the recent spike in the thrifted apparel resale industry. As the rain stormed on, I started worrying for my Adidas Gazelles that I had taken off, presumably soaked by now. Rookie mistake. The experienced shoppers were decked out in plastic flip-flops and slippers.

Many people derive a real “high” from thrifting. The wicked satisfaction, pride, and obsession with getting a better steal than the next person contributes to the practice being as much a hobby as a necessity. Add this adrenaline rush to the poor state of the economy and the rising awareness of the fashion industry’s negative impact on the environment, and you get the popularization of thrifting. However, amped by social media, thrifting has in recent years misguidedly become another tool to satiate insanely rapid trend cycles that are just as harmful to the environment as retail.

Was it right for me to indulge in the fashion industry, a truly gnarly beast, simply to “blow off steam?” Approximately half of Goodwill donations not up to their standards of salability end up in charity programs, get sent to US landfills, or get sold to wholesale warehouses. Hoàng Hoa Thám gets their stock from such warehouses. The market restocks almost every single week. With hundreds of kilograms of clothing on display, it's hard to imagine that a store could sell all of it in one week.

Demand begets supply, such is one of the most fundamental lessons of any business. Today I demanded an activity for entertainment, a remedy to life’s stressors, and a method of keeping on trend and establishing myself as a stylish individual. The backends of the fashion industry answered. And I am happy with my finds as I now soak them in a detergent bath, not wanting to risk washing them with my other clothes yet. And I am deleting all my to-buy lists, knowing that I will not be purchasing another piece of clothing, retail or thrift, until something in my closet breaks. As a consumer, the only way to halt consumption is to choose carefully, wear carefully, line dry as opposed to machine dry, repair, recycle, be mindful of how you dispose of clothing and the options you have, and ask yourself what a new item will be for.