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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Since its first class proudly entered the world in 2014, British Vietnamese International School Ho Chi Minh City (BVIS HCMC) has provided a launchpad for more than 530 graduates to thrive in a diverse, interconnected world. By combining the rigor of the National Curriculum of England with a deep appreciation for Vietnamese culture, language, and values, BVIS equips students to succeed globally while remaining connected to their identity.

BVIS's first graduating class in 2014

To truly understand how BVIS fosters confidence, adaptability, and cultural grounding, one must look beyond impressive test scores and university placements. Hearing alumni explain their journeys reveals the type of driven, accomplished, and talented young adults who are nurtured at BVIS.

Culture Shaped by Values

Nguyễn Tấn Phát poses with coworkers at the bespoke tailor shop where he now works.

“Culture isn’t bound by nationality — it’s shaped by values. BVIS taught me integrity, perseverance, and respect, and carrying these forward has allowed me to integrate naturally wherever I go,” shares Nguyễn Tấn Phát, a student who entered Year 9 during BVIS’s inaugural year. The school’s academic rigor prepared him to excel at university abroad, followed by a Master’s degree and career opportunities in Dubai, Vietnam, and now Australia. BVIS’s reinforcement of cultural roots empowers him to make meaningful connections in these global settings.

Phát currently works in Australia as a fitter and marketing associate for a bespoke tailor, where he interfaces with clients and attends to their well-being with skills he cultivated at BVIS. “At BVIS, I helped organise events like Live Lunch and school dances through the Student Council, which sparked my interest in creating experiences for people. When my Maths teacher suggested hospitality, I researched the field and was drawn to its opportunities and the wide range of skills it develops,” he noted.

Phát (left) studying with his classmates at BVIS HCMC.

BVIS’s curriculum, which includes the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) and A-Levels, and extracurricular activities help students strengthen transferable skills, including leadership, communication, and accountability, which Phát relies on in his current role. When asked how his Vietnamese identity influences the way he works and connects with people from diverse backgrounds, he explained: “I see it as open-minded, approachable, and deeply rooted in a culture known for friendliness, great cuisine, and beautiful scenery. There is so much to be proud of. For example, I often bring up Vietnamese food or landscapes when speaking with clients and friends — it’s a natural way to break the ice and connect.”

Phát (top right) while studying abroad.

Confidence to Step into New Horizons

Yến Đặng graduated from American University in Washington DC.

BVIS’s holistic approach to academic excellence involves the development of personal skills, including confidence, resiliency, and global adaptability. Yến Đặng, a class of 2018 graduate, exemplifies the personal growth students experience at the school. She explained: “From the very first day, my classmates were warm and supportive, which helped me settle in quickly and focus on my studies. Their encouragement also gave me the confidence to step out of my comfort zone and try new things – from joining the girls’ basketball team to taking part in school performances, house sports events, and various clubs.”

Yến brought this determination and self-assuredness to new roles and opportunities during her time at American University in Washington, DC. While doing so, her deep connection with her Vietnamese heritage was a source of pride and strength. She co-founded the school’s first Vietnamese Student Association and served as its Vice President. In this capacity, she connected communities within and outside the school, including some in Vietnam.

Yến representing Sanaky in Vietnam.

After graduating from university, Yến returned to Vietnam to work as a Brand Manager at Sanaky. In this position, she relies on many of the skills and traits that BVIS emphasizes. “The international environment and the proactive, open mindset that BVIS instilled in me helped me become more adaptable and confident when studying and working with peers from different cultural backgrounds. At the same time, I became more agile, creative, and proactive in problem-solving, always maintaining an “outside-the-box” mindset to find new directions,” she explained.

Building a Sense of Individual Belonging

Afer graduating BVIS, Nhật Minh moved to New York City.

While BVIS graduates have the skills and experiences to adapt to any international setting, the goal isn’t merely for them to fit in. Rather, by staying true to who they are as people, thanks to the school’s embrace of the Vietnamese sense of family, respect, and community, they stand out as singular individuals. Nhật Minh, a BVIS Ho Chi Minh City alumna (Class of 2023), currently studying Business at New York University (NYU) with a scholarship worth nearly 4.5 billion VND, said: “BVIS helped me understand that cultural roots are the key to connection and creating a unique identity in a diverse world.”

BVIS’s emphasis on cultural values and knowledge provided Minh with a sense of self and a source of strength when adapting to life in New York amongst many other high achievers. She had developed a deep respect and familiarity with Vietnamese language and culture through BVIS’s curriculum and events, including Tết and the Mid-Autumn Festival. This allowed her to connect with other students via NYU’s Vietnamese Student Association, organizing events like the Tiến Lên card tournament and a Vietnamese Night Market to promote Vietnamese values internationally, build bonds with peers, and maintain her own sense of self.

As part of a diverse student body, Minh introduces Vietnamese culture and values to her peers.

At BVIS, she was the nation’s top scorer in IGCSE History and received the “Cambridge Outstanding Achievement Award.” Meanwhile, she leveraged A Level credits in Mathematics, Psychology, Business, and Biology to shorten her studies by 1.5 semesters at NYU, saving over 1.6 billion VND in tuition. But just as important, she developed a firm understanding of who she is and the special impact she can have on the world because she never lost a sense of belonging with where she is from.

The Holistic Approach Unites One Child, One Curriculum, One World

While Phát, Yến, and Minh’s stories are remarkable, they are not unique amongst BVIS graduates. Rather, they exemplify how the school’s strong academic foundation, alongside an emphasis on maintaining a connection to Vietnamese heritage, combine to empower personal and professional success in global contexts.

The modern, world-class facilities at BVIS prepare students for future learning experiences.

Some BVIS students will follow in Phát, Yến, and Minh’s footsteps and study abroad after graduation, while others remain in Vietnam. Some will embark on international careers while others will set their focus domestically. But they will all share pride in their Vietnamese heritage and the tools to excel in whatever they put their mind and passions towards.

BVIS fosters exciting explorations.

[Top image: Kevin Lương Nghị, BVIS Class of 2023, won the Best Presentation Award with his team at the PVH Corp Ground Floor Challenge Competition 2024 in the US]

“The shimmering pine trees stand in silence / Branches and leaves seem to have sunk silently. / How can one distinguish between reality and fantasy!”

Photo by Alberto Prieto.

As these Hàn Mặc Tử lines testify to, Đà Lạt’s pine trees engender acute emotions. The Bình Định poet was far from the only writer to witness the trees and experience a wellspring of feeling that transcends the landscape and its foliage. For example, in the poem ‘In the Morning, Winter in Đà Lạt’ (Đà Lạt chớm đông), Yên Sơn writes: “I silently watched the vast pine forest / The green hills / The golden silk is the shimmering color of sunlight. / Spread very lightly like a shoulder around all things. / Suddenly I miss the distant old days.”

Photo by Alberto Prieto.

The trees most often appear in works that convey sincere misery, loneliness, and lost love. Long Vương, for example, writes: “The city is sad and cold, filled with pain. / The pine trees rustle like a web of sorrow / Crying for someone whose soul is broken and faded.” Similarly, Hồng Liễu uses them as companion images that evoke the despair of isolation: “Alone in the deserted pine forest / I am absent-minded, alone.” Meanwhile, they bring an uneasy nostalgia to Trần Tuấn Anh: “The pine trees rustle like a love song / Missing the days... waiting and longing.”

Photo by Jimmy Art Deriver.

Striking a slightly different tonal register, Ái Nhân ends his Đà Lạt poem ‘Drunk Afternoon’ (Chiều say), with the lines “The pine trees sing in the wind / Let your soul crave... get drunk!” suggesting an emotional totality in the city so complete that reckless embrace of dissociation is the only reasonable response. Conversely, when describing how the city has degraded to a pathetic state, Phan Nhiên Hạo includes them in a metaphor of a helpless insect: “I saw a beetle trying to flip itself over its legs / tiny pines waving at the sky.”

Photo by Jimmy Art Devier.

Why do so many poems and songs focus on Đà Lạt’s pine trees? I think there is more to it than simply Đà Lạt, often called The City of a Thousand Pine Trees, contains a lot of them. I believe that pine trees are perfectly suited to exemplify and enhance Đà Lạt’s aesthetics and its reputation in the collective consciousness. The city’s unique French origins and temperate climate make it a city without parallel in the country, while the pine trees, found in very few other places in Vietnam, feel similarly unique. Such novelty invites extensive representation.

You don’t have to be a poet to notice the pine trees, of course. Most everyone who arrives in Đà Lạt immediately focuses on them: the deep brown trunks cloaked in a glossy splay of needles lining roads and covering distant hills that fill the crisp air with a fresh, resinous aroma. And it's obvious how the cold climate that compels couples to huddle closely in quaint cafes and the vast stretches of grass along lakes or secluded forests, result in the city’s relationship with romance.

Photo by Jimmy Art Deriver.

But why the poems’ sadness? The emptiness and tranquility that fosters intimacy in the mountain city also allow for rumination and the assessment of emotional wounds and difficult memories. Perhaps the frequently tragic nature of love simply lends itself to bittersweet associations amongst those who visit the city on a romantic getaway. And of course, one feels most lonely when surrounded by couples, as Duy Sơn alludes to: “Sunset under the old pine tree / Watching leaves fall and flowers fade. / Looking at people, people turn their faces away / Watching the clouds also quickly pass by! Before and after, just me alone.” No other city in Vietnam contains this precise accumulation of natural imagery, history, human development, and individual circumstance. We feel this to be true, but as is often the case, the poets are best suited to articulate it, so we can be sure of our feelings.

Colonial French postcards of Đà Lạt. Photos via Flickr user manhhai.

Since its colonial founding, Đà Lạt has been discussed as a getaway that feels more akin to France than Vietnam, as understood by a 1908 account retold in the book Imperial Heights: Dalat and the Making and Undoing of French Indochina: “After the suffocating climb through the forests of fevers and death, the air becomes lighter, we find a pine-covered mountainous region. It is as if one were inhaling France itself.” Similarly, early promotional material and marketing texts, in both foreign languages and Vietnamese, have connected the city to romantic notions while myths and stories reinforcing an undercurrent of sorrow, which are then perpetuated in art. Most significant is the tale of đồi thông hai mộ. It’s said that a young couple was denied each other because they came from different classes. So forlorn by his parents’ refusal to allow their marriage, the young man requested to be transferred to the frontlines of war, where he died. Upon hearing the news, the young woman committed suicide in Than Thở Lake. A grove of pine trees fittingly rises above the two graves today.

Đà Lạt’s hills hold living fossils

Alongside singers and poets, the scientists have much to offer when it comes to our appreciation of Đà Lạt’s pine trees. To the untrained eye, Đà Lạt’s pines look no different than those seen in western Christmas movies or snowy epics from Japan. However, Đà Lạt’s species are quite special.

Situated at 1,500 meters of elevation at the southern end of the Annamite Range, Đà Lạt is part of the greater Langbiang biosphere. This cool climate allows for a variety of pine trees, including the most widely distributed Khasi or Benguet pine and some Sumatran pine. Amongst them, however, are two rarer species: the Vietnamese white pine, or thông năm lá (Pinus dalatensis) and the Krempfii pine, or thông lá dẹt (Pinus krempfii), found in very few places outside of Đà Lạt and its immediate surroundings. Owing to this rarity, they have both eluded significant scientific research until recently.

Pinus dalatensis. 3D rendering via Turbosquid.

The Đà Lạt pine resembles something the Platonic idea of a pine tree. Growing to 40 meters, it begins as a conical and domed tree with a reddish brown trunk and the conventionally pointy needles that one commonly associates with pine trees. To the average person, they look like the types of trees that fill fancy hotel lobbies in Saigon and Hanoi every holiday season, except their branches do not begin at the base of the tree as in spruce and fir pines.

The Krempfii pine is more unusual. Early paleobotanists had recorded pine fossils with large, flat needles — why they are called thông lá dẹt in Vietnamse — that they surmised were adapted for tropical climates millions of years ago. They weren’t known to still exist until French botanist M. Krempf described them in 1921 from a specimen growing in Nha Trang, where they can no longer be found. The discovery puts them in the same category of living fossils as the illustrious coelacanth fish.

Krempfii pine as first identified by M. Krempf via Harvard's Arnold Arboretum.

While few Krempfii Pines are being grown outside of Vietnam, some scientific work on them has resulted in significant knowledge about the evolution of pine trees. A type of conifer, pine trees are found almost exclusively in the northern hemisphere and are typically absent from tropical forests. While some conifers are abundant in the southern hemisphere, pines have been handicapped because their relatively inefficient xylem, low photosynthetic rates, and single-vein leaves are also ill-suited to compete in the crowded forest with shade covering the ground level where seeds sprout. Krempfii is different.

Photo of Krempfii Pines via iNaturalist.

Growing to a staggering 35 to 55 meters, Krempfii Pines rise above the canopy at elevations between 1,200 and 2,000 meters. Instantly recognizable, they do not have cone shapes, but rather flat, broad splays of branches that call to mind meticulously manicured bonsai trees. They reach such heights because of evolutionary adaptations that support their growth when they are very small. Their long, flattened, blade-like leaves function optimally in the low-light conditions of crowded tropical forest floors. Meanwhile, alterations to the physiology impact the hydraulic efficiency of their wood and leaves. These unique deviations from typical pine structures had baffled scientists and challenged their tidy classification systems, with genetic testing finally settling the debate as to if they are in fact pine trees. Their ability to survive in low-altitude rainforests provides valuable insight into the global dispersal of pine trees and suggests that in the course of millions of years, perhaps they could finally conquer the southern hemisphere, after all.

Krempfii pine's unique needle structure alongside seed cones. Photo via Harvard's Arnold Arboretum.

A pine tree growing in your heart

The conservation state of Krempfii Pines and Vietnamese white pines is not as dire as you might come to expect from investigations into the nation’s lesser-known flora and fauna, but it still yields depressing conclusions. Conceived as a colonial retreat, Đà Lạt’s forests were not harvested extensively for industry during the early colonial period. And these two pine species are too rare to have acquired more than niche ornamental value. Sadly, this cannot be said of the animals that lived amongst them. Tigers, panthers, elephants, jaguar, bear and deer all attracted French trophy hunters and members of the Vietnamese elite, including Emperor Bảo Đại, who transformed the pine forests into an amusement park of animal butchery. By the 1920s, the reckless bloodlust had decimated animal populations, and the colonial administration sought a way to balance the importance of hunting to the city’s economy with nature’s importance to tourism and aesthetics. Inspired by America’s emerging national park system, they established 16 Indochinese parks, including a “parc de refuge” that spanned the entire Langbiang Plateau.

Photo by Jimmy Art Devier.

These French conservation efforts served as a precursor to the Bidoup Núi Bà National Park, which was established by the Vietnamese government in 2004. But before its establishment, pine trees were recklessly harvested for paper production beginning in the 1930s. More responsible practices gradually emerged, including replanting efforts and increased preservation in the 1990s and 2000s, with acknowledgement of the importance of retaining the forests for the city’s tourism industry, the healthy lifestyles of residents, and to combat natural disasters.

Despite the collective understanding that Đà Lạt’s forests are worth more as natural settings than raw materials, they are at risk. Rapid development in the city itself involves the removal of trees, while the city’s agricultural fame is turning forests into endless expanses of greenhouses that are heating up the micro-climate. The removal of trees often involves illegal maneuvers. In 2022, criminals carried out the city’s largest deforestation plot. Meanwhile, individuals drill into the trees to extract sap while killing the trees, and elsewhere, people intentionally poison them so they die, and the once-protected land can then be designated as acceptable for farming.

Đà Lạt's hills are increasingly becoming covered by greenhouses. Photo by Thịnh Doãn.

If Đà Lạt’s pine trees continue to disappear, the city will become warmer and more dangerous, with deadly landslides and erosion incidents increasing. Animals, including muntjac, Owston's civets, sun bears, Annamite striped rabbits, Vietnamese greenfinches, and collared laughingthrush, will all lose their homes. Scientists may never be able to fully understand how and where pine trees evolved and what future conditions they might be suitable for. And, perhaps least of all, our poets will lose their inspiration. Bùi Chí Vinh wrote: “My heart grew a pine forest when I visited Đà Lạt.” What will our hearts grow if we visit and there are no pine trees to witness, no poets to write about them?

Photo by Alberto Prieto.

Tourists will soon lose one of their favorite “crossing Saigon streets is so crazy!” filming locations when two new pedestrian bridges connecting to Bạch Đằng Wharf are completed. 

The locations of the two planned pedestrian bridges. Graphic by Tâm Thảo and Minh Nga via VNExpress.

Late last week, city authorities approved the proposal for a walking bridge spanning Tôn Đức Thắng from Nguyễn Huệ in front of the Majestic Saigon Hotel and a bridge at Thái Văn Lung Street. April 30 next year is set as the target completion for the pair. 

Current pedestrian crossing situation. Photo via Lao Động.

The need for the bridges is obvious, given the crowds that regularly gather on Nguyễn Huệ for events and routine enjoyment alongside the 2021 Bạch Đằng Wharf upgrades that have helped make it a destination for activities, including fireworks and the recent Reunification Day lightshow. Currently, moving from one to the other involves crossing chaotic lanes of traffic, which is understandably dangerous and intimidating to all but the most experienced Frogger enthusiasts.

Renderings of the bridges from Nguyễn Huệ (left) and Thái Văn Lung (right) via VNExpress. 

More than mere practical pieces of infrastructure, the city intends for the two bridges to be architectural landmarks that beautify the city. Flowing steel arches will typify the bridge from Nguyễn Huệ, while the one from Thái Văn Lung will feature a mesh arch structure with a resonant green color profile. Elevators on both sides of the bridges beside stairs will increase accessibility. To reduce disruption caused by the installation process, pre-fabricated steel structures will be built at factories and transported. 

Rendings of the wharf after the bridges are installed. Image via VNExpress. 

In addition to the bridges, two piers are set to receive enhancements by the upcoming Tết. Specifically, Pier B and Pier C-Ba Son will receive landscaping with blooming flowers filling Pier C. Lighting systems, water irrigation and other facilities will also be added to the area. 

Image of Pier C with flowers via VNExpress. 

The total cost of the work is set at VND80 billion (US$3 million), with VND50 billion allocated for the pedestrian bridges. The funds are available via a public-private partnership on a build–to–transfer basis. By providing the funds, private investors will have permission to install LED screens to display advertisements on the bridges and piers as well as operate beverage kiosks. 

The work coincides with the ongoing efforts to make Saigon's riverfront an attractive spot for residents and tourists. In addition to the wharf refurbishment,  which included landscaping and bathrooms, authorities have recently announced plans for dozens of new parks. Meanwhile, construction of a pedestrian bridge from the wharf across the Saigon River to Thu Thiêm is moving forward, with the first pillar placed this year. That project with an estimated pricetag of more than VND1 trillion (US$38.46 million), is expected to be finished in 2027. 

The European International School Ho Chi Minh City (EIS) has officially been awarded accreditation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), one of the world’s most respected international education authorities.

EIS students will directly benefit from this accreditation when applying to universities around the world because EIS can now issue fully recognised WASC-accredited high school diplomas and transcripts. The current Grade 12 cohort will be the first to graduate under this enhanced academic framework, giving them a clear advantage as they pursue global educational pathways.

What Is WASC and Why Does It Matter?

As Vietnam’s international school sector expands rapidly, families often encounter an overwhelming number of accreditations, authorizations and memberships, each with obscure acronyms. Interpreting and comparing them can be difficult. Within this complex landscape, WASC stands out as a global top standard.

WASC is one of six regional accrediting bodies in the United States, responsible for assuring the quality, integrity, and effectiveness of schools across the U.S., Asia, and the Pacific. Via a rigorous and evidence-based evaluation process, it examines teaching quality, leadership, governance, student outcomes, and community engagement.

For families in Vietnam, this external verification offers meaningful reassurance because a WASC-accredited school has been independently confirmed to deliver a high-quality education that universities worldwide recognise and trust.

Ben Armstrong, Co-Head of School at EIS

“WASC accreditation confirms the standard of excellence we work hard to uphold every day,” says Ben Armstrong, Co-Head of School at EIS. “It provides families with confidence that their children are studying in an internationally benchmarked environment.”

Benefits Begin Immediately for Grade 12 Students

EIS’s 2026 Class will recognize the value of the ASC-accreditation immediately.  Upon graduation this spring, they will receive WASC-accredited transcripts and diplomas. These familiar documents carry significant weight in university admissions, scholarship applications, visa processes for study abroad and school transfers. 

In destinations such as the United States or Canada, where accredited transcripts are often required, WASC provides a crucial advantage. “For our graduating students, the timing could not be better,” Armstrong adds. “Their academic records now come with an added level of global recognition.”

A Recognised Pathway Beyond the IB Diploma

While EIS is deeply committed to the International Baccalaureate (IB) continuum, not all students choose the full IB Diploma Programme (DP). Many instead opt for IB Courses or a personalised combination of subjects aligned with their strengths and goals. WASC accreditation ensures that every EIS learner, regardless of pathway, graduates with a respected and globally recognised credential.

Whether an EIS student selects the IBDP or not, they will receive a high-value high school qualification. In the process of achieving this, they can tailor their learning pathways without compromising university recognition. Such an arrangement can be easier to understand for families and allows for more flexibility. 

“This accreditation ensures that every student has a viable pathway to success,” Armstrong says. “It protects their future opportunities while giving us the flexibility to tailor programmes to individual needs.”

Long-Term Stability: Accredited Through 2029

WASC has aligned its accreditation cycle with the Council of International Schools (CIS), of which EIS is already an accredited member. As a result, EIS is now accredited through 2029, after which the school will continue on the five-year joint CIS/WASC cycle. 

Having accreditation through 2029 and then in five-year increments thereafter ensures that the school is continually reviewed and validated. This monitoring ensures teaching quality, leadership, governance, student outcomes, and community engagement remain stellar. Because the accreditation integrates the school with institutions around the world, it further keeps EIS aligned with global standards of excellence. 

The Bottom Line

“This is more than a certificate on the wall,” Armstrong emphasises. “It is a powerful affirmation of the work our community does every day and a promise to families that EIS will prepare their children for a successful future anywhere in the world.”

Indeed, prospective families can have clarity in Saigon’s competitive international school landscape about what benefits their child will receive. They can be confident their child will receive a globally recognised diploma, verified academic integrity, strong university outcomes, and multiple pathways to success thanks to an internationally approved standard of quality. 

The WASC accreditation is a school-wide award. It reflects years of commitment from EIS teachers, leaders, students, and families. It recognises the culture, values, and collaboration that define the school. As EIS looks ahead, the accreditation will continue to strengthen university pathways, support personalised learning journeys, and reinforce the school’s long-standing commitment to academic excellence.

Interested families can learn more about this commitment to excellence, forward-looking approach to holistic education, and scholarship opportunities by getting in touch with the school and booking a school tour. 

Can a school protect against harsh climate conditions and foster productive academic and social activities in a sustainable and affordable way, while paying attention to the aesthetic values of the region?

When constructed last year, the Nước Ui School project in Nam Trà My District, among Quảng Nam's mountains, was mindful of the heavy storms that lash the terrain every year. Deep eaves surrounding the classrooms shield the walls from rain while large windows open on the forested mountains for fresh air and stunning views during nice weather. Constructed mainly of rammed-earth walls and bamboo roofing, the sloped buildings are simple but sturdy enough to withstand the heavy rainfall and discourage flooding.

Interior of the classroom.

Serving ethnic minority families in the area, the semi-boarding school functions as a place for students to play and socialize between classes. An internal courtyard with an indoor playground is ideal for structured and unstructured activities during the schoolday. A new road connecting the school makes it easier for families in the remote area to reach, thus helping students obtain more consistent education and connection with their peers while serving as a community hub.

Exterior of the classrooms and interior courtyard.

Utilizing locally available natural materials reduced transportation costs while promoting sustainable development in the area without sacrificing durability. The earthen walls support passive climate control, which is enhanced by the large symmetrical windows that allow for natural light and airflow. These simple design features establish a microclimate for the classrooms, minimizing the need for mechanical systems and energy use. 

Video presenting the Nước Ui School via Midas Foundation YouTube page.

The Nước Ui School is the result of a collaboration between Võ Trọng Nghĩa Architects, the Midas Foundation, and Japanese brands TOSTEM and INAX, which supplied the aluminum doors and sanitary equipment, respectively. One of numerous educational spaces funded by the Midas Foundation, it hopes to inspire more humble designs that have large impacts in regions of need of support. 

Have a look at more photos of the school and the blueprints below. Photos by Trieu Chien via Arch Daily:

When running away from life’s many grievances, I often find myself at the convenience store.

As my mental state tilts further out of balance, my visits there grow more frequent. The timing is erratic. Sometimes it starts first thing in the morning, when I’ve barely opened my eyes and I’m already shuffling out to buy soy milk to wake myself up. Other times, it’s in the thick of a blazing noon, when I duck inside for some cup noodles, before going back to battling it out with a looming deadline. But most often, it’s on those late nights when my lackluster career and romance knot my thoughts up in tangles, and I just need somewhere, anywhere, to get away from it all.

Out of all the late-night haunts in Saigon, why, oh why, do I always choose this cold, fluorescent coffer as my refuge?

The truth is, for me, cafés charge way too much for simply sitting, and the crowds make it impossible to slump into yourself without drawing stares. But the convenience store grants permission to unravel in freedom and obscurity. Every so often, when I’m standing in a quiet, empty aisle, it feels like I'm standing in a liminal space, where time seems to stretch. What comfort there is in perusing the instant noodles shelf for 10 minutes, fussing over packets without a glance or murmur from anyone.

Above all, I'm drawn by the reliability. By late evening, the phở broth at vendors has thickened beyond reason, but here, nearly everything arrives prepped, machined, and portioned to a fixed recipe. It is certainly not made with love, but it also rarely disappoints. I always know exactly how the food will turn out, this time just like every other time.

America birthed the blueprint for the modern convenience store, but it was the Japanese who perfected it, fitting their dense urban weave where a single spot can reach crowds on end. It matches the needs of the busy single-person households swelling through the population, many of them bent on practical, speedy eating.

Vietnam caught on in the 2010s. I was in middle school then, and the idea of a clean, air-conditioned store where you could sit and eat rice balls or microwave noodles felt almost futuristic. My friends and I treated it like an event. We’d try unfamiliar drinks in strange packaging, hang out in plastic chairs pretending we were somewhere cooler than we were.

A decade later, they’re everywhere. I can walk a few hundred meters in any direction from my apartment and pass three or four without even trying. And that's not a coincidence. Vietnam is modernizing fast, and in many ways treading the same path Japan once took. Our economy is stronger and our lives more streamlined. But with that comes the bad. In a city like Saigon, people are clocking out later, commuting further, and feeling lonelier than ever.

Which is what makes it so strange that these antiseptic “boxes,” designed to serve a fractured, hurried way of living, have become the places where I most often feel human. I’ve crossed every stratum of society in those murky hours. I’ve shared space with fratty kids fresh from the club, arms full of beer and noise. I’ve stood beside quiet students hunched over textbooks and aging calculators. I’ve seen the same kind of existential blues that I carry myself in strangers.

I've also met so many of the quiet cogs that keep the city running: janitors, delivery drivers, security guards, stopping in for a bottle of water, stealing five minutes of rest before heading back into the night. And the clerks, of course. The ones who work the graveyard shifts. I must thank you for your endless patience with all the Karens the world throws at you, and for staying gracious even when I decline your meal deal for the fifth time. I don’t think I could be that kind if I worked nine-to-five, let alone 11pm to 7am.

In the back of my mind, I fondly call us the midnight runners. I rarely speak to them, and they hardly pay me any attention. In the end, we all carry a private life that the others will never see. Yet sometimes, in that cramped little seating area, our orbits cross. I may not be a habitual listener, but I am willing to sit with the bolero drifting out of the worker’s phone at the next table. When I find myself next to someone ordering the same thing, our eyes meet for a moment, as if we were quietly acknowledging each other’s taste. Once, an older man glanced at the boxed rice in my hand and asked, “Miss, is that any good?” and I heard myself answer, “Why don’t I get one for you?”

Their faces blur now, but those slivers of encounter make the city feel enchanted. Push and shove as life may, humanity will always find a way to link up in the unlikeliest voids.

Tonight, I’ll likely wander out again. And who knows, maybe we’ll claim adjacent stools in some convenience store’s corner?

Each time I stop at a traffic light or visit a street food vendor, I can’t help looking around at nearby utility poles and naked patches of wall that are full of posters advertising moving services.

These A3 or A4 sheets with bolded words in Arial and giant font sizes ensure passersby can immediately read the content at just a glance: moving trucks, room for rent, office moving services, etc. Some show visible signs of wear and tear, others are pasted straight onto old ones and leftover corners — the results of local authorities’ attempts at tidying up public areas, no doubt.

As I marvel at this patchwork of posters, I return to the times when I myself participated in this moving economy, struggling to pack and haul everything to the street and watching fragments of my life being shipped off to a new place. I remember stepping into the lobby of my apartment and seeing piles of someone else’s boxes next to moving trucks.

Saigon is a city of tireless movements that happen constantly every day. After joining local Facebook groups for rental seekers, I discovered a lively community of people leaving, moving in, asking for quotes, and reviewing places. People move out for diverse reasons: the contract expires, they change jobs, family situations change, or even because the landlord has sold the building. Moving becomes an everyday ritual and moving services a crucial life essential, especially to those who tend to overindulge in interior decoration.

I sometimes wonder about the people behind the phone numbers on those posters. Their sharp questions and deep intonations surprise you when you call. On the off chance that it’s not a scam number, the replies would come from an uncle or auntie who’s dedicated their life to befriending moving boxes, random knick-knacks, and numerous trips weaving in and out Saigon’s labyrinthine network of alleys to accommodate the city’s ever-moving population.

Each of those trips carries not just someone’s material possessions, but also their memories, concerns, and even hopes, as they leave behind a home to seek new horizons. Perhaps, the movers were also movees once, picking up their lives elsewhere to settle down in Saigon.

How much of Saigon’s culture and demographic makeup was contributed by immigrants? I’m not sure how to answer such a profound question.

Still, I have witnessed the arrival of generations of people here, ready and hopeful for changes, for chances to develop and make a living. A few of them might stay and become movers to help other newcomers settle down. Old, tattered moving posters will be replaced by new ones, like a physical embodiment of the vicious circle of urban life. It’s precisely that constant rhythm that fuels Saigon’s passionate, unrelenting life force.

Teachers are probably amongst the most influential figures in our lives, apart from our parents. Their roles are even more elevated in societies like Vietnam’s, where the remnants of Confucian principles are still present even today, placing teachers as figures of utmost authority in the classroom.

To honor the work of teachers, Vietnam designates November 20 every year as Ngày nhà giáo Việt Nam (Vietnamese Teacher’s Day), an occasion that dates back to over 60 years ago. Vietnam has been an official member of the Federation Internationale Syndicale de L'Enseignement (FISE), or World Federation of Teachers Unions, since 1953. In 1958, at a conference in Warsaw, FISE established the International Charter of Teachers' Day on November 20, which was observed for the first time in the same year across Northern Vietnam. Following reunification, the date was formalized as Teacher’s Day by the Vietnamese government in 1982.

Education is an important pillar in Vietnamese culture for centuries, as evident by the plethora of idioms and proverbs about the topic, such as “một chữ cũng là thầy, nửa chữ cũng là thầy” — meaning anyone can be your teacher, whether they teach you one or half a word. Saigoneer’s list of honorees for Teachers' Day follows that age-old philosophy: apart from a few well-known educators in history, we’d love to share our appreciation for some lesser-known figures in contemporary times who have taught us things beyond the traditional boundaries of a classroom.

1. Đặng Thai Mai (1902–1984)

Đặng Thai Mai (left) with General Võ Nguyên Giáp (right), his son-in-law. Photo via Nghệ An People's Committee.

Đặng Thai Mai was a defining figure of Vietnam’s education history in the 20th century, both as an educator and a pedagogical reformist. Mai was a teacher, writer, literary critic, and Vietnam’s first education minister and director of the Institute of Literature.

After his father was exiled by the French for joining the Duy Tân Reforms, Mai was raised by his grandmother and studied at the Tonkin Free School. He taught in various institutions as a young teacher, including ones in Huế and Hanoi, and even founded the Thăng Long School with his contemporaries in 1935. A year later, Mai and his friends established an association aimed at promoting Quốc Ngữ, Vietnam’s modern script.

Following the August Revolution, Mai taught at the university level and focused on literary research; some of his works on Chinese and French literature are still foundational readings today for literature students. In 1946, he became the first-ever Minister of Education.

2. Đàm Lê Đức (1932–2022)

Đàm Lê Đức during a talk. Photo via Dân Trí.

If there’s such a thing as a celebrity teacher, Madame Đàm Lê Đức would be a shining example of Saigon’s educator extraordinaire. Đức’s main specialty was mathematics, though generations of students in Saigon mostly know her as the matriarch behind famed tuition center 218 Lý Tự Trọng. 

She was born in 1932 in Quảng Ninh Province into a family with a pedagogical background. At 12, she was accepted into Hanoi’s École Normale D'institutrices Annamites, a female-only teaching school that’s known as Đồng Khánh in Vietnamese. At 25, Đức successfully enrolled in the Mathematics Department of the University of Hanoi in one of the college’s first batches of math majors. Following her graduation, she taught high school- and university-level math in Hải Phòng before relocating to Saigon in 1983 to teach statistics at the University of Economics HCMC.

In 1985, Đức and a group of retired teachers got together to establish a tuition center at the address 218 Lý Tự Trọng Street, and in 2010, Đức and her siblings founded the Đức Trí Secondary and High School. While Đức has spent decades teaching math to students from north to south, over the years she cultivated a reputation as an educator who places equal, if not more, emphasis on imparting life lessons to students.

3. Nguyễn Ngọc Ký (1947–2022)

Nguyễn Ngọc Ký when he was young.

The incredible life story of Nguyễn Ngọc Ký is a poignant addition to any Teacher’s Day celebration, not just because he was a well-known educator, but also because of the passion for learning that was evident in every aspect of his life. Ký was born in 1947 in Nam Định Province, but when he was four, a tragic bout of polio rendered both his arms permanently paralyzed. Despite the treacherous circumstances, he started learning to write, draw, and do housework with his feet. When he went to the local school hoping to get enrolled, the teacher was skeptical and said no, but after he visited him at home and saw how he was nimbly maneuvering every activity using feet, she changed her mind.

The young Ký turned out to be exceptionally smart, having attained the 5th position at a nationwide mathematics competition in 1963 when he was 16. In college, he majored in Literature at the prestigious Hanoi University, and returned to his hometown to become a college professor. From 1994, he moved to Saigon and started working as an education specialist by sitting in lessons and giving feedback to teachers.

Ký’s first attempt at having a formal education, as retold in his memoir, was included in primary school textbooks as an inspirational example of resilience. Generations of Vietnamese schoolchildren might not know the man that optimistic young boy turned out to be, but they have certainly read about his touching life story.

4. Nguyễn Dzoãn Cẩm Vân (1954)

Few millennial Saigoneers would not recognize Nguyễn Dzoãn Cẩm Vân, as we practically grew up hearing her measured northern voice and watching her meticulous hands on television during her cooking show Khéo Tay Hay Làm. Vân was born in Hanoi, but attended a Catholic boarding school in Saigon when she was young. After that, she stayed in the city and taught literature at Nguyễn Thượng Hiền High School for 18 years. Surviving on a public school teacher’s salary was a struggle, so Vân started teaching domestic arts classes to make ends meet, including cooking, baking, sewing, knitting, embroidery, etc.

Nguyễn Dzoãn Cẩm Vân in an episode of Khéo Tay Hay Làm (circa 2000s).

In 1993, the HCMC Radio and Television Station (HTV) was looking for a host for their culinary show Khéo Tay Hay Làm and found Vân. The program changed her life — and in many ways, ours too — as her teacherly diction and calm demeanor proved perfect for the screen. It resulted in thousands of hours of cooking instruction both on and off screen, and spawned over 90 cookbooks covering Vietnamese cuisine from north to south. Today, Vân has left behind the limelight for the teachings of Buddha as an ordained monk, but she remains a culinary icon of our childhood.

5. Nguyễn Thị Ánh Viên (1996)

Ánh Viên (right) is currently a swimming instructor for kids. Photo via Ánh Viên Swim Club.

Ánh Viên is without a doubt Vietnam’s most well-known and celebrated competitive swimmer in history, having won numerous medals for the country in regional tournaments, especially the Southeast Asian Games. She was also the only national athlete to receive an official state investment in training and was sent to Florida to practice under the tutelage of the world’s top swimming coaches.

In 2021, the athlete shocked sports fans nationwide when she announced that she would retire from competitive swimming to focus on her education and self-development. Since then, Viên has embraced a new public image as a swimming influencer and instructor. With a catchy tagline “bơi không khó, Viên chỉ cho / swimming is not hard, let Viên show you,” she uses social media to share swimming tips and survival skills, and promote the local swimming culture. Most recently, Viên channeled her passion for teaching into the founding of Ánh Viên Swim Club, where she and a number of swimmer friends give classes to children and adults. In the near future, the club is working on projects to improve aquatic survival skills amongst children, starting with her hometown of Cần Thơ.

What will the world look like when today’s students enter it as adults?

As society evolves at an unprecedented speed, education systems everywhere are being asked to prepare students for professional and social futures that don’t yet exist. The OECD’s Future of Education 2030 notes that young people will need not just knowledge, but also skills, attitudes, and values to thrive in a fast-changing, interconnected world. The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2030, nearly four in ten current skill sets will be obsolete, while research by McKinsey & Company highlights the growing importance of creativity, collaboration, and self-management alongside traditional academics.

For families in Vietnam, these shifts are redefining what it means to choose the right school. It’s no longer just about obtaining test results that lead to a clear next step on a narrow and defined progression. Rather, children must be placed in an environment that cultivates curiosity, adaptability, and purpose.

At the Australian International School (AIS) Saigon, that vision is expressed through three simple words: Be, Belong, Become. The phrase captures the school’s belief that students should first be their authentic selves, belong to a nurturing community, and ultimately become capable, confident global citizens. It is this philosophy that underpins AIS’s new Dream Big Scholarship, designed to celebrate talent in all its forms.'

A Broader Vision of Achievement

The Dream Big Scholarship was first launched for the 2025-26 academic year and expanded and implemented within the ongoing annual scholarships, which offer up to 100 percent of annual tuition fees to students who excel across five pillars of excellence: Academics, Arts, Music, Sports, and Service.

The program recognizes that future leadership and life satisfaction as well as university success, emerge from more than one type of talent. Whether a young artist with an eye for design, a musician whose performance inspires others, or a student athlete who leads with quiet strength, AIS believes that creativity, perseverance, and empathy are the hallmarks of the well-rounded graduate.

“You don’t dream big because it’s easy; you dream big because it’s worth it,” says Lee Childs, Executive Principal of AIS Saigon. “At AIS, we encourage our students to see beyond what they already are, to who they can become. That’s the essence of what our education stands for.”

Five Pathways to Excellence

The five pillars assessed for the scholarship are defined and described to reflect the holistic learning the school promotes. They are core elements of all AIS students’ experiences, and essential for preparing students to graduate as well-rounded, high-achieving and motivated individuals confident in their abilities to make positive change in the world.

Outstanding achievement and potential in academic, arts, music, sports and service are all considered and rewarded. Most conventionally, AIS looks for students who display exceptional scholarship, curiosity, and a love of learning, which are the intellectual foundations for IB success and lifelong inquiry. The school also celebrates imagination and originality in visual or performing arts, from painting and design to drama and photography, which reflects the spirit of creativity at AIS. Similarly, the scholarship supports instrumentalists and vocalists who bring skill, passion, and joy to performance, composition, or ensemble works and honors the athletic ability, teamwork, and integrity that are hallmarks of the school’s “spirit of fair play” philosophy. Finally, the Dream Big Scholarship rewards empathy and initiative displayed through volunteerism and leadership, encouraging students to make a difference beyond the classroom.

While the pathways each identify unique gifts that are expressed according to students’ particular passions, backgrounds, and goals, they have much in common. They each offer students a chance to grow through challenge, express individuality, and contribute meaningfully to the world.

A Launch Pad to the World

The new Dream Big Scholarships are in line with the values that have helped AIS Saigon earn its place among the city’s most respected international schools, as attested to by conventional metrics. It delivers the Cambridge curriculum and the International Baccalaureate (IB) program from Kindergarten through Year 13, with graduates consistently achieving outstanding results. 36 percent of the Class of 2025 are attending Top 50 global universities across the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and other prestigious locations around the world. 

But beyond destinations, the true measure of success lies in transformation and a sense of who students become as people. Such holistic growth is possible because of the school’s approach, which blends academic achievement with creativity and character, giving every learner the confidence to take bold steps forward.

“When I applied for the Dream Big Scholarship, I didn’t think I fit the ‘academic’ mould,” says Jessica, a recent recipient of the scholarship. “But AIS saw how I could eventually thrive in my academic performance, then lead, and give back. Now I’m aiming for a top university overseas — something I never imagined before.”

For some, like Jessica, dreaming big means studying at a world-ranked university. For others, it’s composing music that moves people, creating art that challenges convention, or leading community projects that spark change. What unites them is a shared sense of purpose and a desire to become something greater than themselves. As Lee Childs puts it: “We expect our scholars to be leaders, role models who stay motivated about learning and embody the Australian values we hold dear: integrity, respect, courage, and a commitment to excellence as lifelong learners. Our scholarship students don’t just achieve highly; they inspire others to do the same.”

Discover the AIS Difference

Families can experience this philosophy in action at theAIS Saigon Open Dayat the Thu Thiem Campus on Saturday, 22 November, open to students from Kindergarten to Year 12.

Visitors will explore the contemporary learning spaces, meet teachers and students, and speak with the Admissions Team about the Dream Big Scholarship and other learning opportunities for 2025–26.

Parents seeking a school that nurtures both ambition and authenticity and helps every child Be, Belong, and Become, should consider AIS Saigon. It offers a community where the next generation of thinkers, artists, and leaders can truly dream big and achieve even bigger.

Learn more about the scholarship and Open Day here

In April 2023, in the first downpour of southern Vietnam’s rainy season, the narrow rented room where Mã Thị Diệp and her children were staying in Hồ Chí Minh City was inundated by knee-high water.

“It flooded in from the street and came up from the drain in the bathroom. We couldn’t stop it,” recalls the lottery ticket vendor. “The liquid was black like coal and so stinky I almost fainted.” The water subsided after two hours, and the family cleaned the room until midnight. “My skin got itchy a bit, and it’s lucky we don’t have anything too valuable to get damaged,” she adds, half-jokingly.

Originally from Vietnam’s southern province of Sóc Trăng, Diệp’s family — and many other migrants among HCMC’s 9.4 million residents — live in District 12, to the north of the city centre. Despite lying on the higher and supposedly drier side of the city, District 12 has become one of its most flood-prone areas in recent years. Generally it is Saigon’s outskirts, predominantly home to migrants and lower-income households, that suffer the highest rates of subsidence and flooding.

The 2023 rainy season began a month earlier than usual in southern Vietnam, arriving in April. Heavy bursts of rainfall in which 100mm of water fell in one hour used to happen around once every five years last century, but became a daily occurrence in June and July this year, according to local authorities. Research anticipates that heavy rainfall will inundate the city’s underdeveloped drainage system more regularly in the coming decades.

This dwelling in District 2 of HCMC, which is home to many migrants from the Mekong Delta, flooded following a downpour in November 2021. Photo by Cương Trần.

These extreme weather trends feed into a worrying wider picture. HCMC is one of the world’s fastest-sinking coastal cities, alongside Tianjin and Shanghai in China, and Semarang and Jakarta in Indonesia. The city is also at increasing risk of substantial flooding from rising sea levels: a one-meter rise would be enough to submerge a fifth of the city by 2100, according to a 2020 government report.

The economic engine of southern Vietnam, Saigon produces 22% of the country’s GDP. Chronic flooding is currently estimated to cost the city US$1.3 billion annually, rising to US$8.7 billion — or 3% of GDP — by 2050.

“It is a city built on water,” says Nguyễn Hồng Quân, an expert in environmental hydrology and climate change at Vietnam National University. “And now it is put in front of a new set of changes. Without proper planning, more severe flooding is certain in the future.”

Infrastructure outpaced by urban sprawl

Long-time District 8 resident Nguyễn Tấn Lợi says this swampy region was covered by rice fields and fish ponds until the early 1990s. It has since been built over with university campuses and residential wards. “The city’s surface is now mostly paved by concrete, with little open soil for the water to seep into,” says Hồng Quân. “[Rainwater] is flushed into the outdated sewers, which can hardly handle it and eventually spill it out back to the street.”

In the city’s southern reaches, Nguyễn Trung Hiếu and his neighbors also face inundation. His neighborhood in District 8 — one of HCMC’s poorest districts — is flooded twice a month between September and February by the Bà Tàng Canal that runs through it. “The tides get higher and higher, by roughly 5cm a year,” he says. Hiếu has raised his floor “a few times already” and the residents have all paid towards work to raise their shared road.

Nearly half of HCMC’s area lies less than one meter above sea level. It is also criss-crossed by a network of tide-influenced rivers and canals that covers approximately 21% of the city. This network is one reason why the city has been an important trade port for the past two centuries for ships carrying agricultural goods from the Mekong Delta and other areas of southern Vietnam. Following the war in the 1960s–1970s, it became the country’s manufacturing and financial hub.

HCMC’s District 8 is a low-lying, historically swampy area that has been built over in recent years, hindering water drainage. Photo by Thanh Huế.

This explosive economic growth came with rapid urbanization, stacked mostly upon soft, alluvial soil. Plumbing infrastructure was slow to catch up to the urban sprawl, so groundwater extraction using makeshift wells became widespread. Thousands of these wells remain in HCMC, pumping groundwater for industrial, domestic and agricultural uses. Where extraction of groundwater exceeds the rate at which it can be replenished, this can cause the water table to lower, and the ground above it to sink.

Between 1991 and 2015, Vietnam’s wider Mekong Delta area sank by an average of approximately 18cm during those 24 years; a 2017 study found groundwater overexploitation to be the main culprit. The gradual subsidence of this area is forcing the poorest inhabitants with the least amount of land to migrate, most likely to HCMC and adjacent industrial hubs.

According to a 2015 study, HCMC itself subsided by an average of 8mm per year during 2006–2010. The most severe levels of subsidence, reaching 70mm per year, were noted in the city’s eastern outskirts, along the Saigon River. Following municipal efforts to reduce groundwater extraction and defend against sea-level rise, a 2020 study found that subsidence levels had improved to between 3.3mm and 53mm per year during 2017-2019. However, the fastest subsidence rates were still to be found in the city’s outskirts. Meanwhile, rising sea levels are projected to displace 78% of HCMC’s inhabitants by 2100.

Disproportionate impacts on HCMC’s residents

A 2016 World Bank study found that HCMC’s slums (“densely built small households and shelters that have [a] predominantly semi‐permanent character”) are disproportionately exposed to the consequences of flooding, with 68–85% being at risk, compared to an average of 63–68% across all of the city’s urban areas.

HCMC is Vietnam’s strongest migration magnet, but the city’s environmental challenges tend to exacerbate the problems faced by many newcomers. “We found migrants were initially healthier than non-migrants, but then their health declined really quickly over time,” says Hang Ngo, a public health research scientist. Last year, her research into migrants from the Mekong Delta found that most live in small, poorly ventilated dwellings with substandard hygiene conditions. If these dwellings are in flood-prone areas, the risk of dengue fever and skin infections increases.

Lê Văn Lợi, a garment worker by day and motorbike taxi driver by night who lives in Bình Chánh District on Saigon’s western outskirts, shares that floods are his biggest fear: the waters can knock over drivers, while fixing a waterlogged bike costs more than VND150,000 (US$6). “Not worth it for a few dollars’ ride,” says the 29-year-old. During particularly rainy spells, Lợi’s income drops substantially.

Crucially, the city’s low-income and migrant populations, who tend to live in areas of high flood risk with underdeveloped local infrastructure, usually have fewer resources to protect them from flooding. “It is like a vicious circle,” says Cao Vũ Quỳnh Anh, a University of Tokyo researcher who has studied how HCMC residents cope with floods.

A road on the outskirts of Saigon’s District 2, flooded following heavy rain in June 2018. Photo by Cương Trần.

Grey, green and communal problem-solving

The Vietnamese government is currently betting on engineering to hold back the water in its biggest city. But progress so far has been slow. For example, a drainage infrastructure project for the city was proposed in 2001, but 20 years later, its construction was less than 50% complete. Another project, which seeks to protect a 570 square kilometer area encompassing the city centre with ring dykes, sluiceways and water pumps, is currently behind schedule. Insufficient interest in such projects from both city authorities and private investors is reportedly a factor in these delays.

Critics have pointed out that these flood defense projects are too limited in scope however, because they are mainly concerned with the old, central areas. HCMC’s urban sprawl is outpacing protection plans. “These ‘grey’ solutions may help soothe the flooding problems, but they are not enough,” says Hồng Quân.

According to research published in June 2023, the deployment of “small-scale rainwater detention measures” (also known as the “sponge city” approach) would be beneficial in Saigon. Such measures would include installing green roofs, rain barrels, porous sidewalks and water-detention basins. The research found that these smaller-scale, fragmented measures are a “highly complementary adaptation pathway” when deployed alongside large-scale engineering interventions.

Quỳnh Anh says the city is following the same reactive adaptation approach as other Asian coastal cities like Tokyo, Jakarta and Manila. This approach means “fewer choices of measures are left and time is very tight for any solution,” she says.

According to both Hồng Quân and Quỳnh Anh, Vietnam’s most populous city currently lacks a comprehensive flood-mitigation plan that connects solutions together. But for such a plan to materialise, Quỳnh Anh says “better communication between the city and its people” is essential. “Understanding is very important. It helps the city to come up with more applicable adaptation plans, and the residents can be proactive in coping with flooding.”

Meanwhile, both Mã Thị Diệp and Nguyễn Trung Hiếu are running out of solutions. Diệp has moved her family to a new neighborhood on higher ground, but she says she cannot afford a more expensive room if this one floods. And Hiếu knows the tide will keep climbing, but he cannot keep raising his home: “If we lift the floor any higher, it will touch the ceiling.”

This story was originally produced by China Dialogue and has been republished with permission.

Some of the world’s most successful women have one thing in common: participation in youth sports.

A recent Guardian article reported that girls who play organised sports after school in the UK are 50% more likely to reach senior professional positions later in life. The statistic coincides with espnW research that found that 94% of female executives played sports when they were younger, 74% say sports accelerated their career, 75% believe competitiveness from sports is an asset to leadership and 67% claim sporting experiences positively influences hiring decisions. 

Those findings are “inspiring, but not surprising,” says Matt Washer, Head of Sports at Australian International School (AIS) in Saigon. “It confirms what we see every day at AIS. Sport isn’t just physical training, it’s character training. When students push through a tough game, deal with setbacks, and celebrate success as a team, they’re developing the kind of inner strength and resilience that will carry them through university, their careers, and life. We see those qualities emerging in our students every day, regardless of gender.”

“Grit is central to sport; it’s what keeps an athlete running that extra lap or turning up for training after a defeat. In sport, children learn that progress isn’t linear. You lose, you adjust, and you come back stronger. That mindset — learning to see failure as feedback — is exactly what allows adults to thrive in competitive workplaces and complex careers,” Washer explains. This determination coincides with AIS’s embrace of the Australian Spirit, which stresses fair play and a “just give it a go” mindset. Failure is part of the learning process, and nothing is lost by putting forth an earnest attempt. Growth occurs regardless of where one ends up on the scoreboard. “We want every student, from the youngest to the oldest, to understand that how you play matters as much as the score,” Washer notes.

Meanwhile, playing team sports fosters empathy, communication and respect which has clear implications for girls’ future roles as leaders, colleagues and innovators where trust and collaboration are essential. The ability to confidently work with others pays dividends long before one becomes an adult, however. AIS’s holistic approach to education involves significant group work with students leading the learning. Such situations benefit from lessons learned on athletic teams.

Matt Washer, Head of Sports at AIS.

Indeed, sports is not an isolated activity separated from academics at AIS. Rather, the athletics embedded in the curriculum and offered as extracurriculars are a core philosophical pillar alongside academics and creative and performing arts. They each build off and reinforce one another. The perseverance, teamwork, discipline, and integrity nurtured by athletics prove essential in conducting science experiments, writing a paper, staging a play, and painting alike. This connectivity has tangible impacts on preparedness for university and careers worldwide. “Sport is education,” Washer stresses. “The confidence a child gains on the field often determines how they perform in the classroom. Sport teaches resilience, time management, and focus — skills that enhance academic learning, not detract from it. At AIS, we don’t separate intellectual growth from physical and emotional growth; they reinforce one another.”

Such integration is made possible, in part, because of AIS’s commitment to world-class facilities. The 1,200 students across its two campuses have access to more than 25 sports and physical activities, including football, basketball, swimming, and volleyball as well as uniquely Australian games such as netball and touch rugby. The Thao Dien campus provides young learners aged 1.5 - 10 with access to a dedicated and supervised gymnasium, early-years playground and swimming pool. Meanwhile, older students at the Thu Thiem campus enjoy a FIFA-sized football field with premium NZ astroturf, swimming pool, multi-court sports hall, and fitness suites, which have benefited from recent, multi-million euro renovations.

Further supporting AIS’s integration of athletics into its holistic approach to education is the school’s membership in the Inspired Network. Washer explains: “Inspired schools around the world share the same belief: sport teaches ambition. Across more than 110 schools, we offer global sporting exchanges, inter-school tournaments, and leadership programmes. Students from Vietnam to Spain or Australia have access to elite coaching, international competitions, and the opportunity to learn from one another. It’s all about giving them a stage to dream big and achieve more.” Indeed, when AIS hosted Asia Games 2023, it was a perfect opportunity to witness how athletics expands borders and broadens global outlooks.

Even when acknowledging the importance of sports, parents may have difficulty assessing what constitutes success for their child. “Success isn’t only measured in medals — it’s in growth. When a student who was shy in Year 3 becomes a confident team captain by Year 9, that’s success. When students cheer for each other’s progress, not just the final score, we know our culture is working. Winning is great, but it’s the character behind the win that matters most,” Washer says.

This potential for growth will be on full display during the upcoming Open Day at the Thu Thiem Campus on Saturday, November 22. Not only can families see the world-class athletics facilities, but they can also hear from students directly about how athletics have been an integral part of their development as learners and people. Meanwhile, Washer and other members of the leadership team will share firsthand experiences and underpinning philosophies for why sports are a powerful means of transforming girls into strong, independent, and successful women who will lead our world in the future.

Compared to the average Vietnamese, I might be thinking about trashcans a smidgen too much — not just any trashcan, but the infamous penguin-shaped trashcans that are ubiquitous at every corner of our public spaces.

You know what I’m talking about. These bins are usually the size of a burly child, made of glass fiber-reinforced plastic, and are shaped like penguins with their mouths agape. Sometimes a call-to-action text is painted on their belly, with the most commonly seen phrase being “hãy cho tôi rác / please give me trash.”

Vietnam’s relationship with littering, recycling, and waste management is complicated, to say the least, but our relationship with trashcans is very simple: we don’t have enough of them, and the ones that are available aren’t treated with the respect they deserve. This shortcoming makes each can’s presence quite noticeable wherever they’re around, especially quirkily designed ones like the penguin bin.

Cute but creepy, mostly creepy, in a Five Night at Freddy's kind of way.

Novelty trashcan is an uncommon genre of public amenities, but not unheard of; I’ve encountered all manner of bins in the shape of animals, fruits, and even famous cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse. Their natural habitats, however, tend to be areas that children often frequent, like playgrounds, amusement parks, and kindergartens. Only the penguin trashcan proliferates indiscriminately across the country, like Vietnam’s equivalent of the basic bird Pokémon you would spend 5 Poke Balls to catch at Level 5 on Route 1.

Why penguins, you may ask. I’ve thought about this a lot too, but alas, haven’t found a definitive answer. A handful of internet memes allude to the possible existence of a similar penguin design in the Anglosphere; they bear the text “use me,” the main reason why the internet found them funny. The majority of search results point to their significant prevalence in India and Vietnam; neither has endemic populations of penguins, but they share a similar public littering problem.

Perhaps it was a generic stock design that a contractor had readily available for park officials to buy in bulk, or perhaps the penguin was chosen for its unique biology that mirrors the gulping movement of trash — it doesn’t have teeth and consumes food by swallowing fish and crustaceans whole. We might never know. If you have the answer, please reach out.

When Pokemon Go first came to Vietnam, one of the penguin trashcans in Saigon got marked as a PokeStop.

Whatever the reason might be, some research has shown that visually striking can designs — including the use of eye-catching colors or unusual shapes — can help reduce littering by attracting human attention. There might be a method to the madness, after all, and the penguin shape might serve a public cleanliness purpose rather than being whimsical just for whimsy’s sake. 

Sometimes I wonder if the animal trashcan can be elevated into part of a larger effort to educate the Vietnamese public on our native species. The penguin is a distant entity, but the endangerment of animals like sao la, Irrawaddy dolphin, and Mekong giant catfish hits much closer to home. Could the bins be shaped like them instead?

Then again, as someone who appreciates the animal kingdom at large and Vietnam’s biodiversity in particular, I have always felt a vague sense of unease over putting trash in the mouth of a penguin, even though that penguin is a plastic object specifically designed to receive trash. It begs the question of who we’re tidying up for? We’ve all seen that tragic video a few years ago showing rescuers removing a straw from a sea turtle’s nostril. Am I trying to save a turtle by putting my bubble tea straws inside a penguin? Perhaps wild animals, be it in trashcan form or real, might not be the best receptacle for our disgusting trash.

I stood on the top floor of a building on Khâm Thiên Street, feeling grateful for the cold air. I came out here to take a break from the other side of the floor, which was divided into three rooms — three dance studios.

In one studio, five middle-aged adults were in a sports dance class. In the other, around 10 teenagers were practicing K-pop moves. The one in the middle, where I came from, was blasting house music, with close to 100 people inside. 

The middle studio wasn’t hosting a class, but a dance battle. Coming here, I originally planned to be a fly on the wall and observe the house dance community. But the spirit of the room was so vigorous that I got caught up and jumped on the dance floor, even though I had never danced before in my life. It was impossible to resist the pull, and I didn’t want to fight it anyway. I finally grasped that feeling all these dancers had been telling me about. 

A few weeks before the battle, I caught up with some dancers in a coffee shop. “When dancing to house music,” Linh Tôn said, “I feel happy, free, like I was…high. And house music itself is more pleasurable than other genres because our brains like its speed. It gets us high! I read that somewhere, but you should probably verify that online.”    

Linh Tôn wasn’t too far off from what science had been learning about how music could affect our mood. House music typically has a speed of 120–130 beats per minute (BPM); a study has shown that a tempo of 120 BPM with a rhythmic beat can induce the feeling of happiness. 

Sitting next to Linh, Đỗ Minh Anh — nicknamed Vịt, or Duck — chimed in: “When listening to house music, we feel freedom. We get to let go and be free, we get to float in the music. I love that feeling, that’s probably why I like house dance.”

“But why house dance?” I asked. “Why not other types of dancing like tap dance or ballet?”    

“I studied at the Dance Academy,” Vịt answered. “I learned ballet there, and now I’m also taking a tap dance class. Our community is like a buffet, each dish has its own flavor. House dance has the flavor of freedom; it’s not as structured as ballet, it's not as small as tap dance.”

Linh added: “Also, house music started in the clubs, where there are all types of dancers and non-dancers. It doesn’t have a limit, like ballet has to be like this or hip-hop has to be like that. With house, you just dance.”

“For me, sometimes I learn some house steps but I don’t do house dance, I do popping,” Phạm Đức Anh — who goes by Red — the final member of our table, spoke up. “But I have listened to house for a long time now, even before I started dancing. I just like it. It’s hard to say why. Like if you have a lover, why do you love her and not another one? Even when the other is hotter, why do you love this one?”

“Don’t ask ‘why’ when in love!” Linh declared.    

Linh, Red and Vịt belong to a team called House Dance Hanoi (HDH), they come together every week for a dance session. They also run events to promote house culture. They organized the battle that I was at — a playground for all to display their skills. There were more than 50 contenders, and each had their own style of dancing: locking, popping, breaking, hip-hop, etc. But one style in particular gave me a whole new view of freedom. 

“Waacking was born in the gay bars of Los Angeles,” Nguyễn Văn Minh (pseudonym), a competitor, told me, “and the moves of waacking are closer to the feminine side…I love all that is willowy and beautiful. Waacking feels natural to me because it aspires to beauty. And waacking is opening your body, let it be free. It is liberating!” 

Though Minh hasn't come out yet to some of the people closest to him, he has learned to accept this part of himself. “I think being gay is actually a catalyst for me, it is the characteristic for me to open everything. I am not tied to the social pressures of a man or a woman. I don’t have to be the provider of the family, I don’t need to be gentle and sweet, I can just be myself. And maybe only because I’m gay that I came across waacking. If I had been born straight then maybe I would not have danced at all.”

Some dancers didn’t just stick with one style but combined moves from different forms. Vũ Hoa Cầu, another HDH member, told me that his was a combination of house, soul, popping, and even some martial arts moves. “You just pull out whatever you have in a battle,” Cầu said, “but the most important thing is to feel the music and express yourself.”  

I quickly realized that he was right. The best dancers reacted to the tiniest changes in the music. They were so in-tune that they could predict a change of rhythm or when a drop was coming. It was like a battle of who can be the most present.

In between battles, there were showcases by different dance crews. HDH had a show, too. Their performance wasn’t just dancing, they were telling a story, a love story between four people, it seemed to me. They looked so happy, like a bunch of kids playing together. The whole room was enthralled. Then, towards the end of their performance, they started pulling people up on the floor to join the dance. I got up, too. For a moment I was one with the crowd, flailing my arms around and floating in the music. I was so touched that tears ran down my face. My nose was running, too, but luckily no one saw that because I was wearing a mask.

At the end of the battle, Cầu was crowned the champion. But from what most people had told me, winning or losing wasn't important. The important thing was being a part of the atmosphere. I had a massive headache leaving the studio, I guess I’m just a bit too old to hang with these kids. But the adrenaline that I got from being on the dance floor was still pumping in my veins by the time I got home. It was exhilarating to be so free; it was ineffable. And if you want to try it out for yourself, House Dance Hanoi is more than happy to welcome new people.

Follow House Dance Hanoi on Facebook to learn of their many activities and how to join.

This article was originally published in 2022.

With plastics claiming many of the headlines worldwide and constituting a major issue in Vietnam, scant attention is being paid to other recyclable materials, namely cardboard and aluminum.

On any given day, in every neighborhood, local collectors can be seen pedaling bicycles or driving motorized carts, piling on mounds of flattened cardboard boxes and bags of aluminum cans. These industrious individuals, along with trash collectors, are at the forefront of the recycling industry in Saigon.

Living in proximity to recycling centers in District 7, I have trod the dusty, two-kilometer-long path along Dao Tri Street numerous times, bearing witness to the daily parade of local collectors gathering their materials. This labor-intensive work is mostly carried out by women who have migrated from rural areas. Talking with a few of them, I found that their lives are generally not easy, having left family and farm for higher wages in Saigon. They live together to defray costs and send funds back to their families each month.

I asked one of the women, Uyen, about a typical day in her life. She generally starts her daily rounds at 7am, when stores open. Stopping primarily at mini-marts that get daily deliveries of goods in cardboard cases, she completes the first sweep by 11am. From there, she delivers her haul to a collection shop or “recycling middleman.” She is paid VND2,000 per kilogram of flattened cardboard. Most of these women have established good relationships with stores and businesses in the area and receive their flattened boxes and cans, as opposed to them being left in the street for collection.

Uyen dropping off her morning haul of cardboard and cans at the collection center.

After a brief lunch break, she begins a second collection cycle, at times supplementing her haul with plastic bottles (for which she is paid VND7,000 per kilo) or flattened aluminum beer cans (at VND19,000 per kilo). Her day ends around 6pm, unless another collection sweep is warranted. Belying the fact that this is a day job, I have seen these collectors working late into the night, separating the various materials for delivery the next morning.

Late-morning delivery activity at the collection center.

Members of my friend Hung’s family have been acting as recycling middlemen or collectors/processors for over 20 years, and have developed a rapport with a number of these grassroots laborers. Their family business collects and separates plastic bottles, scrap plastic and metal, aluminum cans and cardboard.

Hung (center) and his family at their recycling collection center.

Su, Con and Muoi separate assorted plastic into the proper containers.

They alerted me to a cardboard drop-off run, so that I could drive with them for a short distance to the recycling facility and witness the process. Entering a cavernous building, roughly the size of a basketball arena, the truck is first weighed with its complete cargo; then unloaded onto the floor. The truck is then re-weighed after disgorging its load, and the vendor is then compensated on the delivered weight of the cardboard.

Truck after truck arrived, and suddenly the building was transformed into a beehive of activity. Two bulldozers wrangled the growing mounds of cardboard toward the conveyor belt. The bales, which average 1,100 kilograms each, emerged inexorably from the compactor to await their stacking onto a flatbed truck for delivery to a larger processing center.

An employee at the compacting facility sorting packing material from the cardboard boxes.

One of the two bulldozers pushing boxes onto the compacter unit. Finished bales are in the background.

Operating the cardboard compactor forming the bales.

The cavernous cardboard facility with compacted bales in the foreground.

Speaking with the plant manager, Nam, I was told they handle three types of cardboard: foldable boxes, like a cereal box; rigid boxes, like computer or phone boxes; and corrugated shipping boxes, for moving and storing goods.

According to Cardboard Balers, a company based in the United Kingdom, recycling cardboard requires just 75% of the energy needed to make new cardboard, so it makes sense that recycling cardboard is a more sustainable option than cutting down trees to make virgin paper products. Cardboard is made from wood fiber, so recycling saves both landfill space and trees. Most cardboard products can be recycled, including boxes, paper towel and the inner rolls of toilet paper, which also reduces the amount of paper which countries have to import. Recycling one ton of used cardboard saves approximately 46 gallons (174 liters) of crude oil, while the majority of the world's shipped products use cardboard packaging, so it's advantageous to recycle from a cost-benefit perspective.

After returning from the cardboard run, I sat with Hung to get his perspective on recycling. “My uncle started this business about 30 years ago, and my dad studied from him and opened his own business, with another uncle handling machine parts for recycling,” he shared.

Hung discussing the future of recycling in Saigon.

The business has changed over the years as it grew.

"Twenty years ago they just bought plastic, aluminum and metal. Now we take in a variety of products, including cardboard,” Hung said. “Loyalty is a big part of the equation when it comes to attracting collectors. We pay a fair price and the locals know they can trust us. Everyone’s involved. My dad runs the business now and drives the truck to the various processing centers. My mom supervises the scale and payments, and [the team and I] do the heavy lifting.”

The rotund, heavy-duty sacks which hold aluminum cans top off at around 60 kilograms each, and the ones for plastic bottles can top 90 kilograms.

Hung lifting a delivery of cardboard onto the scale as his mom, Muoi, watches and records the weight.

Hai, Hung's dad, sews shut one of the massive bags containing plastic bottles.

Muoi recording deliveries at the shop.

Su lifting a huge bag of aluminum cans.

Hung went on to explain that he expects to graduate from university later this year with a degree in environmental engineering. When I asked if he would then join a larger recycling company, he said that he would apply his knowledge to help grow his family business, but he also wants to pursue a PhD in the field.

A similar scenario of truck weighing before and after unloading was evident when I accompanied the team on a run to out to Binh Chanh District to the aluminum can recycling center there.

Crushed aluminum cans before being baled.

Unloading 10 bags of aluminum cans and miscellaneous metal items, weighing up to 750 kilograms in total.

As to the future of recycling in Saigon, Hung reflected that other countries or states have comprehensive policies in place, whereas Vietnam still has no complete plan which includes tax exemptions or incentives. So if waste facilities become overloaded, he hopes this will drive new policies to address the issue. Looking ahead, he would like to concentrate more on plastics, and even buy a machine that cuts and washes small volumes of plastic for more efficient recycling.

While plastic and other man-made products continue to be major issues as urbanization spreads across the country, the intelligent use of recycled materials, such as cardboard and aluminum cans, can help alleviate some of the strain on the city’s resources, and the people doing this back-breaking work should not be overlooked.

This article was originally published in 2020.