For two years now, I've checked the Vietnamese Modernist Architecture Facebook group almost every day. Here, members post photos of mid-century modernist architecture they find across the country, and I still get a little excited when a house I've never seen appears in the feed.

About four months ago, I noticed a shift: the notifications became more frequent, and suddenly I was watching the group grow by hundreds of members a day. I wondered when it would slow down, but it never did. Today it sits at nearly 150,000 members, up from 40,000 last year, almost quadrupled in a matter of months: Vietnamese modernism is making a comeback.

For decades, almost nobody was paying attention to Vietnamese modernism, neither internationally nor locally. Internationally, it was overshadowed by better-documented tropical modernisms like Brazil, India, or Ghana, which had international “starchitects” like Le Corbusier, Niemeyer, and Fry to hype them up. Locally, it became too common to notice, as so many people built their houses in modernist style that it became vernacular, part of the street furniture, like the red ghế nhựa or the Cooper Black lettering on every storefront. Even tourists are more easily seduced by a bubblegum-pink church than a plain grey shophouse. When things are perceived as ordinary, they often lose value.

Modernism was once the optimistic look of a newly independent Vietnam, but it gradually became a “poorer” aesthetic; a house you upgrade away from the moment you can afford something newer. Many have been destroyed for that reason. Buildings from before 1975, the golden age of Vietnamese modernism, make up only 15% of the country's built environment, according to a 2024 study based on Ministry of Construction data.

The Vietnamese Modernist Architecture group was founded in 2015 by Mel Schenck, Tom Hricko, Tim Doling, and Hoanh Tran, with Saigoneer as an early sponsor. For a decade, the group remained as overlooked as the houses it documented. It was a space for a devoted handful to archive buildings before they vanished and pay tribute to the architects who laid the foundations of the movement, such as Ngô Viết Thụ, Lê Văn Lắm, and Nguyễn Quang Nhạc. Today the group is shifting from niche documentation to mass admiration, and I’ve stopped counting the number of “Đẹp quá!” (so beautiful) in the comment section. 

What's driving this comeback, I believe, is nostalgia. More precisely, urban nostalgia: the specific kind that takes hold in cities that never stop rebuilding themselves, where the built environment looks nothing like it did a few years ago. Modernism is rarely loved by the general public, so nostalgia is an unusual emotion to attach to it. Yet people now come to the group to revisit memories, and the comments turn into something close to love letters to a version of Vietnam that is disappearing. A few quotes from the comment section:

The same happens under my own photos on Instagram:

Probably the comment that best sums up these quotes is a gif a group member posted: the scene from Ratatouille where a single bite throws the food critic back to his childhood in his mother's kitchen. That sudden rush of nostalgia is exactly what these modernist house photos now seem to trigger. Perhaps that's the power of vernacular architecture. Because these modernist houses are so common, so woven into everyday life, they hold a whole population's collective memory, like an architectural madeleine de Proust.

This growing interest in the nostalgic isn't only about architecture. It’s part of a wider retro wave in Vietnam, visible in a few Instagram accounts celebrating the recent past: Sách hơi cũ finds, rents, and sells old art books; Slowz Nguyen digs up and remixes old Vietnamese music, often pre-1970s; Soulvenir posts vintage photography of a Vietnam that’s fading away.

There seems to be a mechanism at work similar to the west's recent Y2K revival: an optimistic era leaves behind an aesthetic that people reach back for when the present turns anxious. In the west, one of those eras was the turn of the millennium, a fresh start where technology glowed with promise. Two decades later, in our doomscrolling, hyper-connected world, flip phones and the Frutiger Aero aesthetic are trending again as a reassuring memory. For Vietnam, that era was post-independence: although still at war, a young nation had a modern future ahead of it, and modernist houses were lining every street. What people might miss isn't only the concrete, but also the confidence of the era that poured it.

What people get nostalgic about usually ends up trendy. I knew Vietnamese modernism had crossed over when L'Officiel Vietnam asked to feature my photos. Scroll their Instagram, and it's top models, makeup, celebrities, then, suddenly, a concrete house pops into that immaculately curated fashion feed.

The clearest proof that the style is trending is that people have started simulating it. In 2024, Cà Phê Linh opened a café in Xuân Hòa that I took for a restored mid-century building the first time I saw it. It was built from scratch instead, reproducing the modernist codes exactly: đá rửa finish, pergolas with stars, moons and suns, gạch hoa, gió tiles, diamond motifs.

Cà Phê Linh's first location, opened in Xuân Hòa in 2024, was built from scratch in mid-century style. Photo by Alexandra van der Essen.

The entrance's vintage style includes an enamel sign, leather armchairs, and a tiled floor, while modernist details on the façade include a diamond motif and đá rửa finish. Photo by Alexandra van der Essen.

The owners judged the look marketable enough to build a new house pretending to be an old one. They were right, and the place is always packed, with a second one having opened in Saigon in late 2025. Other shops have followed, such as Mai An 1983 or Tibon by Jayden in Long Xuyên. By that point, what's being imitated isn't Vietnamese modernist architecture; it's a successful appearance. The copying of a copy, like a game of telephone, continues until it becomes a new architectural species entirely.

Cà Phê Linh's second location opened in Saigon in late 2025. Photo by Alexandra van der Essen.

Meanwhile, more and more cafés and bars are opening inside real modernist houses. Given how much of Vietnamese daily life happens in cafés, this is helping reframe the style as culture rather than just something old. The loudest example came from Highlands Coffee, Vietnam's largest coffee chain, which turned a modernist villa along Hoàng Văn Thụ into its first drive-thru. A TikTok influencer campaign accompanied the opening, with some videos reaching more than 1 million views. It’s a sort of circular logic: businesses choose modernism because they sense trend potential, and every opening makes it a little trendier still.

Left: The modernist villa as it was before Highlands. Photo courtesy of the former owners' family.
Right: Its current state as Highlands Coffee's first drive-thru. Photo by Alexandra van der Essen.

I wrote to a few café owners to ask why they reused a modernist house rather than building new, as most do, and nostalgia came up in every answer.

The owner of Căn Nhà Cũ Coffee, in Củ Chi, grew up in these houses and wants to pass the feeling on. “With the increasing trend of modernization, I want to bring back the old feelings, the images of society from the past,” he told me. “I want to bring a space and a touch of nostalgia to today's youth.”

For the team behind NEO-HBT, it's about preserving a piece of their childhood: “As '90s kids growing up in Saigon, mid-century modernist architecture was the familiar backdrop of our childhoods. Watching these signature structures disappear across the city has been heartbreaking.”

Beyond nostalgia, the revival is also a matter of pride in a heritage that Vietnamese are starting to claim. At NEO-HBT, roughly 90% of what you see is the original structure. “Looking back at our architectural history, figures like architect Ngô Viết Thụ and his contemporaries contributed immensely to establishing a distinct southern Vietnamese modernist identity that could stand proudly on the global stage. This house is a living piece of that legacy, and keeping it alive is an essential part of sharing our design culture with the world.”

Bảy Coffee, Đà Nẵng. The owner kept the 1986 house for its “historical value, solid architecture, and the precision of its decorative lines.” Photo by Tui đi cà phê.

Keeping a house like this is rarely the easy option. At 3.Coffee, opened by 3 Hào Cà Phê, clearing the property involved removing more than 25 truckloads of trash on the first day alone, and the owner was working on a short lease, with no guarantee of staying long enough to earn the investment back. They did it anyway, wanting to “preserve as much as possible of a place that I personally find beautiful and meaningful.” The payoff comes from customer reactions. Some older visitors tell them certain corners remind them of old Saigon houses. “To me, that is a very special compliment. I hope that when people come here, they don't just see a beautiful café to take photos in. I hope they can also feel a little of the memory, atmosphere, and spirit of an old Saigon home.”

The entrance of 3.Coffee with windflower ventilation tiles. Photo by San Dô.

Beyond cafés and chains, the trend has reached the housing market too. The Facebook group is filling with members trying to buy, sell, renovate, or build a modernist house. One real estate agent posted a listing that turned the nostalgia into a sales pitch: “In the heart of Saigon, we return to the peaceful old houses of the 60s and 70s. Villa for sale on Nguyễn Văn Đậu Street, Bình Thạnh District.” Others are choosing to restore rather than demolish, and come to the group for advice: “Is this house considered modernist, everyone? I want to renovate it and keep the original style, maybe add more modernist elements. Any idea of the cost, or experience with this kind of project?”

A family photo of the house posted to the group.

Then there are those who want the look badly enough to build it from scratch: “Most modernist houses are old, has anyone built a new one in this style?” Modernism has become something to build, buy, and sell, a wild reversal for a style usually bulldozed in Vietnam.

Newly built houses in modernist style, completed in 2025.

So, why a comeback now? A revival like this rarely has a single cause. It's more of a domino effect, and the pieces are hard to fit into one picture: the Facebook group, the book by Mel Schenck, the one by Phạm Phú Vinh, Nguyễn Ngọc Sơn's years of archival work, coffee shops, the slow build of nostalgia, each feeding the next.

The most identifiable trigger, though, might have been a single announcement. On May 19, news broke that Quy Hòa, the historic modernist leprosy village in Quy Nhơn, would be relocated to make way for a tourist mega-resort: one built for 40,000 residents and with a master plan including... flying taxis. It felt like the last straw after so many resort projects erasing local heritage. And the timing coincides: the announcement landed right when activity on the Facebook group took off.

Two of many modernist houses at Quy Hòa that are still being used, but now scheduled to make way for a resort. Photos by Alexandra van der Essen.

Put together, Vietnamese modernism's revival runs on three layers. First, a documentary one: the scholars, authors, and archivists who made the case that this architecture was worth paying attention to. Then a sociological one: a population turning nostalgic as the country keeps rebuilding itself around them. And finally a commercial one: the magazines, coffee chains, and TikTok accounts that are turning it into something marketable and viral, some of them opportunists, many of them genuine lovers of the style. Each layer feeds the next, documentation giving nostalgia something to hold onto, nostalgia giving the market something to sell.

It would be easy to shrug at all this; of course nostalgia revives old things, that's what nostalgia does. But nostalgia for modernism, at this scale, may be close to unheard of. Modernism has rarely been embraced by the public, with a few exceptions such as Brazil. Vietnam represents another, with ordinary people having chosen the style en masse to build their own houses. That first anomaly created a second one, mainstream modernist nostalgia, felt not only by trendy brutalist Instagram accounts, but by the general public too. What got these houses bulldozed, being everywhere, is exactly what makes people miss them now. Concrete brise-soleils make people think “this looks like my grandfather's house” with tears in their eyes; modernist elements get reproduced in fashionable café concepts. There's something poetic about all of this: a modernism once built by the people, for the people, is being slowly reclaimed by the people all over again.

Following a spate of foreign investment in the 1990s, Laos began producing surplus electricity and looked to export it. Today, around 80% of its energy, largely from hydropower, is sold to neighbors. Electricity exports from Laos generate around US$2.6 billion for what is one of the poorest nations in mainland Southeast Asia. Across the region, neighbors including Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia have become reliant on hydropower from Laos. Slowly but surely, however, this is changing.

Laos’ hydropower exports are facing increasing competition from non-hydro renewable energy and wider changes in the region’s power sector. Growing investment in non-hydro renewables and the first steps towards a regional power grid are beginning to change both the nature of that reliance and what it means for Laos to be the “Battery of Southeast Asia”.

The environmental and social effects of hydropower, particularly on biodiversity and local fisheries throughout the Greater Mekong Region, also continues to loom large on the future of hydropower in the region.

Thailand: Buying the battery

Thailand is the most prolific importer of power from Laos, making it the main driver of the latter’s power export ambitions. But Thai civil society organizations are also key opponents of large dam projects.

The Thailand-built Xayaburi Dam in north-west Laos, which began operations in 2019 with a generating capacity of nearly 1.3 gigawatts (GW), was the first Mekong mainstream hydropower project in the country and remains one of its largest. The dam had been mired in controversy during its construction due to a lack of transparency about its potential environmental and social impacts.  

Thai villagers protesting against dams on the Mekong, with several placards mentioning Xayaburi. Critics have highlighted the adverse effects of the dam, one of Laos’s largest projects, on the river’s downstream biodiversity. Photo by Apichart Weerawong / Associated Press / Alamy.

But for local communities, the impacts are clear. Critics of the first “mega-dam” have cited adverse effects on downstream fisheries and the reduction of nutrient-rich sediment needed for the river’s biodiversity. They also raise concern about hydropeaking — sudden and artificial releases of water to meet short-term peaks in electricity demand — that affects riparian animals such as beach-nesting birds.

Since Xayaburi’s operations began, several hydropower dams have been planned for the Mekong. Key among them is the 1.5 GW dam near Unesco World Heritage site Luang Prabang, set to come online in 2030. Experts fear construction of the dam could lead to revocation of the site’s status.

Thailand has a dynamic environmental civil society space. The Sanakham dam project, for instance, 2 kilometers from the Thai border in Laos, has drawn criticism from groups for ecological threats. Other dams such as Pak Beng and Pak Lay, which Thailand have significant stakes in, have faced opposition as well as allegations of contentious studies and consultations. 

Thailand is the largest investor in Lao hydropower projects. The driving force behind these deals are Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) promising that Thailand will buy energy from the dams once completed. For years, however, organizations such as the Mekong People’s Network and Fair Finance Thailand have fought the construction of new dams and pushed back against PPAs. NGOs and researchers have called the dams a “false climate solution.”

A solar farm in central Thailand. The country is pushing for large solar projects and mass rooftop solar installations to shift away from liquefied natural gas and protect itself against price volatility. Photo by Thattaphon Sukborwornophat / Alamy.

Even with its big stakes in Lao hydropower, however, Thailand is beginning to invest heavily in solar. This is primarily to guard against rising prices of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), the country’s primary source of energy, from external shocks like the Strait of Hormuz crisis. In September 2026, it announced a drive to install 5 GW of rooftop solar within a year for this purpose. In its draft Power Development Plan 2026, nearly half of all its new renewable capacity between 2026 and 2037, totalling nearly 51 GW, is planned to come from solar.

Vietnam: A new type of battery

Power needs in Vietnam are surging, driven largely by the manufacturing sector. In March 2026, at the height of the dry season, Vietnam’s electricity consumption reached 1 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), months earlier than in previous years. By May, this reached 1.1 billion kWh, and authorities issued orders to maintain stable electricity supply through measures including importing more electricity from Laos and China. In the first quarter of 2026, energy imports from Laos grew nearly 120% compared to the same period in 2025.

In 2025, Vietnam imported roughly 1.5 GW of power from Laos, much of which was hydropower. As part of its revised PDP, released that same year, it aims to increase energy imports from Laos to at least 8 GW by 2030, up from 5 GW in the PDP published in 2023.

Together with Laos, Vietnam is actively increasing the interconnectivity infrastructure, contributing to the dream of connecting the grids of all countries in Southeast Asia. The latest project connecting the two countries is expected to be a 75-kilometer transmission line linking the Nam Nha Hydropower Complex in Houaphanh Province, north-eastern Laos, to the Vietnam border.

While hydropower will still be a key source of Vietnam’s energy imports from Laos, wind projects look set to comprise an increasingly significant share. Monsoon, Southeast Asia’s first cross-border wind project, began sending power to Vietnam in the latter half of 2025. The project, located in Laos’s Sekong and Attapeu provinces, produces 600 MW, which goes to its neighbor through a high-capacity 500-kV transmission line.

Wind and solar farms in southern Vietnam. While the country has started importing wind power from Laos, it is also trying to increase its own renewable generation capacity. Photo by Thinh Doan / Dialogue Earth.

More Lao wind energy import projects are on the horizon. Danish renewables investment firm Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Vietnamese developer Fecon have proposed a 1 GW onshore wind project in Savannakhet Province in southern Laos, mainly intended to power manufacturing hubs in Vietnam.

Vietnam’s revised PDP has increased the country’s ambitions for its own non-hydro renewable generation. Compared to its 2023 targets of producing around 43 GW from solar, wind and biomass by 2030, the revised PDP raises this figure to at least 75 GW.

Cambodia: Future for the grid

Cambodia has had difficulty powering rapid urbanization. Unplanned growth in cities like Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville has left authorities scrambling to keep pace with energy demand, which in 2025 increased by around 14% nationwide from the year before. Energy security has been helped by increases in solar, but the country still struggles with reliable energy, further strained by factors like the Strait of Hormuz crisis which has led to volatile prices of imported fuel.

Cambodia imports around 200 MW of hydropower from the Don Sahong Dam in Laos, controversial for its impacts on downstream fisheries and the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin. Cambodian civil society organizations have long pushed back against hydropower projects in the country and region. In 2020, the country implemented a 10-year ban on new dam projects on its mainstream Mekong, citing a need to diversify energy sources.

The Don Sahong Dam on the Mekong, right before it flows into Cambodia. The country imports 200 MW of hydropower from this dam, controversial for its impacts on downstream fisheries and the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin. Photo by Andy Ball / Dialogue Earth.

In the long run, Cambodia aims to continue importing power from Laos at a stable level, according to its Power Development Plan of 2022. This is expected to increase to around 3 GW by 2030 and remain the same until 2040.

But it hopes to eventually expand power sharing with Laos through one of the region’s most ambitious plans: a power grid connecting the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The initiative, which has been in the works since 1997, is a plan to eventually share energy across all members of the bloc, in both mainland and maritime Southeast Asia. In May 2026, the Asean Centre for Energy, Electricité du Cambodge and Electricité du Laos signed a joint study framework to advance cross-border connections, as part of a phased approach to advancing the Asean Power Grid. The framework involves collaboration on technical assessments, economic analysis and preliminary environmental assessments for future projects.

Laos and Cambodia took a major step towards regional grid interconnectivity in 2023 when they launched a high-capacity China-built 500-kilovolt transmission line linking a substation in Champasak Province in south-western Laos to its border with Cambodia.

Malaysia and Singapore: End of the line?

Neither Malaysia nor Singapore share a border with Laos, so the Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore Power Integration Project (LTMS-PIP), launched in 2022, has been hailed as a broad advancement for the Asean Power Grid.

From Laos, energy largely created by hydropower is sent through Thailand, which acts as a “wheeler” country to send electricity through to Malaysia and subsequently Singapore. The city-state began importing 100 MW from this system in 2022, making the LTMS-PIP’s first multilateral cross-border electricity trade through four ASEAN countries — all from Laos’s hydropower dams.

The capacity of tradable electricity was increased to 200 MW in the project’s second phase, launched in January 2026. This phase introduced multidirectional electricity trading, with Singapore importing the additional 100 MW from Malaysia.

Imported hydropower from Laos is part of how Singapore seeks to achieve its climate goals, but experts have raised concerns about the environmental impacts of Lao and Mekong dams, noting that it is more than just counting carbon.

Malaysia has started exporting power to Singapore through the Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore Power Integration Project, the first multilateral and multidirectional cross-border electricity trade through four Asean countries. Photo by Stephen Browne / Alamy.

Nevertheless, Singapore’s energy needs are helping to drive the Asean Power Grid ever further as the Sarawak-to-Singapore undersea connection is expected to have some engineering design studies complete by end-2026. The hydropower produced for export will come from Malaysian Borneo, with the project estimated to transmit a proposed 1 GW of energy by around 2035.

China: The battery’s builder

In April, the China-Laos cross-border power transmission line began operations, opening China’s domestic electricity market to Laos’s renewable energy generators. But Chinese involvement in Laos’s hydropower sector stretches back two decades. Today, many of Laos’s planned and completed Mekong mainstream hydropower dams have some involvement from Chinese companies, from ownership to loans and development at different levels. Major dam projects, like Pak Beng and Sanakham, cost at least US$2 billion each to build and are majority-owned by Chinese companies, while others like Don Sahong and Pak Lay have Chinese infrastructure developers.

Chinese companies have also helped build big dam projects on Mekong tributaries, such as the Nam Ou hydropower cascade, as well as non-hydro renewable projects like the 1 GW Oudomxay Solar Farm, the largest in Southeast Asia.

The Luang Prabang dam project, one of the few Lao dams with no Chinese involvement. Many of Laos’s planned and completed Mekong mainstream dams have Chinese companies with part ownership or development at different levels. Photo by Richard Sowersby / Alamy.

China’s development of Laos’s domestic resources has led to some pushback. These include strategic multilateralism concerns from the US about regional influence, and public opposition to mega-project dams due to their environmental and social impacts. Legal disputes have also arisen related to dam projects developed by China. For instance, in 2025, state-owned company PowerChina sued Electricite du Laos for US$555 million in unpaid dues for the Nam Ou hydropower project, reported Reuters.

With more hydropower dams planned for the Mekong mainstream coinciding with promises to expand energy exports, non-hydro renewable energy and the potential ASEAN power grid, the Battery of Southeast Asia could look very different in the future.

This article is originally published by Dialogue Earth and has been republished with permission. Read the article on Dialogue Earth here.

A lack of public spaces and activities has been a chronic problem plaguing Saigon’s urban planning since the city experienced its first population boom a few decades ago. If you happen to be near District 7 in the next two months, a pop-up park could be a new option for children, and perhaps some particularly exuberant adults, to frolic in the rain and the evening.

The temporary park installation project is simply called Night Park, or Công Viên Đêm in Vietnamese, designed by Saigon-based architecture firm Studio Anettai. Based in P2 Park of Tân Hưng Ward, the amenity is free to visit from 3pm to 8pm every day, September 4–November 1, 2026.

The creation of the project takes inspiration from Saigon’s tropical rain, which dominates the local climate every year during the six-month rainy season. Older Saigoneers remember the bouts of rain during their childhood fondly as a great opportunity to play around in the rain with neighborhood friends — a luxury that children growing up in the busy 2020s might not have.

The Night Park has two areas: Night Plaza and Rain Park. The latter was conceptualized specifically based on the joy of playing in the rain. It features a 20-meter-long structure designed to catch and filter rainwater to make it safe for children to play with. The kids can observe the entire process to learn how the water goes from droplets in the sky to the basin. While this water is not drinkable, it is safe to be loaded into hand pumps and splashed around with your best mates.

The Night Plaza is a simple section on the grass with seats and a collection of outdoor lamps specifically crafted for the installation by local designer mài (@mai.cuahang_). The lamps provide enough illumination for a cozy evening hangout, but not so glaring that it might be too harsh on the eyes.

During the two months of its stay, the Night Park will play host to two events: Water Evening (September 19) and Water in the City (October 3). Water Evening will take place in tandem with the Trung Thu celebration organized by Phú Mỹ Hưng, including a walk, a yoga session, and a lantern parade — the yoga activity requires prior registration and a fee.

Water in the City is an education workshop organized by Gieo Collective, that aims to “share stories of the Saigon River from their project ‘The River Tells Its Tales’ — the high tides, and the livelihoods that depend on the flood,” according to the Night Park website.

Visit the Night Park website for more details on the project and how to register for the aforementioned events.

Photos courtesy of Studio Anettai.

A stone's throw away from Cúc Phương National Park in Ninh Bình Province sits Lá Library, an education center promoting sustainable living through sustainable agriculture farming, earthen building techniques and the art of chilling out.

Run by a small group of young Hải Phòng and Hanoi locals, the project was established in 2016 and has quietly developed to become a regional example of a simple alternative lifestyle.

Lá Library sits on a 15,000-square-meter plot, and the team of four friends and housemates collectively run the food forest, while also running Lá Architects & Construction, the earthen-building design agency. They also lead an array of programs ranging from gardening and organic materials research to sculpture. A makerspace in the communal nhà sàn is available, welcoming artists and creatives to experiment with natural materials.

When asked why he started the project, founder Nguyễn Minh Vũ says, “We want to put an end to the education of damaging which teaches people to change and fight nature, we want to establish a new education of living in harmony with nature, where human beings are a part of nature and all living activities stick to healing nature, such as building the soil, building homes with natural materials, etc.”

One of the buildings on the grounds of Lá Library. Photo by Ellie Shipman.

They spent years recovering the nutrients that were depleted by the pineapple farm that was previously located here; now, the grounds are dense with stands of fruit, vegetables, herbs, nuts and even honey. The daily rituals include gathering food for woodfire cooking, spotting the broccoli from afar, discovering eggplants hidden under leaves, craning necks helplessly at the ripened pawpaw desperately too high — for the non-tree climber.

All daily chores fall in line with the project's educational philosophy: “Life.” Says Vũ, “I manage to have a living style of sustainability which connects all living activities with healing nature. We cook with a fire stove, we use organic waste and ashes for the garden. We lead the grey water to a swale near the house, then anytime we wash our veggies or dishes, the garden is watered. I can share so many simple things like these.”

Many of the center’s activities revolve around the development of earthen-building techniques, and those interested can visit Lá to learn first-hand skills ranging from bamboo building design and Japanese wattle and daub construction to making compressed earthen blocks (CEB) to adobe bricklaying.

Building Lá Library with natural materials. Photo by Nguyễn Minh Vũ.

Ellie Shipman spent time at La and recounted her experience: “I learnt so much more than I expected all round, but particularly how the building, the food and the people are all interconnected to the local landscape. The building materials and our food were coming from the ground on site, and to be fueled by this food and use it to turn these natural clays and stone into a structure was an incredible learning experience.”

“The workshop I attended at Lá Library was a five-day course on natural building construction techniques,” added Francesco Montresor, another visitor. “It was focused on continuing the construction of the library that had been started by the Lá Library Team. At that time, the bamboo roof was already up, but some walls still had to be completed, and all of them had to be plastered. The bricks, the mortar and the plaster, were all made of various proportions of soil, clay, and rice husk, and much of our work revolved around digging soil, digging soil, and digging soil. Soil was then mixed with our feet on big tarps and used to make bricks, as mortar, or plaster. A lot of soil, very brown and very orange. By the end of the day we would be covered in soil. It is a good mosquito repellent. Lots of mosquitoes at Lá Library!”

Soil-covered feet. Photo by Ellie Shipman.

In 2018, Lá Architects & Construction, the group’s architecture agency, was established to provide consultancy and construction services for external clients. This was an important milestone for the group, and now with some projects constructed around Hanoi, it gives them more opportunities to share their knowledge and philosophy.

“We consider ourselves as connectors, between people and nature; and as successors of ancient and modern achievement,” Vu explained. “Hence, each and every construction is based on people's needs and our observation of natural factors combined with landscape design for a true home to crop up from the land.”

Sunset over the lake on the grounds of Lá Library. Photo by Ellie Shipman.

In January, I was asked to animal-sit the library’s pets. I had met Vũ some months earlier when he was leading the “Tiny House” construction workshop at Xóm Bắc Cầu Garden in Hanoi and, to be honest, my frustratingly cynical tendencies and pathetically urban reference base laced my curiosity with doubt. Perhaps we are led to believe in the impossibility of truly sustainable living, for surely the concept of self-sustainability does not feed into a capitalist market economy. Is it all too good to be true? All I know is that in the space of 24 hours, Vũ had us ripping our own yam out of the ground for dinner.

As Montresor puts it: “The experience is amazing mostly because of the people running the space, a super friendly group of young and talented people that are taking things slow and stress-free, because that's how you should take life.”

This article was originally published in 2021.

Education is a lifelong journey, so it’s no surprise that some parts of learning require a trip away from the familiar. Within the rolling hills of Lào Cai stands Ardingly College Vietnam (ACVN), an institution dedicated to providing a space and community that nurtures not only students from Vietnam, but also from across the globe.

Saigoneer’s visit to ACVN last month was particularly illuminating because when deciding where to send my daughter for school, I hadn't considered a boarding school, in part because Vietnam didn't offer one at the time. Saigoneer’s time in Lào Cai thus provided an introduction to boarding schools broadly, as well as the unique pastoral atmosphere carefully cultivated amongst a stunning natural environment.

Parents of children who attend schools in Saigon or Hanoi may often reflect mournfully on the cement, construction, traffic, and chaos that surrounds a daily commute to classes. Arriving at ACVN was the complete opposite. Against a constant backdrop of lush mountains, greenery occupied every direction I looked; the fresh air was palpable, as was the sheer space to move and think. More than providing merely pretty scenery, the setting has a profound impact on the ACVN experience.

“It’s really about that outdoor experiential learning, being able to take students outside into the environment a lot more,” explained Craig Lewis, the school’s headmaster. Because of its rural setting, ACVN enjoys possibly the largest plot size for an international school. This translates into lovely areas for sporting events and indoor swimming pools but also excellent facilities. From state-of-the-art science laboratories to libraries and art rooms, these facilities rival those of the urban international schools many will be familiar with. During my tour, I was particularly impressed with the art exhibitions, which not only reveal the excellence of the facilities, but the school’s emphasis on holistic skills and the curation of individual creativity.

“We talk about holistic development of a child, but we really want that,” Lewis said when I visited for a chat in his office. He stressed that the school aims to develop students “who have respect, have resilience, have compassion, are service-oriented and are globally aware. We also want our students to come out having done a lot more than just academics.” A makerspace, lab system, library with 6,000 books, music room, auditorium, and sports fields all contribute to the goal of nurturing students beyond academics.

The school’s House System, a core tenet of authentic British boarding schools, also plays a major role in fostering well-rounded young adults. My daughter’s school in Saigon uses a house system, so I am familiar with how their healthy competitions and challenges not just teach teamwork and leadership, but are also a great source of fun and excitement. "The kids love it because it breaks up what they think of as the academic day at school,” Lewis confirmed before explaining the character traits students gain amidst the fun. “When you have these house events, we talk about winning, but how do you lose with integrity? That’s just as important as learning how to win: to lose with integrity, or to learn how to be better, without it being someone else’s fault and without having a negative impact on your community; working out how to positively work together.”

While familiar with top-tier facilities and the house system, I arrived at ACVN completely ignorant of how the “boarding” part of a boarding school operates and had many questions that Lewis patiently answered. First off, he noted that students cannot board until secondary school at age 12, when they are mature enough to thrive in the environment. And there are multiple boarding options available, including partial boarding wherein students spend weekdays at the school but return to their families on weekends. Both options are “based around safety, support and pastoral care. It’s based around extra tutoring support to help academic growth.”

When observing some of these boarding students, I was struck by not only how content they looked, but how mature and independent they behaved. This, Lewis said, is by design. “It’s learning how to take care of themselves; just everyday things like doing their own laundry. Even though we have staff dedicated to helping and supporting them to get up and have meals, they still have to learn to develop that themselves.”

This balance of supervised support and freedom that boarding students experience extends beyond routine daily tasks like ironing clothes and cleaning their rooms to academic, co-curricular and social development. “It’s about creating independent, globally well-rounded students who have the chance to interact with other international students while living together.” The impact of these social opportunities is profound, he said, noting, “They start to support and interact with each other and actually follow each other’s passions and start to work together and enjoy each other’s things, things they wouldn’t have thought of before. It’s exposure to it, and it’s wonderful to see.”

Such support and interaction is embedded in the daily schedule which begins on weekdays at 6:30 wakeup and progresses to breakfast at 7:10 followed by homeroom tutor time from 7:45 until 8:00 when regular academic classes with breaks continues until 15:30. The rest of the afternoon is occupied by extracurricular activities and sports until dinner at 18:00 followed by study hall and preperations from 18:40 until 20:10 after which students are free for relaxing and snacks until handheld devices are turned in during a house meeting at 21:00 followed by lights off before 22:00. Weekends are more flexible with free time, optional trips and and organized activities.

Throughout the entire week teachers, of course, play an important role. Lewis said that the system is also “about the support and care that we give these students …. the opportunities that we give to students outside of academic curriculum time, where we can actually individualize their passions in a way that we may not be able to with a day student.”

ACVN seems particularly able to provide this personalized attention because of the diverse and committed staff. I observed a close-knit group of international teachers not only smiling together during meals but then working with students after dinner. Because the teachers also live on campus, there are significant opportunities for pastoral care after classes and on weekends that would not be available were it not a boarding school.

Of course, parents will have concerns about being away from their children. Lewis and the entire team make great efforts to educate parents on the benefits and logistics of the boarding school system and ensure families stay in touch via scheduled calls and frequent communication. “Usually, by the time students come home for their first break or holiday and say how much they love boarding and how they’ve made friends, the parents tend to feel better. The children then tend to be able to express themselves to their family more, so it’s actually quite a positive experience,” he said with satisfaction.

By the end of my conversation and tour, I was imagining if the fates had shifted and I had sent my daughter to ACVN. Learning about the school’s values, aims and operations gave me confidence that she would thrive here. I think she would be included in Lewis’ description of his favorite response from students: “‘God, we were happy here. We had a great time. We made friends, we supported each other, and we got great results.’”

Does a house need walls?

That's not a rhetorical question. And the answer is no. Mac Casa is a Saigon house designed by CTA Creative Architects; it lacks a single door frame, making use of elevation shifts and natural elements to separate rooms and signify disparate spaces.

Constructed as a second home next to the owner's main dwelling, it is situated in a typical city area which presents familiar problems of space, light and airflow. The architects responded to the challenges by rejecting urban topographies and elements, instead embracing free-flowing movement more frequently associated with the countryside. 

The home's most overt departure from norms is seen in its lack of doors, including one's absence at a front entrance. Instead, between the street front and the home's entry with garage rests a fish-filled body of water that could rightly be called a moat, were one keen on calling to mind a castle. No drawbridge exists; however, the stepping stones across the water are easily navigated. A fence in the front and a vegetable garden at the rear provide security and shield from noise and leering eyes, while the far-reaching roof slopes low over the front and back to provide shade. The bathroom doesn't even have a door, with the floor plan relying on hallways and angles to provide privacy.

In addition to the garden at the rear and row of vegetation between the front fence and pond, patches of plants occupy various points throughout the home. The greenery serves to separate the activities in the house: a quiet zone for working and relaxing in a jacuzzi in the rear and a more active front area consisting of the kitchen and living room. Sleeping quarters are tucked off to the side. 

The lack of front and back walls allows for ample airflow and natural light, which is enhanced thanks to a central skylight. Z-shaped louvers beneath the glass draw warm air up out of the home while allowing in fresh light for the plants and people below. Carefully constructed mesh casts captivating shadows throughout the interior. The sense of nature's intrusion on the domestic sphere is further established via the rustic building materials which include exposed stone, brick and wood and overall warm, muted tones.

Young people today fantasize about finally owning a set of keys to their own home, but perhaps really making it means owning a home that doesn't even have a door to unlock. 

Take a peek at more photos and the floor plan of this envy-worthy abode below:

Photos by Hiroyuki Oki via ArchDaily.

Can you name a Vietnamese animal that hasn’t been hunted to the precipice of extinction or become a commodified item whose flesh, fur, or feathers are only deemed significant in relation to their practical use by humans?

It’s not so easy to think of one, but there is an enormous example: Gigantopithecus. A massive orangutan-like ape believed to have weighed 200 to 300 kilograms and stood over 3 meters tall rambled around modern-day China and northern Vietnam some two million years ago. 

Speculative scene of Giganthopithecus by Garcia/Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University. Image via National Geographic.

Gigantopithecus, the largest homonoid known to have walked the earth, was first discovered because of the same superstitions that doom animals today: traditional medicine. In early 20^th-century China, bones and teeth were used for all sorts of elixirs and potions passed off as “dragon bones.” Vendors hardly took a scientist’s eyes to the calcium, keratin, and enamel specimens kept in their drawers before pulverizing them. Knowing this, Ralph von Koenigswald, a Dutch geologist and paleontologist, made a habit of scouring apothecaries while researching in the region. In Hong Kong in 1925, he noticed a molar that appeared human-like but was five times the size of his own.

Gigantopithecus's holotype molar (left) and mandible (right). Images via Wikipedia.

Recognizing the importance of the finding, Koenigswald arranged scientific expeditions in mainland China. With the help of local marketing and supply cooperatives, he narrowed his search to caves in southern China, near the border with Vietnam, where he discovered hundreds more of the animal's teeth. The large teeth were distinct enough to warrant classification as an entirely new species, and in an all-too-familiar situation, he named the species Gigantopithecus blacki, in honor of Canadian palaeo-anthropologist Davidson Black, who had studied human evolution in China and had died the previous year.

Modern-day photo of Dinghu Mountain in Zhaoqing, Guangdong Province, southern China, which is believed to resemble the habitat of Gigantopithecus. Photo via Wikimedia.

In the subsequent decades, researchers discovered hundreds more Gigantopithecus teeth and four mandibles, including at cave sites in Vietnam. The research trips included American scientists working despite the 1990 embargo, suggesting that perhaps pursuit of science supersedes political posturing. While the sites contained significant mouth matter, the sizable skeletons are assumed to have been eaten by porcupines before they could fossilize. Still, scientists can make astounding understandings from fragments. Observing the large, flat molars with thick enamel attached to heavy jaws and analyzing residue on the teeth allowed them to conjecture that Gigantopithecus survived on tough, fibrous plant matter. Later examinations of carbon residues left on the teeth with high-powered microscopes suggest the apes had a mixed diet of fruits and fig seeds along with some variety of grasses, probably bamboo. 

Giganthopithecus compared to modern-day orangutan as speculated for the Brainmaze.

This diet and estimations about its anatomy mean that compared to its closest relative, the modern-day orangutan, adult Gigantopithecus were likely too large to climb into trees to forage for fruits. Mathematical modeling places it at more than 10 feet tall and 1,200 pounds (for comparison, the average gorilla tops out at around 400 pounds). Such understanding has allowed scientists and artists to make educated depictions about its appearance, but there is no certainty about elements including fur color or bulk. Aspects of their behavior, temperament, intelligence, and social bonds can only be guessed at with the help of related species.

The misty line between fossil and legend

Gigantopithecus is believed to have existed for approximately one million years, up until about 100,000 years ago, which would have meant it could have occupied the same forests and jungles as early humans. While people are not believed to have contributed to their extinction (more on that to come), run-ins with the animals continue to populate myths and legends as intertwined with stories of Yeti and mysterious ape monsters.

Yeti as depicted in popular western legend and spectacle, specifically an American comic from 1971. Photo via New York Times.

The Yeti, a hairy, ape-like hominoid, has been said to roam the Himalayan mountains, with legends passing from Tibetan and Russian communities to the west where it is occasionally referred to as the Abominable Snowman. Owing to the region’s remoteness, intrigue persisted into the mid-20^th century when western explorers arrived to obtain dubious evidence, including grainy photographs, large footprints, and mysterious strands of hair to delight foreign audiences. Every pelt debunked by DNA testing and piece of available modern technology increased skepticism until we arrived at the current widespread belief that no such cryptid exists.

However, amongst certain cryptozoology communities, the Yeti might still be out there, explained as a small, persisting population of isolated Gigantopithecus and their descendants. Putting aside the fact that the icy mountains do not resemble the ecosystems the ape is known to have inhabited, some believe that a group has survived tens of thousands of years and adapted to the climate. Moreover, Yetis are nearly always described as bipedal while Gigantopithecus is thought to have walked on all fours like an orangutan, for which no convincing explanation has been offered. The efforts to connect the Yeti to the great ape ultimately say more about 21^st-century people’s desire to ground myth in science and our current age’s desire for empirical truth than any likelihood that Gigantopithecus is an extant species.

The rock ape as depicted in the Cryptid Archives.

We should apply a similar skepticism to claims that Gigantopithecus is behind the rock ape legends that circulated during Vietnam’s war with America. While never receiving formal academic journal coverage or serious news attention, if you spend time on GI blogs and subreddits, you will encounter mention of rock apes. These creatures, whose observers are adamant were normal animals and not mythic beasts, were given their name because of their penchant for throwing rocks at soldiers. While sightings of the creatures and their prints and fur predate and postdate the war, and were also made by Vietnamese forces, they were most widely reported by American soldiers in highland posts. Despite heights significantly less than Gigantopithecus’ 10 feet, some attempt to explain them as remote communities of the species agitated by the presence of armed forces. 

The fact that rock apes have not been seen in the past several decades should convince us that they never existed at all, let alone as Gigantopithecus. But we can also make some conclusions about the psyche of soldiers during the war. Overwhelmed by the savagery of their assignments and the strangeness of their surroundings, troops latched onto the surreal to maintain sanity. Such an interpretation coincides with the existence of a large ape-like creature in Bảo Ninh’s The Sorrow of War, wherein a soldier kills an orangutan-like creature, despite none existing in the nation. Rather than reveal a potential lost species, such instances can be interpreted as man’s inability to explain the horrors of war in rational terms. Only by evoking the possibility of extinct species and the unlikelihood of prehistoric life persisting until today can there be room to justify the barbarity humans inflict upon itself.

An extinction explained

If we can assume Gigantopithecus did not persist in the Himalayas or remote Vietnamese forests and is in fact extinct, how did it happen? Scientists have some thrilling theories. Simply put, they were too big to adapt to climate change. Animals as large as Gigantopithecus have massive metabolic needs while producing few children, which makes them particularly vulnerable to the changes in vegetation that result from altered global temperatures and precipitation patterns. Unfortunately for them, this is exactly what began to happen around 300,000 years ago. 

During this period, what had been tropical forest became grassier patches of land, as determined by analysis of pollen in the fossil record. A recent academic paper explained that “Just before and during the extinction window between 295,000 and 215,000 years ago there was enhanced environmental variability from increased seasonality, which caused changes in plant communities and an increase in open forest environments. Although its close relative Pongo weidenreichi [orangutans] managed to adapt its dietary preferences and behaviour to this variability, G. blacki showed signs of chronic stress and dwindling populations. Ultimately, its struggle to adapt led to the extinction of the greatest primate to ever inhabit the Earth.” 

The extinction would not have been a fast process. Rather, as the forests grew drier, the abundance of the ape’s preferred food would have been less available. While young Gigantopithecus, as well as the orangutans who once inhabited Vietnam, could have climbed trees to access fruit, adults would have been reliant on dwindling plants on the ground. Evidence reveals they were forced to turn to more tree bark, reeds, and non-nutritious ruffage.  Given their large size, this was ultimately not enough. As their preferred foods disappeared, and they couldn’t adapt to the plants that emerged to fill the niche, they disappeared. We will never know where or when the last great ape perished. 

Photo via Reddit.

What should we take from Gigantopithecus’s disappearance? In one sense, it is comforting to know that humans are not the cause of all extinctions, and like dinosaurs, all species will meet an eventual end. But I refuse for this to be my conclusion, as such a perspective can easily become an excuse to continue our wanton destruction of the environment and its inhabitants. Rather, I would like the life of Gigantopithecus to remind us that the world is capable of wonders, but only if we allow it time and space. No great ape can populate reclaimed land encrusted with cement towers looming beside sundered mangrove forests; no mammals can thrive on deforested coasts converted to luxury resorts; and no creature will evolve amidst the hammering of karsk stone into a fabricated European amusement park. We never knew Gigantopithecus, and think of all the other fantastic plants and animals we will never know if we don’t get our shit together and stop treating the planet as a commodity instead of a blessing. 

Do you love the tropical summer? Does bathing in the warmth of the sun spark joy in you? How many windows are enough to solar-power your everyday life? If you, too, are toiling with these existential concerns on a daily basis, perhaps this recent residential project might provide some inspiration.

Saigon-based Inrestudio designed the impressively spacious 100 Windows house for a two-generation family living in suburban Hanoi in 2025. The homestead is to provide enough living space for three family units: two parents and the families of their two sons.

Based on a plot of land by the river in the capital, the house stands out amid a mish-mash of low-lying homes and factories. The area used to be agricultural land, but has since grown into an up-and-coming small town that’s neither urban nor rural. Therefore, knowing that the town’s urban makeup would likely see major transformations in the future, the architects made design decisions that would hopefully future-proof the home in the face of future developments.

The standout feature that would immediately attract attention is a layer of “loose double skin,” as the architects call it, that wraps around the upper floor. The finish is terracotta-colored stucco, which allows the building to blend in with the roofs of its neighbors. Functionally, the skin could provide insulation and buffer from the heat and cold air of Hanoi’s seasonal temperature changes.

Of course, one can’t ignore the name 100 Windows, because this skin is dotted with a plethora of windows — it is uncertain whether the exact number approximates 100, but we’re not free enough to sit here and count, though any reader can make an attempt and let us know the verdict. These openings are irregularly shaped and placed, creating visual interest while confusing nosy neighbors as to what the actual layout of the rooms inside might be.

Have a closer look at Hanoi’s fascinating 100 Windows house below:

Images by Trieu Chien courtesy of Inrestudio.

Lào Cai: the name conjures images of expansive natural fields in the shadows of harsh mountains as well as ethnic minority communities and traditional lifestyles. Many may know that this diverse location challenges people’s assumptions about Vietnam, but few would imagine it is the setting for Vietnam's first authentic British boarding school

Importing England’s boarding school traditions to Vietnam

Before explaining why Lào Cai is a great place for a boarding school, we must define what one is, because outside of England, where they are most cherished, many are unfamiliar. Most simply, students who enroll in a boarding school live at the school while taking classes, with the “board” referring to “room and board,” or food and lodging. But more than just providing meals and a place to sleep, boarding schools provide access to enriching co-curricular opportunities, important social and cultural exchanges, and opportunities for personal growth and group responsibilities within the House System.

While boarding schools developed in different countries, they have been uniquely important in the UK. Since medieval times, British families have sent their children to boarding schools to broaden their academic horizons and experience the world. As Britain expanded its colonial empire, the schools took on increased importance as means of maintaining and spreading British culture and values. Holding an esteemed position within British society to this day, boarding schools have produced several Prime Ministers and many notable politicians, businesspeople and artists, attesting to the diverse success they foster.

It is within this context that Ardingly College Vietnam (ACVN) recently opened its doors in Lào Cai to welcome not only Vietnamese but also international students.

The varied virtues of Lào Cai

Lào Cai’s rugged mountains and scenic countryside are home to unique cultures at the nexus of integration and isolation and slippery histories of people, places and nations that refuse coherent narratives that can be printed on a tourist brochure. This fertile land of contradictions supports ACVN’s educational mission and holistic values. As senior leadership explained to Saigoneer: “Lào Cai transforms ACVN into more than a school—it becomes a hub of experiential, place-based education. The mountains, rivers, and markets are extensions of the classroom, while cultural immersion and outdoor exploration enrich students’ personal growth.”

The clearest way to understand how Lào Cai transforms the school is to look at the ways it is integrated into classroom lessons. For example, in geography classes, students can study the Himalayan foothills and Fansipan peak when learning about mountain ecosystems, climate diversity, and sustainable tourism. Lào Cai’s location on the Vietnam–China border allows students to intuitively grasp how geography shapes trade and migration. And with more than 20 ethnic groups in the area, lessons related to diversity and cultural exchange are natural and accessible. “In a way, the whole surrounding area is our classroom; learning is not confined to the school, so the students have no trouble switching between in and out of the ‘bubble,’” they note.

Beyond the classroom, ACVN’s location allows students to participate in extracurricular activities unavailable in many locations, particularly Vietnam’s cities. Trekking mountains, traversing valleys, or camping in nature affords students experiential learning related to ecology, agriculture, and cultural anthropology. They can collaborate with local musicians and dancers and attend performances that celebrate ethnic traditions, illuminating new perspectives on the place of creativity within society. Finally, student groups and classes can partner with local ethnic communities for service projects and workshops that instill the importance of aid and community while revealing one’s privileged place in the world. 

The powerful House System and beyond

Many of the co-curricular opportunities at British boarding schools revolve around the House System that most Harry Potter fans will have at least a loose understanding of. Each residential house and its attendant staff and faculty at ACVN ensure all needs, including space to study and time to connect with distant family, are met while also providing opportunities for personal and social growth via the competitions and challenges that take place between houses throughout the year.

“Traits such as collaboration, resilience, leadership, and respect for diversity are woven into every club and house initiative, ensuring students learn to thrive both individually and as part of a team. The house system, in particular, fosters belonging and healthy competition, while co-curricular activities encourage creativity, service, and global citizenship,” school leadership explained. “Together, they create a safe, supportive environment where students from any country feel included, empowered, and inspired to grow holistically.”

House activities and co-curricular opportunities all allow students to learn about and practice healthy competition, creativity, service, and global citizenship, as they develop into well-balanced and socially adept young adults prepared for diverse futures. “Co-curricular life at ACVN is not simply enrichment; it is a foundation for success, character, and connection in whatever paths our graduates pursue,” representatives note.

The many positive impacts of the house system and co-curricular activities require strong and careful leadership. ACVN faculty monitors students closely to ensure healthy interactions and experiences, with strict protocols in place to maintain a culture where every child—regardless of background—feels valued, supported, and confident to thrive among peers.

Bridging the distances of boarding schools

A boarding school’s ability to nourish children in a rigorous and accepting environment has many positive impacts on a child’s development into a motivated and independent learner,  leader, and contributor to society as a whole. Understandably, many families wonder what might be lost in this process. How can parents continue to have a prominent role in their children’s lives if so far away? ACVN understands the importance of remaining connected to families and has established daily catch-up time every evening after students have completed their homework so they can share their exciting experiences from the day. Moreover, families are always welcome to visit, and for those living close to the school, partial board options allow students the best of both worlds, spending three days per week at the boarding school while still spending evenings and weekends with family. A boarding school doesn’t replace one’s parents and siblings, but simply expands the opportunities and sources of influence a child has.

Unexpectedly, because they are less bound by addresses and traffic patterns, boarding schools can be far more diverse than familiar international schools located in a metropolis. “For Southeast Asian students, the location feels familiar and accessible. For students from further afield—whether Europe, Africa, or the Americas—it offers something wonderfully different: a chance to experience Vietnam’s mountain frontier, engage with multiple cultures, and grow in a safe, supportive boarding community,” school leadership explains. “In short, ACVN doesn’t just serve one region—it embodies the idea that international education should be inclusive, global, and transformative for all students, wherever they come from. The school’s setting in Lào Cai amplifies that mission by making the world feel both bigger and closer at the same time.”

“The products we make are fake arms, legs, noses, ears… from silicone. The value we create is emotional healing, giving our customers confidence in themselves and their lives — the things they lack after surgeries,” Phúc shared while introducing their products. 

It wasn’t hard for me to find Phúc’s office, though his space lay deep in a twisted alley of Hoàng Mai District, where the houses seem to be numbered randomly. The enthusiastic “tour guide” I had that day was Hiệp, Phúc’s partner for the last four years.

With a floor space of 12m², the three-story house that they rent serves as an office, warehouse and showroom, as well as a workshop where they create prostheses like fingers, toes, ears and noses for people who have lost such body parts.

Phúc casting a mold for a hand.

Creating prosthetics is not a new thing in Vietnam. There are many factories with modern technology creating a diverse range of products from plastic, silicone, electronics, etc. These products can perform some basic functions like grasping or opening, but aesthetics and personalization are still not important factors.

Hiệp showed me two large plastic boxes containing sample products. At first glance, they looked quite like the costumes people buy for Halloween. He encouraged me to try on a prosthetic finger to get a feel for the material and adhesion of the product. It took me a while to find one with the same skin tone as mine, and Hiệp carefully showed me how to put them on and told me about the requirements of a prosthetic finger: “The most important thing is naturalness: looking natural and feeling natural. Most of our customers are those who have lost a small part of their bodies. The need for functionality is there, but it is not as important as aesthetics. From skin tone, shape, size, adhesion, to small details like nails, fingerprints, curls, etc., all need attention.”

Hiệp painting an ear.

I was most impressed with a jar containing 20 prosthetic noses that Hiệp and Phúc had meticulously created over three months for a girl in Lâm Đồng who was infected with the Whitmore “flesh-eating” bacteria. These noses looked similar at first, all had the fashionable L-line with a bright tone, but upon careful inspection, there were minute differences in hue and thickness.

Phúc explained: “The nose is the center of the face, so if we’re not careful, people will know it is fake. The girl also lives far away, so she only had two chances to come here for sampling and testing. We were determined to create many samples for her to try until we found a suitable shape and tone. Fortunately in the end we were able to make one that fit her well, and it is hard to recognize even without makeup covering the edge.”

Prosthetic fingers are best-sellers. Most customers lose theirs in workplace accidents.

Phúc and Hiệp’s customers are diverse, from those who suffer from accidents at work, at home, in traffic, to those with birth defects. Each has their own wound, but they share the same struggles: low self-esteem and loss of faith in life. I heard many stories that day, not only people’s names, their hometowns, their wounds and how they got them, but also their pessimistic feelings in the past.

About their special products, Phúc shared: “Our high standards for aesthetics and personalization are not just for the sake of beauty, but for the emotional needs. The pain of losing a limb will pass, but the fear and disappointment can follow them forever. Currently, the treatment process at hospitals’ orthopedic wards has barely addressed this issue. We’ve met many patients who are traumatized after their accident and treatment. Some people dare not to see their wounds for months, some run away from their family, some leave their work for fear they can’t fit in again.”

A prosthetic foot requires a natural look, as well as demanding precision to facilitate movement.

Due to the emphasis on personalization, the production process is not fixed. The basic initial steps are measuring and casting molds for the missing parts, then creating the right skin color for the customer. Hiệp explained: “The hard thing is that the skin doesn't have a fixed color, it changes with the weather, human activities, it fades overtime, etc. Furthermore, with clay and silicone, the colors when blended usually look different than the manufacturer’s instructions.” He shared an example: “One time, I was very happy with a prosthetic foot that I made. But when the person put it on, it was a cold winter day and they didn’t wear socks, the other foot was completely white. So the foot I made didn’t match at all.”

Hiệp said that the process from consultation to final product takes at least two weeks, and starting prices range VND1–3 million. But many times the cost for prototypes is five or six times higher than the price quoted to customers. After four years in this field, they have created hundreds of prototypes, a sacrifice for the most perfect product. When they first started, Vietnam did not have any private prosthetic workshops. There was no production process, and materials were rare as well. The duo had to research and experiment themselves. Prior to this project, Phúc had ample experience in silicone shaping, while Hiệp used to work as a testing technician. But when it comes to this particular field, that experience didn't help much.

A customer trying on a prosthetic ear.

Now, their production process is established and they have gained some recognition, mainly through word of mouth. Yet the duo still does everything themselves, from consultations and production to marketing and delivery. When asked why they haven’t expanded the business, Phúc explained: “It’s not that we don’t want to hire more people, it’s just that this work demands a lot of patience and fastidiousness. It is not an easy thing to find a companion who is careful and skilled.”

Talking about this field’s potential, Phúc said there is a high demand in the country: “Although we have only done some basic marketing ourselves, we are always overloaded. I trust more and more people with limb loss will find these products. Because as living standards get higher, more people will need products that can bring mental and emotional values.”

About their vision, Hiệp shared: “Although there is a lot of potential, I think this is not something you can get rich from…Because the handmade process takes a lot of time and energy. I think there will be chances for collaboration in the far future, but for now, due to a lack of workers and materials, Phúc and I will just maintain the production scale as-is.”

To find out more about Phúc and Hiệp’s work, visit their Facebook page.

Photos courtesy of Phúc and Hiệp.

“It was my uncle who came up with the design. There are no drawings left; everything was improvised back then,” the owner of a modernist homestay in Ninh Thuận told me. No architect, just an idea and a craftsman to pour it into concrete.

Modernism is usually a language spoken only by architects. But in Vietnam, ordinary people picked it up too. It became the routine way to build a shophouse or a villa across the south. And like any language spoken that widely, it started to develop accents.

Independence in 1954 gave modernism its opening. Years of war had made rebuilding a priority, and for the first time Vietnam's own architects were in charge. They chose modernism as a statement: forward-looking and nothing like the neo-classical buildings the French had left behind.

The style quickly outgrew its architects. In Vietnam, most people build their own homes, and the improvisation the Ninh Thuận homestay owner described to me is probably how the style spread: a homeowner likes his neighbor's brise-soleil, and the house down the street takes it up too. A shape passed from door to door, until it became vernacular: the language of ordinary people.

The whole of southern Vietnam speaks this concrete language, but if you travel from the Mekong Delta up along the South-Central coast, you'll notice each area has its own quirks. Maybe it comes from local folk aesthetics, or the way each town answers its own sun and wind. Either way, communities developed their own dialects. Sometimes it's just an accent: the straight vertical slat of a Saigon brise-soleil can end in a small curve in Quy Nhơn. Sometimes it's whole new slang: a shading device that curls back on itself, which I've only found in Ninh Thuận.

Southern Vietnamese vernacular modernism is a language from the streets, twisted a little by every hand that built it, full of odd wordings too joyful for the polished modernism they teach in textbooks. Like any language, it rewards you slowly: it’s the small thrill of someone learning French who finally hears that everyday conversations in Paris and Brussels don't sound the same. See enough of Vietnam's modernist houses, across enough towns, and you'll start to hear the dialects too: Quy Nhơn doesn't sound like Mỹ Tho.

Clouds of Quy Nhơn

Where a Saigon brise-soleil stays straight, in Quy Nhơn, the concrete lines loosen into intersecting swirls, perhaps an abstraction of clouds. This distinctive brise-soleil shape can also be found in surrounding towns such as An Nhơn.

Pastel-blue painted shophouse in Quy Nhơn city center.

Shophouse with đá rửa finishing in Quy Nhơn city center.

Villa in the outskirts of An Nhơn built in 1987.

Shophouse on Trần Hưng Đạo street in Quy Nhơn city center.

Holes of Phú Yên

An hour south, in Phú Yên, façades are riddled with ventilation holes: triangles, hearts, arrows, more triangles, and in one house, against all odds, a helicopter. This perforation habit reached Quy Nhơn too, but never with the same intensity.

Villa in Xuân Lộc, with a perforated red beam.

Villa in Xuân Lộc, with blue-contoured motifs and holes scattered across the façade.

Villa in Xuân Lộc, where a helicopter hides among the geometric motifs.

Villa in Xuân Lộc, white-contoured motifs running along the whole house.

Villa in Xuân Lộc, with walls tiled in yellow and white.

Villa in Xuân Lộc, with purple contours tracing the holes.

Curls of Ninh Thuận

In Vĩnh Hải, concrete shading devices that frame porches and balconies are curled, often finishing in a hook. Each one is outlined with a raised contour, painted in the blue or white typical of seaside towns everywhere.

Villa in Mỹ Tân, its façade engraved with plants and flowers.

Villa in Mỹ Tường built in 1990, the date set in relief on the porch.

Villa in Mỹ Tân built in 1989, with details painted in blue.

Villa in Mỹ Phong with a street restaurant in front.

Porches of the Mekong Delta

In the Mekong Delta, the modernist dialect is less a motif than a structure: villas set behind a porch, almost always resting on four columns creating a kind of triptych, the beam above held by pairs or trios of concrete fins. Not an accent this time, but a different grammar.

Villa in Vĩnh Long, its frieze alternating diamond shapes with pierced patterns.

Villa in Mỹ Nhơn, Bến Tre, layering different decorative elements: engravings, pierced friezes, fins and unusual vase-shaped bases.

Villa in Bến Tre, with compass-rose motifs along the beam.

Abandoned villa in Sa Đéc, now for sale.

Villa in An Thạnh Thủy, Đồng Tháp, its façade entirely resurfaced in tile. 

As the sun rises over the village of Ban Wichit Pattana in north-east Thailand, 62-year-old Chuchart Srithachum does his morning exercise, walking as best he can on his prosthetic leg along the street outside his home.

Editor's note: Some readers may find certain images in this article disturbing.

These days, Chuchart is unable to work. He gets by with money from his son, as well as government allowances for his age and disability. He used to be a rice farmer, working 2.4 hectares of land on the outskirts of his village in Nong Bua Lamphu province.

Almost nine years ago, he was working in his flooded fields, barefoot as usual, when he noticed a strange greenish tint in the water. He carried on but soon started to feel a tingling in his feet. By the time he got home, the skin on his leg had begun to develop a rash, accompanied by pain. He was quickly taken to a local clinic.

The doctor told him the rash on his leg “showed telltale signs of paraquat exposure,” Chuchart recalls. The damage to his skin allowed for a bacterial infection that had devastating consequences.

An infection linked to paraquat exposure led to the amputation of farmer Chuchart Srithachum’s right leg in 2017. The herbicide, which can cause chemical burns, had run off a nearby sugarcane plantation in north-east Thailand’s Nong Bua Lamphu province, contaminating his paddy fields.

Paraquat is a liquid herbicide used to kill weeds and desiccate leaves, often for commercial crops such as coffee, pineapples, tea and sugarcane. Widely identified as being highly toxic to humans and other animals, it can cause serious internal damage or death if swallowed, inhaled or even absorbed via the skin. Its corrosive nature means contact with the skin can also result in chemical burns and other damage. In north-east Thailand as well as other parts of the country, this has been controversially linked to a rare flesh-eating disease called necrotising fasciitis, which develops rapidly and has led to a spate of deaths and amputations.

Chuchart’s condition quickly became too severe to be treated at his local clinic. He was promptly transferred to the provincial hospital in the town of Nong Bua Lamphu, but by then it was too late — his right leg needed to be amputated to save his life. He spent the next six weeks in hospital recovering.

Chuchart was not alone. When he was hospitalized in 2017, there were more than 50 cases of farmers who suffered severe chemical burns and subsequent infections in sugarcane production areas across Thailand’s north-east region, according to Mana Muangkhun, an activist with the Consumer Association of Khonkaen involved in a lawsuit against importers of paraquat.

Natthanan Photiwong’s leg was infected in 2018 after accidental exposure to paraquat while spraying sugarcane near his village of Ban Dong Sawan in Nong Bua Lamphu.

The infected tissue was removed fast enough to save his leg from amputation, but Natthanan no longer dares spray herbicides himself.

In the nearby village of Ban Khok, Bunrod Yodda was not as fortunate. His leg was amputated after exposure to paraquat that had contaminated a pond he was laying shrimp traps in.

The cases added momentum to an already ongoing campaign led by civil society groups like the BioThai Foundation and Thailand Pesticide Alert Network (Thai-PAN). Using various techniques, including testing fruit and vegetables for pesticide residues to raise consumer awareness and direct advocacy with government bodies, the campaign called for bans of paraquat and two other controversial agrochemicals: the insecticide chlorpyrifos, which is known to cause brain abnormalities and developmental delays in children; and the herbicide glyphosate, which the World Health Organization has named “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Backed by a growing body of scientific evidence, the campaign led in April 2017 to a recommendation from the Ministry of Public Health that paraquat and chlorpyrifos be prohibited and the use of glyphosate restricted by the end of 2019. What followed was a prolonged and heated national debate, marked by pushback from various stakeholders, street protests from both sides and government policy flipflops.

Bans eventually came into force in June 2020 with the reclassification of paraquat and chlorpyrifos as category 4 hazardous substances, the highest level. This made it illegal to produce, sell, use or even possess the chemicals. In line with this, the Thai Food and Drug Administration introduced a policy of zero tolerance to residues of the chemicals, even on imported foods. Glyphosate was to be included in the reclassification, but pressure from the US government and agrochemicals manufacturer Bayer stopped that. It remains legal, although as a category 3 hazardous substance, its use requires a licence and is heavily restricted, allowed only on specific commercial crops and not within certain zones, such as watersheds and public areas.

Two down, hundreds still in use

Contamination of produce with paraquat and chlorpyrifos has fallen significantly since the ban, according to Thai-PAN coordinator Prokchon Usap. The network and their fellow campaigning organisations count this as a major battle won. But their war is not over. Prokchon sees all agrochemicals as “highly hazardous,” and says there are “over 230” others still in use in Thailand. Perhaps more importantly, she and other campaigners argue these chemicals are being heavily over-used, posing health risks for all those exposed to them, including both farmers and consumers.

A sign beside a rural road in the central province of Nakhon Sawan advertising glufosinate-ammonium, a restricted category 3 herbicide similar to glyphosate.

A shop selling agricultural supplies — mainly synthetic herbicides and pesticides — to farmers in Nong Bua Lamphu province. Few farmers across Thailand are properly trained in how to use the chemicals they buy.

Paraquat is such a well-known name among farmers in Thailand that, until recently, it was still being used to advertise other pesticides. This photo, taken in November 2025, shows a product on a popular shopping app. The name paraquat is used at the top, labelling what is actually an alternative chemical called diquat dibromide.

In their most recent tests of market fruits and vegetables conducted at the end of 2024, Thai-PAN found that 68% of samples had pesticide residues above the maximum limits set by the government, which apply in varying degrees to all foods. This included above-limit residues of restricted category 3 chemicals such as chlorfenapyr, fipronil and carbendazim.

For Prokchon, one of the most concerning chemicals found was carbendazim, a fungicide used on multiple crops to control plant disease that is banned in many places around the world.

“We found carbendazim on almost every contaminated fruit and vegetable sample,” she says. “This chemical is responsible for many underlying health threats, including infertility, as there is evidence linking carbendazim with sperm count reduction in men.”

A forced reliance

Over the past few decades, Thailand has seen a major shift from subsistence to commercial agriculture. It is now one of the world’s top growers and exporters of commodity crops such as rice and tropical fruits. Sugar has played a major part in this — the country is the world’s fifth largest producer and the second largest exporter. This shift has been matched by the growth in use of agrochemicals. Thailand is the world’s 15^th largest importer of synthetic pesticides, and in 2016, before the bans came in, glyphosate and paraquat were the top two imports.

This national trend has played out on steroids in the north-east, which has seen the “rapid expansion of sugarcane and rubber plantations” in recent years, says Patiwat Chalermchart, a leading member of the regional branch of watchdog the Thailand Consumers Council. “These types of commercial farming rely heavily on pesticides to lower production costs and maximise profits,” he explains, adding that this is why “the previous paraquat poisonings had an epicentre here”.

Despite widespread awareness among farmers of the dangers of using pesticides, many still consider it a necessity. They have no choice, says Patiwat, pointing to limited finances and the need to bring labor costs down.

The countryside around Ban Dong Sawan village in Nong Bua Lamphu province is covered in sugarcane. About 45% of Thailand’s sugarcane production is concentrated in the north-east. Smallholders are key to the sector, with 70% of the crop grown on plots of less than 10 hectares under contract to sugar mills.

A field in the same district of Suwannakhuha recently sprayed with a powerful herbicide to kill the vegetation and make way for new planting.

Although pesticides can help limit some labour inputs on sugarcane farms, a lot of the work still needs to be done by hand. Harvesting is especially labor intensive, with many farmers having to hire in extra help.

A farmer in Suwannakhuha waters her vegetable patch right next to a sugarcane field. Many small-scale farmers are aware of the dangers of pesticides and use as little as possible on the food they grow for their own consumption. But contamination from nearby plantations can be unavoidable.

Natthanan Photiwong is a 64-year-old sugarcane farmer with a smallholding in Suwannakhuha district of Nong Bua Lamphu province. He stopped using synthetic herbicides entirely for over three years after he too suffered a necrotising fasciitis infection linked with accidental exposure to paraquat in 2018. But the difficulty of finding workers to clear weeds from his 1.4-hectare plot has forced him to start spraying again.

“It’s a tiring task to clear weeds by hand in a dense sugarcane field. I can hardly find anyone willing to do this job,” he says. “I eventually needed to hire someone to spray herbicide instead, as I still do not dare do it myself.”

In the neighboring district of Na Klang, young farmer Sinaphon Namphrom, whose family grows rice commercially, holds the same opinion.

Although concerned about the health impacts, agrochemicals “are essential materials to make our farming easier to maintain and profitable,” she says. “We try to protect ourselves by wearing proper protective gear while spraying and using as little as possible, especially on the plots where we grow crops for our own consumption.”

An agricultural drone pilot and his assistant mix a concoction of fertilizers and pesticides to spray on a customer’s rice paddy.

The only protective gear they wore while working with the chemicals were T-shirts wrapped around their heads.

A relatively new technology, drones make things much easier compared to spraying by hand, and have seen rapid uptake in Thailand over the past few years. Spray can drift further using drones, contaminating areas beyond targeted fields.

For Thai-PAN’s Prokchon, “farmers are trapped in a vicious cycle of debt and chemical use.” The use of chemicals has destroyed natural processes that previously helped fertilize the soil and control pests, making their continued use unavoidable. In addition, commercial agriculture has introduced an economy of debt in rural areas, with many farmers taking out loans to purchase the products they need.

“The commercial farming sector has not developed new farming methods to help reduce reliance on chemicals,” she adds.

Alternative methods of farming without chemicals have come to be seen by many as unachievably expensive. “Our food production system does not favor organic farming,” says Patiwat of the Thailand Consumers Council. “There is no supporting system to help farmers invest in more costly organic food production.”

A pesticide-free future?

While options may be limited for many farmers, concerns over food safety among Thailand’s growing middle class are driving a growing demand for organic produce, especially in wealthier urban areas. Enter entrepreneurs like Krisana Tamvimol, co-founder of DiStar Fresh, which grows high-value leafy vegetables hydroponically in a vertical, indoor farm.

Launched in 2021 in Nonthaburi province’s Bang Yai district near the capital Bangkok, the 400 m² facility is capable of producing the same amount of food as 64,000 m² (6.4 hectares) of traditional outdoor farmland, says Krisana.

The company advertises its produce as “beyond organic.” Grown in a closed system using a water-based nutrient solution instead of soil — an environment DiStar calls “pristine” — the vegetables are protected from outdoor pests and diseases, so there is no need for pesticides.

An employee harvests lettuce inside DiStar’s high-tech, climate-controlled facility. The company uses hydroponics to grow a limited variety of leafy greens.

DiStar markets its produce as “beyond organic.” It is sold at a premium, mainly to middle-class urbanites.

Against a backdrop of what Krisana sees as Thailand’s considerably weaker agrochemical regulations compared to those in developed nations, his business is doing well. “We already have around 1,000 to 2,000 regular customers,” he says. “Now, the demand is nearly reaching the production capacity of our farm and we are looking for a location to expand our second hydroponic farm in Sai Noi district.”

While Krisana calls hydroponics part of the future of agriculture in Thailand, it’s unlikely to offer a solution when it comes to crops like rice or sugarcane, not least because of the costs. To build a facility capable of growing 3.2 hectares worth of produce requires an investment of around THB20 million (US$643,500), he explains.

Running costs are also high, although Krisana points out they are lower in Thailand than in western countries thanks to cheaper electricity. In developed nations, growing a portion of produce in a hydroponic farm costs an average of around THB15 (US$0.48), compared to THB8 in Thailand, he says.

At an orange plantation in the northern province of Chiang Mai, a worker sprays the trees with pesticides just before harvest to ensure perfect-looking fruit. Thousands of litres are sprayed in one go.

Migrant workers from Myanmar sort oranges at the facility of a large distributor. The company buys oranges from local growers, packages them and distributes the fruit for sale around the country and overseas.

Some orange farmers in the area are trying to do things differently. At the Yoddoy Orange Farm, the owner is keen to limit his use of synthetic chemicals, and now only sprays once a season when the trees first blossom. To give him more control, he no longer sells to big distributors. Instead, he promotes on social media and sells directly to consumers online and when they visit the farm.

Far away from the capital in northern Thailand’s Chiang Mai province, known for the commercial production of rice and various fruits, there’s a growing organic movement of a different sort. Saranarat Kanjanavanit, co-founder of the Nunienoi Wetland and Farm, is just one of many in the area demonstrating how farming can be done without the use of synthetic chemicals, by restoring biodiversity and working with nature.

She says when she bought the property in 2018, it had very poor soil due to the prolonged and intensive use of agrochemicals, including both pesticides and fertilizers. She worked on restoring soil fertility by employing a traditional rotational crop technique, switching between rice and soybeans every season to naturally fix nitrogen.

The farm’s organic rice yields have reached 500 kg per rai (1,600 m²), which is comparable with regular commercial farms that heavily use chemicals, she says.

Saranarat Kanjanavanit, co-founder of the Nunienoi Wetland and Farm, is an advocate of organic farming.

She also has no need of pesticides, as there are plenty of predatory insects and birds living in the restored wetland, helping control the population of pests on the farm.

“In the first few years, many people including my staff did not believe that ecological farming would work, as we had very low yields. But after we gave time for nature to restore ecological balance and regain biodiversity, we have proven that by understanding and working with nature we can assure food security without sacrificing the environment,” Saranarat explains.

Luke Duggleby is a documentary and portrait photographer based in Bangkok, Thailand where he has lived for over 15 years. To see more of his work, visit his website.

This article is originally published by Dialogue Earth and has been republished with permission. Read the article on Dialogue Earth here.

Riding a motorbike is the most popular mode of transport in Vietnam. Albeit convenient and fast, being on a bike, merging in and out of the ever-flowing, hurried traffic, might not afford you the slow pace needed to fully appreciate the urban landscapes and their hidden gems. Vietnamese artist Bờm Sketcher, on the other hand, is fully in support of walking as the best way to document the most fascinating corners of local streets onto his pages.

Bờm Sketcher, also known as Lâm Bờm, is based in Hồ Chí Minh City, but his rich travel history has taken him across the Mekong Delta, judging by the scenes depicted in his works. Bờm is best known for his on-site watercolor sketches, which aim to capture the beauty of urbanscapes as realistically as possible, down to every missing patch of plaster on the wall and overhanging telephone wire. Most recently, however, the Saigon-based artist has introduced a new side project, Con Ốc Nhỏ, with the goal of archiving Vietnam’s architectural riches in a different style.

Con Ốc Nhỏ is a play on the word ốc, which could mean “snail” or “house” in Vietnamese. As a metaphorical “little snail,” he wants to take his own time, wandering everywhere the inspiration calls to jot down the houses that fascinate him throughout his time on the road.

“This project started partly because I do a lot of street sketches. One time, while in Tri Tôn [An Giang], I spotted a few really interesting houses [with styles] that seemed a mix of Hoa, Vietnamese, French, but also Khmer,” he tells Saigoneer in Vietnamese. “These buildings were all very old, running the risk of being demolished. I realized that there are still plenty of interesting houses in other localities, so I want to archive them in my way.”

The result is a collection of dozens of stylized illustrations showcasing the facades of Vietnamese homes in a neat layout, as if they are part of a scientific encyclopedia of architectural styles. Each entry is accompanied by information regarding the house’s hometown, building materials, and a few standout decorative elements like balustrade and wrought-iron windows.

Flipping through the posts on the project’s dedicated Instagram page, one will notice that Bờm doesn’t focus on any specific style of architecture, but offers an eclectic range of houses that simply pique his curiosity. Still, those with some knowledge of Vietnam’s vernacular architecture might immediately recognize a few recurring themes, like Chinese-influenced colonial shophouses similar to those in Saigon’s Chợ Lớn, utilitarian tube houses, or the grey-washed rock mosaic of southern modernism. This mish-mash of styles reflects the cultural makeup of the Mekong Delta, where most of the featured dwellings live, and it was also this interesting diversity that drew Bờm to the region’s houses at first.

“The idea for Con Ốc Nhỏ came during a period when I was wandering around here [the Mekong Delta] to sketch. This is a land of many special facets of culture, food, and people and rich in inspirations for sketching,” he explains the project’s focus on the southern region. “Also, this region has many ‘historic’ towns not too altered by urbanization, so many old structures still exist, forming distinctive architectural clusters. They also exhibit the confluence of different cultures like Vietnamese, Hoa, Khmer, and French; and strong influences of riverine settlements — I was really impressed by both.”

The collection spans many localities in the delta, like Hồng Ngự, Mỹ Tho, Cái Bè, Cai Lậy, Gò Công, Sa Đéc, etc. Some standout entries include a bright yellow colonial shophouse in Cái Bè that bears some striking resemblances with those in Saigon’s Hải Thượng Lãn Ông quarter; and the Huỳnh Thủy Lê villa in Sa Đéc, made world-famous thanks to its appearance in the French film L’amant. According to Bờm, over the months working on the project, he’s learnt a lot about each quirks and building tastes of the localities he visited. The balconies of Sa Đéc, for example, are very frequently decorated with brise-soleil, but those in Mỹ Tho tend to employ cement and geometrical shapes. When it comes to windows, Châu Đốc has semi-circular arches while Mỹ Tho homeowners prefer rows of square windows.

“The process of making Ốc Nhỏ has allowed me to closely observe the architectural styles of each place. If [you] zoom deeper into the details, there are distinctive regional flairs that express the personalities of that place,” he shares. “At the same time, I could recognize the flow of time across the different aesthetics and how the buildings were constructed in each era.”

To view more works from Con Ốc Nhỏ, follow the project’s Instagram page here.

People’s skin erupted with horrific boils that burst open, spilling stinging pus across vicious rashes. According to the Christian Bible, along with water turning to blood, frogs, lice, gnats, diseased livestock, hail, locusts, darkness for three days and the killing of firstborn sons, the boils were one of the plagues God sent down to ancient Egyptians to compel them to free the Israelites.

Some researchers have different explanations for these seemingly divine punishments, however. A known volcanic eruption at the time or a natural algae bloom could have upset the ecological balance in Egypt’s waterways, causing frogs to flee rivers and lakes and die en masse, which would have left insects without predators and an overwhelming supply of rotting meat to feast upon. One such decomposition-loving bug just happens to cause horribly painful blisters: members of the Paederus genus, commonly known as rove beetles, or kiến ba khoang. 

Of all the living things people are afraid of, kiến ba khoang may be the smallest. Hardly larger than a grain of rice, the sight of one scurrying across the room not only causes a person to leap away in fright, but also subsumes one with the fear that there may be more lurking unseen. And it’s the beetles you don’t see that you need to worry about.

The agonizing large sores that result from kiến ba khoang are not due to any bite or sting, but a bacteria-produced toxin in their body called pederin.

The agonizingly painful and astonishingly large sores that result from kiến ba khoang are not due to any bite or sting. Rather, a bacteria-produced toxin called pederin courses through the flesh of females, or males that eat their eggs. As it’s more powerful than cobra venom and perhaps the strongest toxin in the animal kingdom, coming into contact with it — by crushing the insect, or brushing against one, which causes the animal to secrete the pederin — results in the condition known as paederus dermatitis. Anyone who has had the misfortune of experiencing this likely did so without first realizing it, often instinctively flicking at a tickle on one’s arm, leg or face in sleep.  

While they are beetles, many people refer to rove beetles as kiến (ant), which makes sense given how many members of the genus resemble the unrelated insects. Rove beetles evolved hundreds of millions of years ago, and some species took to sneaking into ant or termite colonies to eat. But why break in, if you can be invited in? If you can camouflage as a member of the army, you get all the easy food and safety you need. Thus, over millennia, their bodies evolved to more closely resemble ants, and they even developed the ability to emit the same aromas. 

In Vietnam, apartment buildings, neighborhoods and even entire cities occasionally experience an outbreak of rove beetles. Pesticide use and deforestation have pushed the insects from their normal woody homes into residential areas, particularly during the rainy season. Drawn to light, they end up in houses, where they are inadvertently squished. During such infestations, thousands of people end up seeking medical treatment for the chemical burns. Even if you haven’t experienced it, you have no doubt heard enough about it to dread finding one of the bugs in your home. 

And yet, there is a lot to love about the rove beetle. As with all animals that humans consider “evil” or “villainous,” rove beetles are simply acting according to their nature, as constructed through the merciless machinations of ecological checks and balances. And the toxins they contain have nothing to do with humans, but are the result of millions of years of natural selection before we even existed to repel the spiders that preyed upon them.

Ironically, they probably help us more than they hurt us, because they are critical in pest control, as their main diet is smaller insects that typically threaten crops, as well as mosquitos and other household nuisances. It is only when we started spraying fields with pesticides and chopping down forests that they were forced to migrate to urban environments. Truly, rove beetles serve as an early warning of greater problems to come if we do not rectify our relationship with nature.

Rove beetles serve as an early warning of greater problems to come if we do not rectify our relationship with nature.

Moreover, parents could look to rove beetles as an important teaching tool similar to tales of the boogeyman. Lured to illumination, at night they often invade homes that have lamps on inside. Such energy consumption not only increases electricity bills, but contributes to pollution. So parents would be wise to tell their children, “you better turn off that light, or the rove beetles will sting you while you sleep.” Even if leaving a lamp on only slightly raises the risk of accidentally developing their dreaded rash, this would be an effective means of encouraging responsible energy use.

The medical community has recently begun experimenting with pederin as an effective cancer treatment, as well. While significantly more studies are required, in the future, tumor-eliminating drugs that save you or your loved ones may be concocted with the main chemical found in rove beetle toxins. So even if you do not care about preserving the environment for its own sake, remember that every species lost or forest destroyed is a potentially life-saving substance gone.

On the flip side, if you care about taking life, as opposed to saving it, the rove beetle might be of interest to you as well. It is believed that ancient Indians relied on their crushed bodies to make a powerful poison. While it is extremely rare to accidentally ingest a rove beetle, doing so could have serious implications. I have found no modern accounts of this being done as a means of assassination, though I would imagine there is potential. Of course, Saigoneer is not advocating murder, but if one were to do it, slipping concentrated rove beetle powder in someone’s cà phê sữa đá may be the way to go; it's not like any medical examiners will be expecting it.

There is no domestic or international lobby focused on rehabilitating the reputation of the rove beetle and, because it is a bug, it cannot do this on its own. If one agrees with the need to improve the perceived value of the rove beetle based on all of the reasons offered above, however, I can think of numerous means. 

Conservation agencies could, of course, adopt them as a mascot, given they are a symbol of what happens when we muck around with the environment. Might a fashion brand release a jewelry line featuring glass vials containing live kiến ba khoang catering to “edgy” consumers? 

A much slicker way, I think, would be to create a popular comic or television program with the rove beetle as the starring character. She could have a goofy potato bug as a sidekick, an evil spider as an arch-nemesis. There would be schemes, shenanigans, and hijinks. Perhaps the rove beetle works as a delivery driver and gets into wacky mishaps with mismanaged orders, or maybe she is a detective tasked with exposing a forgery ring dedicated to duplicating priceless Nguyễn-dynasty artifacts; just spit-balling here. 

Graphics by Phan Nhi, Hannah Hoàng, Simona Nguyễn.
Animation by Simona Nguyễn, Phan Nhi.

What makes a Chinese-speaking tourist in Vietnam unique, and how can local businesses attract them? 

Saigoneer recently spoke with Denzel Zhang, founder of Hồ Chí Minh City-based Beast Group, a marketing agency specializing in connecting local brands with the Chinese-speaking market, to answer those questions. He explained that the biggest differentiator is their use of Chinese-based applications such as RedNote (Xiaohongshu), as well as high-quality authentic photos, menus, and staff fluent in not only the Chinese language but also Chinese culture.

Vietnamese business as featured on RedNote.

“If you’re not on RedNote, you’re unknown to Chinese; you don’t exist,” Denzel explained. But being unknown could be better than using the app incorrectly. Inserting the wrong hashtags, obviously Google-translated language or bad photos will leave a company’s page unnoticed and thus amount to nothing but wasted time. Even worse, breaking certain rules such as using declarative statements about being “the best” or providing phone numbers can result in outright banning. 

Denzel has met companies that assumed they could navigate RedNote without familiarity with the app, language, or culture, and seen it fail miserably. In such instances, he offers to manage it for restaurants, resorts, shops, and service providers to ensure it connects properly with their intended audiences. This allows a business to seamlessly integrate with the market as an insider. 

Reaching one’s target audience is made easier with the support of KOCs and KOLs. Most Vietnam-based businesses, be they run by locals or Westerners, couldn’t name a single Chinese-language KOC, let alone know how to identify the perfect one for their brand and then coordinate their support. Beast Group, however, has built its success on knowing the process intimately. They will work on behalf of the business to ensure the posts are shared by individuals who best inspire attention from the families, couples, solo-travelers and high-income Chinese speakers from mainland China’s 50 tier 1 and 2 cities as well as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and diaspora communities from around the world. 

Moreover, Beast Group knows how often one should post to reach the all-important top list for a specific location. If one cracks this ranking, one can be confident the word is being received. RedNote has been popular for some time in Thailand and nearby countries, but it remains developing here. That means that packages of posts to propel one to prominence on the app remain relatively affordable. 

When selected strategically, Chinese KOC have the following and knowledge to bring customers to businesses in Vietnam.

Along with when to post, Beast Group advises and supports businesses with what to post. While users of the app appreciate beautiful, thoughtfully taken photos, they recoil at images that are overly produced. Denzel and his team can help ensure cell-phone shots strike the perfect balance of aesthetically appealing and authentic, with additional insights about what dishes, services, scenes or angles resonate. 

Since starting their operations in 2024, Beast Group has helped a variety of businesses across the country. This includes a Da Nang souvenir shop that has occupied the top position on the city’s list of gift retailers for the last year and a half. Meanwhile, a spa in Thao Dien has proven so popular with Chinese-speaking clients that the proprietors are planning to open a second location catering specifically to the group.

Examples of photos taken to be uploaded to RedNote.

At the end of the day, Chinese-speaking tourists are like other demographics in that they want to be made to feel special. The first step in achieving this is simply being present on the right app with the right messages, shared by the right people. But beyond that, Chinese-speakers want to know they can interface with someone who has made the effort to make communication possible. This can mean having Chinese-speaking staff and menus. Beast Group can even manage RedNote communication pages so all inquiries are responded to by a native speaker able to read between the lines and understand what will make a person truly happy. 

More than five million Chinese-speaking tourists come to Vietnam every year, and on average, spend more than other visitors. This number is only expected to increase in the coming years. With the novelty of Beast Group’s approach in the market, this makes right now a particularly great time to begin building a reputation. 

Natural disasters, illnesses, accidents, breakages, or even deaths: when a series of consecutive tragedies engulf a family, it’s often said that tai ương has befallen the unfornate victims. The term is also the name of a recently published Vietnamese horror game that has been making waves amongst gaming communities both nationwide and internationally, thanks to its layered narrative, chilling atmosphere, and meticulously crafted game environment.

Tai Ương is an especially fitting title considering the mysterious deaths that plague the family of young Lê Đặng Nhật Huy. Upon starting the game, new players are immediately transported into the first-person perspective of Huy, amid the funeral of both his parents, Nhật and Loan. On the side is a smaller shrine to his younger sister, Huyên, whose passing preceded theirs not by much. Even though the window is wide open, letting in a stream of bright sunlight, the room feels oppressively claustrophobic, compressed by the caskets and altars.

A double funeral is the first thing players experience in game.

You take a few steps to arrive in front of their framed photos and kneel down to bow. On the last bow, you open your eyes just to catch a glimpse, in the peripheral of your vision, of the bloody body of Huyên where her altar sits. You start to suspect something is amiss about her death. Later, you move away from home to a rental and embark on a journey into lucid dreaming at the behest of an eccentric medium, in hopes of unraveling the enigma behind your family’s tragedies.

When everyday norms become corrupted

The first chapter of Tai Ương (The Scourge) begins in a fashion entirely familiar to fans of horror cinema and games: a supernatural encounter compels a main character to find answers, just to learn that some curiosities are perhaps best left unsatiated. Nonetheless, Rare Reversee Gaming and Beaztek Studio, the indie teams behind the production, chose to execute this common hook in an exciting, unprecedentedly Vietnamese setting.

The setting is inspired by old apartment blocks in Saigon from the 1990s.

Tai Ương is without a doubt the most impressive portrayal of Vietnam we have been blessed with in a game to date. Some standout set designs include the 1990s home where the family lived when Huy was first born, the gritty Saigon tenement that acts as the story’s setting, and the hellish dreamscapes that Huy wades through in the last chapter. In other creative mediums, like cinema or literature, faithful recreations of our everyday realities in Vietnam are a great cause for delight and perhaps even pride, but in a horror role-playing game, the more that the character is going through parallels with real life, the more heightened the sense of uncanny dread.

A Honda Cub was a signifier of wealth when Vietnam first became open again.

The environment of Tai Ương is familiar in the most frightening way: Vietnamese players will immediately connect with the little decorations and design of the game. Here is the dimly lit corridor you might have played hide-and-seek with friends. There, a mid-century bookshelf that once housed your school certificates and childhood toys. Over there, on the altar, a platter of bananas sits amid photo frames. But wait, did the eyes in the photos just move?

How many things do you recognize from this image?

The puzzles in Tai Ương are overall not too complicated, but for the majority of the game, there is little to no instruction, leaving players to figure out what to do by painstakingly ransacking every nook and cranny of the setting to look for clues and hints, and by dying repeatedly at the hands of the villain.

This process of exploration, however, is not tedious and can be quite intriguing for those patient enough to do a little homework while playing: the game setting is enriched with a motherlode of lore-building fragments that come in a variety of shapes and forms, such as newspaper cutouts, handwritten letters, torn photographs, and even a radio program telling ghostly stories. As Huy progresses through the stages, players will discover alongside him in real time the bits and pieces that reveal the darker sides of his family dynamics.

There's a lot (quite literally) to learn about this dysfunctional family.

My first run at the game was peppered with these little moments of recognition. For one, Saigoneers who grew up in the 1990s will eventually realize that the squalid apartment block in game is inspired by the former President Hotel at 727 Trần Hưng Đạo Street, one that was demolished a few years ago. Just by reading the letters that are scattered across the game levels, there’s also a lot one can learn about Huy’s family history, such as his true parentage or his father’s infidelity, and more.

Ultimately, narrative and lore are two of Tai Ương’s shining strengths that make the role-playing experience rewarding and immersive. Control, physics, and animation, on the other hand, are at times quite underwhelming. The animation is robotic, and the control can be aggravatingly clunky for a game that requires you to sneak around monsters and undertake life-or-death time challenges.

In this nightmare, here is Vietnamese culture, both good and bad

At Saigoneer, we often feel compelled, in everything we do, to showcase Vietnamese culture in its brightest, richest, and most worthy of celebration. It is not a hard job. Vietnam has a rich spiritual life and harbors deep respect for higher beings, as evidenced in our ancestral worship, Đạo Mẫu traditions, and extensive network of temples and pagodas. From young to elderly, members of Vietnamese families are close-knit and highly dependent on one another during hardships. Vietnamese society has a strong sense of community where neighbors, passersby, and even complete strangers can rise to the occasion to care for those in need.

Spirituality is a major part of Vietnamese culture, past or present.

These three qualities are all positive traits, but at times, amid our extolment of their virtues, it’s easy to forget that they too possess a darker side that can take over, causing grievous harm, trauma, or even death. Overindulgence in spirituality breeds superstitions that detach humans from reality. Tight family bonds mean that generational trauma and abuse are just that much harder to escape from. And a society all too eager to involve and pass judgments makes keeping up appearances a desperate and exhausting struggle.

A demonic ritual in the game with architectural elements inspired by Chùa Thầy in Hanoi.

The tragedies in Tai Ương serve as bone-chilling examples of how these ugly sides of Vietnamese culture can drive a family to their gruesome demise. Certainly, the in-game consequences are much more dire, amplified by the manipulations of a demonic supernatural being, but many of Huy’s toxic family dynamics are immediately recognizable in our daily life, sometimes right within the very walls of our home.

Desperate for a son after over a decade of infertility, Nhật and Loan asked a local shaman to perform a perverse dark ritual that resulted in Loan being pregnant with Huy; it’s implied that the shaman sexually abused her. She kept her trauma a secret for fear of public opinions and Nhật’s abusive tendencies. They eventually conceived Huyên naturally, but showed obvious gender bias to Huy. His needs and whims were met without question, sometimes to the detriment of Huyên — like how Loan sold Huyên’s long hair to buy Huy a new pair of shoes, or how Huyên had to quit school during the family’s tough times so they could focus on Huy’s education.

Water puppets are a recurring imagery as stand-ins for human in the dream sequences.

With every memory, family misfortune, and loss that Huy and the player discover in game scenarios, Tai Ương slowly unveils an imperfect family trapped in the confines of societal expectations and their socioeconomic caste. One particular creative decision from the production team that struck a chord with me is how each family member is portrayed in the dreamworld as a water puppet. It demonstrates the team’s conscious effort to keep the setting rooted in our cultural heritage, but also strategically links to the game’s overarching social commentary about their actions — controlled by an unknown force, unable to escape the entrapment of outside expectations.

Even though the story behind Tai Ương is a familiar one, it doesn’t make it easier to live through firsthand. The fast-paced, at times mortally urgent rhythm of the game might make it hard to take a moment to fully appreciate and digest its rich narrative and robust gaming setting, but Tai Ương’s acclaim really comes from the feelings it leaves behind after the fright has faded and the adrenaline has subsided: contemplation, hope, bittersweetness, relief, wistfulness, perhaps a tinge of regret too.

Dr. Trang Nguyễn — a wildlife conservation scientist with a PhD from Cambridge and the founder of WildAct — needs little introduction. She has been recognized as one of Forbes Asia’s 30 under 30, called a conservation “hero” by Sir David Attenborough on BBC’s Planet Earth III, and had her inspiring story, which includes going undercover to bring down illegal ivory poaching rings in Africa after surviving cancer, covered widely. But much of her work has been behind the scenes or at least in corners devoted to conservations. Her recent arrival on the social media scene, amongst memes, music videos, and TikTok challenges, represents a shift in approach.

The relationship between bees and elephants; an introduction to gibbons and pangolins; why migratory birds are at risk in Vietnam; what a forest patrol team member does on duty; the many ecosystems in a single Vietnamese national park; the daily tasks required to run WildAct; how a pair of conservationists juggle work and marriage; the horrors of shopping mall petting zoos and the impact chocolate can have on biodiversity: these are amongst the many topics populating Trang’s Instagram page. While viewers may end up binging a few dozen, the format and intent are clear after viewing just a few. Narrated by Trang, the upbeat, digestible videos introduce subjects related to Vietnam’s wildlife, conservation challenges, what WildAct does and why, Trang’s personal story and experiences, and some helpful advice for how viewers can act more responsibly.

“In the beginning, I was actually against doing Instagram videos,” Trang says of the steady stream content that began appearing on her personal page several months ago. Noting in an email with Saigoneer that she doesn’t consider herself a media person and does not enjoy making the videos, she explained that it’s all for the greater good. The videos, her team convinced her, “could become a powerful way to bring conservation stories from Vietnam to the public, especially stories that people rarely hear — about rangers, local communities, wildlife trade, or difficult social issues connected to conservation.”

“Different people connect through different mediums. Some people are touched by books, some by films, some by documentaries, some by social media… At the end of the day, I think storytelling is one of the most important parts of conservation. Because people only protect what they care about,” she explained. While it took some convincing from Hoàng Nguyễn, WildAct’s communications and fundraising advisor, Trang eventually acquiesced to lending her image, voice and fame to share stories that endeavor to inspire people into caring.

The aims of the videos are straightforward. First and foremost, Trang wants to make knowledge accessible as part of holistic efforts to foster the love and respect for the natural world required for conservation. Hopefully, the videos will also result in donations that support WildAct’s many efforts which include patrolling forests, research that leads to evidence-based conservation, local and ethnic minority empowerment, women leadership training and empowerment, and broad education initiatives.

Hoàng, the leading charge behind the project, explained the decision to make the videos and the process for recording. He recognized that personal channels are more effective in reaching audiences and decided they should be in English, as opposed to the bilingual posts on WildAct’s Facebook, to reach a wide audience that includes educated Vietnamese. He set an ambitious goal of at least 15 new videos per month, but the WildAct team’s expertise and wealth of material developed for other platforms make this more achievable than it might sound. They write the scripts based on what they’ve published elsewhere or what Trang and the team have discussed in regular meetings. Trang always approves the scripts before shooting, which can take a bit of convincing when they involve her personal life. 

While videos touching on Trang’s private affairs, such as one introducing her husband, a conservationist who works with sunbears, attract huge audiences, it is another, more difficult topic that Trang is most proud of. “One of the strongest reactions I received was after we released a video on gender-based violence in the wildlife conservation sector. A lot of people reached out to me privately — through Instagram, emails — sharing their own personal experiences, thanking me for speaking out, and asking me not to stop talking about these issues,” Trang said.

“At the same time, when the video spread more widely in Vietnamese media, there was also a huge amount of backlash and trolling. People reacted very aggressively. But what stayed with me most were the quieter messages from Vietnamese women and conservationists saying: I cannot speak publicly because I’m afraid of the reaction, but I experienced this too. And many told me: ‘Please don’t become silent.’”

Trang’s determination to remain loud not only puts her at risk of public criticism but also leaves her with less time to do what she is truly passionate about. “My perfect working day would honestly be going back 15 years ago — spending months in the forest, following wild animals and observing their behaviour. That was the reason I first fell in love with conservation. It is where my passion is, where my expertise is, and honestly, where I feel happiest. But as you become a manager, a director, or a founder, you slowly lose that privilege. Your days become meetings, fundraising, donor calls, budgets, paperwork, management… and a lot of things you may not even enjoy,” she summarized. 

While Trang is upbeat and the team diligent, conservation is hardly a realm of unbridled optimism. Challenges abound. As the nation prioritizes economic growth and societies around the world gravitate to transitory joys that replace human thought with vapid impulses, nature suffers. Hoàng noted that he has the most hope for younger generations who are more open to discussions of sustainability and viewing wildlife as having intrinsic value beyond its use by humans. Once they are in positions of power, they can implement the institutional stewardship necessary to make meaningful change that isn’t beholden to bottom-line economics. 

In the meantime, WildAct does what it can while recognizing that energy and attention are expensive, and not all issues are equally surmountable. The rise of shopping mall petting zoos, a key WildAct focus, illustrates how and why they select certain topics. “As a wildlife conservationist, I want to say this clearly: this is a horrible idea, for both animals and children,” Trang says of them in a recent video. The terrors of these set-ups are easy to explain and, when supported by heartbreaking imagery, allow the problem to resonate emotionally. Meanwhile, solutions are accessible and achievable: simply choose not to visit and instead support activities that involve animals in their natural habitats so children can learn about actual behaviors and develop an understanding that animals are not sources of amusement for people, but sensitive living creatures of intrinsic value. 

WildAct’s work regarding shopping mall petting zoos can have a significant impact on public perspective and thus impart important change. But small victories such as turning people off these zoos, are not enough. In societies where it's acceptable to lust after US$9,000 a night hotel resorts while organizations struggle to raise the monthly US$300 salary for park rangers who patrol forests protecting endangered species, it’s easy to lose hope.

Trang understood, as she shared with Saigoneer: “I think nowadays it is very easy to feel overwhelmed, disappointed, or even hopeless about the state of the planet. But I think hope is very important. And in order to have hope, you need to act. The good thing is that conservation does not only happen in forests or laboratories. Small daily actions still matter — reducing single-use plastic, consuming less, supporting ethical businesses, changing diets, speaking up for nature, or simply paying more attention to where products come from. Real change happens when people act out of love, empathy, and hope.”

This idea of change occurring from love and hope brings us back to Trang’s realization that “people only protect what they care about.” If we want to save our precious plants, animals, and ecosystems, we must help others know and thus care about them. Share Trang’s social media videos and Saigoneer’s Natural Selection pieces with friends, family and co-workers so they can hopefully develop a deeper respect and appreciation for our wondrous natural world. Maybe you will hear Trang’s voice the next time you are thinking of buying new clothing rather than refashioning something you already own. Maybe you will opt to dine in a restaurant instead of ordering delivery. Perhaps you will hear the haunting cry of a gibbon the next time you are planning a trip and, instead of a luxury room, you settle for something more humble and donate the difference to the operations tirelessly working to ensure we still have a world worth admiring. 

Photos courtesy of WildAct.

Warm weather, delicious food, friendly locals, and a safe community: Saigon is a splendid place for expats to call home. Beyond simply comforts, the city also contains most of the entertainment, services and infrastructure, and medical facilities they enjoy in their home country. Modern health clinics with advanced technologies are can be found throughout the city, but many foreigners delay checkups because they are concerned that the process will be complicated or not meet their standards.

It’s easy to ignore lingering health issues, particularly if one fears a visit to the clinic will be arduous due to language barriers and unfamiliar procedures. Sometimes issues such as headaches, digestive discomfort, chronic back pain, sports injuries, or persistent fatigue go away on their own, but they can also develop into more serious conditions that could have been avoided with early detection. 

Therefore, taking a proactive approach to health management through regular health check-ups is essential. Furthermore, advanced diagnostic imaging technologies such as MRI can play an important role in the early detection and accurate diagnosis of many diseases and health conditions. Such proactive management of one’s health means one can continue to enjoy Saigon’s refreshing cà phê sữa đá da on balmy afternoons with added peace of mind.

CarePlus's advanced MRI (left) and CT machines (right).

Many foreigners are familiar with CarePlus’s clean, modern facilities with English-speaking professionals, often through health check-up programs for work permit applications and routine health screenings. In addition to these well-known healthcare services, CarePlus also offers advanced CT and MRI imaging services that meet international standards at affordable rates. Equipped with AI-powered technology, which helps reduce scan times and enhance image quality, supporting more accurate diagnoses and consultations, they are able to detect conditions like cancer, cardiovascular issues, and brain, spine, and musculoskeletal problems early, making them essential in routine health check-ups.

By providing fast, detailed images of bones, blood vessels, internal organs, and soft tissues, Computed Tomography (CT) plays an important role in the diagnosis and evaluation of a wide range of medical conditions. CT is widely used in the assessment of tumors and cancers, particularly lung cancer, as well as cardiovascular diseases such as coronary artery disease and peripheral arterial disease. It is also highly effective in evaluating traumatic injuries, fractures, and various conditions affecting the chest, abdomen, and musculoskeletal system. Moreover, given the higher levels of air pollution in Saigon, particularly, and in Vietnam in general, as well as the prevalence of respiratory conditions such as tuberculosis and other lung-related diseases, lung CT screening can be particularly valuable for early detection. 

Low-dose CT is especially valuable for lung cancer screening in high-risk individuals, including long-term smokers and those with a family history of lung cancer. By providing detailed images while minimizing radiation exposure, these CT lung scans can help detect lung abnormalities at an early stage, enabling timely diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment. CarePlus' CT machine's interface and patient instructions accommodate numerous native languages, helping to make the experience comfortable for patients and reduce language-related concerns. While English and Vietnamese may be expected, it can also be configured in Hungarian, for example, 

Meanwhile, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is renowned for its ability to provide highly detailed images of soft tissues and internal organs, including the brain, breast, liver, kidneys, prostate, uterus, spine, joints, and limbs. By offering clear visualization of anatomical structures, MRI plays an important role in the detection, diagnosis, and monitoring of a wide range of medical conditions.

MRI is particularly valuable in cancer screening and evaluation, helping physicians identify tumors, assess the extent of disease, and monitor treatment response across various organs. It is also widely used in the diagnosis of neurological, cardiovascular, spinal, and musculoskeletal conditions.

In addition, Whole-body MRI is a valuable option for comprehensive health screening, allowing multiple organs to be examined in a single scan and helping detect potential abnormalities at an early stage.

Whether performed as part of a health screening program or in response to specific symptoms or health concerns, CT and MRI examinations begin with a consultation with a specialist physician. CarePlus is home to a specialist team that includes orthopedic and cardiology specialists. They not only assist in screening services, but also provide comphrensive consultation, follow-up care and treatment for more complex medical conditions when needed. After reviewing a patient's medical history, symptoms, and individual risk factors, the specialist physician will recommend the most appropriate imaging study, whether a CT scan or a specialized MRI examination, such as brain, spine, breast, abdominal, pelvic, prostate, uterine, joint, or whole-body MRI. 

To better understand these services, Saigoneer arranged for a lung CT scan and a brain MRI. While both utilized the same state-of-the-art machines we were familiar with from Hollywood films, the process was faster, easier, and more comfortable than we had expected. Scheduling one of the many available time slots required just a few online clicks, and we didn’t need to do any specific preparation, such as fasting. From check-in to doctor consultation to scans, the English-speaking staff was kind and reassuring, removing any concerns we had. Their explanation of the extremely low doses of radiation used ensured us the process was safe, as underscored by the safety precautions taken. From calming music played as we slowly slid into the MRI machine to the English instructions offered by the CT machine as it instructed us to breathe in, the entire process was efficient and expert. 

It seemed as if we had just checked in, and we were done. The MRI took approximately 20 minutes, and the CT scan only about five. After a very brief pause in the cozy waiting room, we were called into the doctor’s room to discuss the results. In front of a large screen, she swiped between screens, revealing different layers of tissues, explaining the images and what they meant for our health. As a matter of saving time and costs, she explained that the images and corresponding explanations would not be printed but could be accessed on the intuitive CarePlus app. They could then be easily referenced in the future, particularly to monitor any abnormalities. The app, like the website, enables simple appointment booking and management.

Life in Vietnam contains many splendors, from exploring sunny beaches and treacherous mountains to encountering enthralling historical sites and sampling flavorful foods. None of this is possible, or at least as enjoyable, when experiencing health conditions. Thankfully, routine checkups at CarePlus can include MRI and CT scans that are easy, affordable, quick, and comfortable. Being healthy while abroad is great, and having peace of mind before health conditions develop is even better.

In the history of architecture, rarely have we seen such a challenging movement as Vietnamese modernism. Not only does it show how a culture evolves and expresses itself across historical epochs through its building practice, from the traditional to colonial and eventually modern period, but the language of Vietnamese vernacular modernism also reveals deeper understandings of human creative potential.

A typical modernist house in Saigon.

Vietnamese modernist architecture is remarkable for its inventive use of modernist elements. Louvers, planters, pergolas, and brise-soleils — initially functional micro-climatic devices — are composed in an extremely intensive way, with elements being placed not only for functional reasons, but also seem to play a role in personal artistic expression.

Started in the mid-20^th century, during the decolonization process, modernist architecture was the language through which the Vietnamese modern state projected its identity. It reflected how Vietnamese architects had mastered the expression of industrial materials like concrete, steel, and glass, using a modernist design philosophy. Functionality and rationality was the spirit of the new architecture, refusing glamorous decorations and arbitrary rules to embrace a modern and free, optimistic and future-oriented architecture.

Saigon's V.A.R building exemplifies modernist principles on a grand scale. Photo by Alberto Prieto.

Joyful composition using reinforced concrete.

Buildings like the V.A.R building, Unification Palace, VOH building, Library of General Sciences, designed by the first generation of Vietnamese modernist architects like Lê Văn Lắm, Ngô Viết Thụ, Phạm Văn Thâng, Nguyễn Quang Nhạc, Nguyễn Văn Hoa, and numerous others, had not only brought the modernist language to the public, but also rewrote it for the tropical climate. By learning from traditional architecture, rather than constraints, they harvested the movements of air, water, shade and plants to tropicalize modernism in a distinctive manner, inventing a rich glossary of louvers, overhangs, planters and brise-soleil designs.

Adoption of modernist brise-soleil in individual dwellings.

Unexpectedly, during this process, a parallel development of modernism occurred in Vietnam. For the first time, the population had acquired this new language and used it to design their houses in both urban and rural contexts, without architects. Based on generally accepted templates, the general masses crafted artworks of personal expression on the modernist façades of their houses. The micro-climatic devices mentioned above were reinvented once more.

Ordinary creative display of modernist elements by the people. Photo by Phạm Vinh.

From a widespread use of those devices, a unique language emerged. Rather than sophisticated functional calculations, architectonic elements like planters, louvers, brise-soleils are placed intuitively and spontaneously as in a poetic visual game, without losing their purposes. Ordinary people, across Vietnamese regions, using a common grammar and vocabulary built out of functional elements, crafted creative expressions of personal taste for their houses. Consequently, the language of modernist design was domesticated by the local design culture to become a completely independent creative enterprise; a parallel modernism that is popular and without authorship.

Even though Vietnamese vernacular modernism seems spontaneous, there is an underlying structure common to all designs, a kind of generative code, with its own syntax and lexicon that the population uses to create and iterate. Individual results, despite being unique pieces, are recognizable as members of a common language.

Walking through the urban landscape of Saigon today offers a spectacle of individuals who had picked and tweaked the designs of planters, louvers, brise-soleils to their whims, yet somehow always following certain common orders that automatically integrate passive shading and natural ventilation. An element, like a planter, reappears and travels within a city, or even across cities, but not one single planter is identical to the rest. These features made modernism vernacular in Vietnam, due to its intimate relation with the climatic context, as much as to its relation with the cultural characters, one inclined to the joyful play of structure, elements and their interlocking shade.

Planter design with supporting “brackets.”

The architectural landscape became a display of creative conversations. There seems to be a subconscious forum where ideas were exchanged and circulated. Modernist designs then became a collectively lived experience, yielding an unprecedented architectural current that is more spontaneous, natural, poetic and spiritual than what conventional modernist principles would normally tolerate.

Vietnamese modernism represents a distinctive moment within global modernism. For the first time, the modernist language was extracted from an institutional practice by regular people to be reinjected into their building culture. That culture then became an autonomous, yet largely anonymous modernist current.

This phenomenon sheds light on two subconscious cultural processes. First, vernacular practice can exist in modernity, contrary to the public’s generally perceived ideas about modernist movements. Vietnamese modernist architecture makes the case that culturally and environmentally sensitive architectural responses can be achieved within industrial societies. Through a collective climatic intelligence and a particular aesthetics, these structures attach themselves to the practicality and sensuality of Vietnamese living habits.

Second, it explicates a profound aspect of human nature that spans across cultural activities. Almost identical to a natural language, Vietnamese vernacular modernism exhibits the exercise of a strong collective grammar and vocabulary, with expressions embedded with personal tastes, nuances, and inflections, similar to regional accents or individual speech styles.

There seems to exist a more profound mental language of culture, one that dictates across human expressions. As a part of this creative linguistic capacity, Vietnamese vernacular modernism sheds light on how the human spiritual self manifests through physical expressions, as an individual and as a community. In this sense, architecture, beyond being a professional discipline, is a cultural act, the product of a collective conscience.

These characteristics of Vietnamese modernism invite us to reconsider how architectural value is understood. It is not only the “scholarly” architecture practiced by a few, but rather the popular practice that best reflects the built environment’s cultural and geographical codes. Contrary to a kind of formalism theorized by a private group, Vietnamese vernacular modernism is achieved by the masses, from the bottom up, growing naturally as a language system — a living cultural substance that transforms, matures, and evolves according to the community in which it is spoken, a process that gives form to ideas, styles, and tastes, reflecting that community’s singular relationship with reality.

Vernacular modernism in Vietnam also offers a different way to look at architecture history. One has to briefly forget rigid architectural principles to look at design and build as a social and cultural phenomenon. The anonymous speakers of this architectural language were also the anonymous authors of the vast majority of the built environment. Unlike institutional modernism, it gives us a break from elitist and privileged architectural currents to look at the beauty of everyday people’s ordinary “speech.” In doing so, it advocates for the unofficial and unnoticed in architectural history. It pushes us to think not only outside the “scientistic” sphere of architecture, but also beyond the commonly known modernist centers of the world, to consider architecture as an ordinary yet fundamental activity of human expression.

Too little has been said about vernacular modernism in architecture, just as too little has been said about Vietnamese modernism in relation to the world’s. Perhaps it is time to take a leave from over-theorized aesthetics and start finding poetry in ordinary languages.

Viet Nam Tinh Hoa – The Futures School offers an approach to education where Vietnamese students can step into the wider world with an international academic foundation, flexible language capabilities, and confidence in their roots.

An “international” education has long been understood as a doorway to the world that differs from local education because of greater English fluency, a more global curriculum, and a wider range of opportunities. Many Vietnamese families today are confident about being able to enter the broader world, and now wonder what they will carry with them when they do.

An education for the future should not require Vietnamese children to choose between global integration and personal identity. Children do not need to become “less Vietnamese” in order to become global. On the contrary, the Vietnamese language, Vietnamese culture, and the values nurtured within their family can become the very foundation that helps them move forward with greater confidence in a wider world. This is the spirit that Viet Nam Tinh Hoa – The Futures School pursues through an educational model that places Vietnamese children at the centre of an international learning journey.

Located in central Saigon, Viet Nam Tinh Hoa – The Futures School is an IB World School officially authorised for the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme. The school is designed around a continuous learning pathway, where students develop academic capabilities, international-mindedness, and an understanding of themselves from the earliest years of learning. What makes this model distinctive is how the presence of an international curriculum benefits from its placement within the context of Vietnam today.

Through the Dual Language Approach, with Vietnamese and English represented with equal standing, students learn to ask questions, explain ideas, tell their own stories, and view the world through both languages. More than mere school subjects, Vietnamese and English are languages of thinking, inquiry, expression, and cultural connection.

This bilingual emphasis is especially important in an age where “global integration” is sometimes misunderstood as a move away from what constitutes one’s own identity. For children, their mother tongue is not only a tool for communication. It is also how they name their emotions, build relationships with family, receive culture, and form a sense of belonging.

From this foundation, the spirit of “It’s Cool to be Vietnamese” at Viet Nam Tinh Hoa is a way of looking at education: pride in identity does not stand in opposition to global thinking.

A child can love the Vietnamese language, understand Vietnamese culture, and appreciate the values of humanity, etiquette, righteousness, wisdom and integrity, while also learning in English, engaging with international ideas, approaching advanced learning methods, and preparing for an open future.

This vision is further extended through the school’s international academic connections. Viet Nam Tinh Hoa – The Futures School has long-term strategic partnerships with ReGenerating Education and Harvard Project Zero, along with academic collaborations with Stanford d.school and MIT Media Lab. 

More important than the names of these organizations, they reveal how new educational thinking is brought closer to Vietnamese students in Hồ Chí Minh City.

Through approaches to visible thinking and deep learning, students are encouraged to think beyond correct answers and focus on how they think, listen to multiple perspectives, and articulate their own thinking process. Through design thinking, students learn to observe problems, understand people, test ideas, and improve solutions. Through the spirit of creativity, making, and learning by doing, students engage in experiences that are closely connected to real life, technology, and a changing world. In the classroom, these approaches may begin with very specific moments, including a question raised by a student, a model created as a group, a product tested and refined, or a discussion where each child learns to express their viewpoint while still listening to others. Learning, therefore, is a communal journey of exploration, collaboration, reflection, and gradually creating value.

This approach is also why Viet Nam Tinh Hoa does not speak about “academics” in a narrow sense. The school views each child’s development as a holistic journey, where thinking, emotion, movement, creativity, language, identity, and relationships all play an important role.

Through an educational ecosystem connected with the arts, sports, mental well-being, and personalised experiences, students are seen as learners and individuals growing with their own potential, pace of development, and voice. As education in Vietnam continues to evolve, this model opens a larger question for the parent community: what does it truly mean for a child to be ready for the future?

Perhaps it is not only a child who speaks English fluently, performs well in assessments, or adapts quickly to new technology, but rather one who can think deeply, collaborate, empathise, create, ask questions in the face of uncertainty, and, just as importantly, feel confident in where they come from.

As Vietnam becomes more deeply connected with the world, schools need to help children understand where they begin, the language they use to name the world, and the values they carry with them as they enter new environments. Viet Nam Tinh Hoa – The Futures School is interested in examining how international education helps children stay connected to their identity, and in doing so, understand themselves more deeply as they step into the world with greater confidence. In a future that is always changing, one of the most important forms of preparation for Vietnamese children will likely be establishing the confidence to know where they are from. 

To give parents the opportunity to learn more about this learning model in person, Viet Nam Tinh Hoa – The Futures School is organising Open Day 2026 for families seeking a suitable educational pathway for their child in the 2026–2027 academic year.

At the event, parents will have the opportunity to tour the campus, meet the school team, learn more about the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme, the Dual Language Approach, the academic development pathway, and the experiences that support students’ holistic development at Viet Nam Tinh Hoa.

Open Day 2026
Time: 09:00 – 11:00, June 11, 2026
Location: Viet Nam Tinh Hoa – The Futures School, 214 Pasteur, Xuân Hòa Ward Hồ Chí Minh City 70000
To register to attend open day fill out this form