Exploring Saigon and Beyond - Saigoneer

Bạc Liêu-94, Cà Mau-69: In Saigon, a Surprising Reminder of Home Lives on License Plates

2026-04-01T14:00:00+07:00

Once in a while, I bump into a little sliver of my hometown on a random license plate on the street.

Living in Saigon for about four years, I sometimes spend my time driving without a destination in mind.

Passing one street after another, my mind seems to retain just enough clarity to keep the handlebars stable. The pressures and exhaustion of life inundate my mental capacity, turning objects on the street into a blur occasionally lit up by street lamps and scored by the grunts of surrounding motorbikes.

Right in the middle of this thick atmosphere and crowd of multiregional motorists, a number 69 on a license plate caught my eyes. It’s the provincial code for Cà Mau, where I came from. Once, the number showed up behind a rickety Honda Dream bike manned by an elderly man. Once, behind a Vision owned by a student whose backpack bears the logo of my university. Another time, behind a Wave ridden by a Grab driver dashing down the boulevard. Most surprisingly, behind a Mercedes right downtown.

During those moments, my sour mood often vanishes, replaced by meandering thoughts. Who are they? Why are they in Saigon? Do I know them? I have more than once sped up after those 69’s, even though I know that it won’t provide the answers I seek. At least, once I have overtaken them, they would see that I, too, carry a 69 plate — just a quiet signal that we’re hometown buddies amid this strange land.

My 18-year-old would never have cared about that number. He wasn’t in college, not living in Saigon, and didn’t anticipate that there would be a day when homesickness would plague his being. In my memory, the number 69 symbolizes an impossibly peaceful Cà Mau: where the roads are immense and the vehicles drive languidly. Our license plate sneaks into numerous milestones: alongside my mom’s bike when she took me to the barbershop, or to the local tailor to get my school uniforms made before a new school year; behind my dad’s bike when he drove me to the local youth center; and behind my friend’s bike when we stopped at a spicy noodles eatery.

Now, the 69 plate on my own bike takes me to a different horizon, towards foreign destinations. The last vestige of familiarity hangs by a thread on those 69’s I see on the street. At times, I dream that somebody will speed up and shout at me: “Yo! You from Cà Mau?” I would be overjoyed. Even though the currents of life might prevent us from having a chat, I would surely give them the most earnest greeting through my eyes.

I’ve heard many stories of my friends and family bumping into a fellow countryman in the most delightful ways. About half of those would happen thanks to the license plate codes. It could happen in a parking garage when their bikes are right next to each other. A friend started talking to a ride-hailing driver because they spotted that familiar license number on the app interface. Another person found it in the most awkward situation: when they were asked to present their driver’s license to a traffic officer. I realize that those numbers might be the most tenuous link, reminding people of their shared origins in Saigon.

From a long time ago, I’ve learned by heart: Bạc Liêu-94, An Giang-67, Cà Mau-69. It’s not for any particular use, but sometimes, thanks to that, I can learn a piece of someone’s story via their vehicle. Perhaps they are also waiting for a simple greeting from a familiar face just to not feel alone in a strange land.

Wilbur's Vietnam: 1960s Saigon Through the Lens of a Famed National Geographic Editor

2026-03-31T10:00:00+07:00

The 1960s witnessed an unprecedented influx of foreigners into Saigon and Vietnam. From soldiers to teachers to just intrepid shutterbugs, the visits of these camera-clutching characters resulted in a wealth of old photos taken in the city from the early 60s all the way until 1975.

At Saigoneer, we’ve featured dozens of such photo collections over time — captured during numerous occasions of the year and spanning just as many geographical landmarks — but the images below by notable National Geographic photographer Wilbur E. Garrett still remain our all-time favorite.

Garrett was one of the magazine’s most prominent picture editors, whose career-defining works cover historic moments such as the Korean War, Vietnam War and the cover photo depicting the famous and haunting “Afghan girl” by Steve McCurry. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2016 at age 85.

As an avid photographer and picture editor, Garrett’s involvement with Vietnam was prolific: he started making yearly trips to the country from 1960 to 1968. His time in the Southeast Asian country spawned an expansive archive of magazine-quality photos that might not look out of place in any editorial spread nowadays.

In this article, Saigoneer will feature some of the best shots of Garrett in Saigon from trips in 1961 and 1965. Feast your eyes on the famed photographer’s Saigon photos, courtesy of Flickr user manhhai, below:

Al fresco tables outside of the L'Imperial cafe (now Vietnam House restaurant) at the corner of Tự Do-Nguyễn Văn Thinh (now Đồng Khởi-Mạc Thị Bưởi), 1961.

Looking from District 2 towards the Bạch Đằng Wharf and District 4, 1961.

A young couple dashing down a suburban street in 1961.

A temple in Chợ Lớn (left) and famous cải lương performer Thanh Nga in a play (right), 1961.

The Bạch Đằng Wharf in 1961.

A lady in a yellow áo dài, 1961.

Morning on Tôn Đức Thắng Street, 1961.

A lion dance performance in Chợ Lớn (left) and a lady riding a Velo Solex on Tôn Đức Thắng Street, 1961.

Two xích lô drivers taking a nap, 1961.

A freshly constructed Thủ Đức Intersection, 1961.

Praying at Lăng Ông Bà Chiểu in Bình Thạnh District, 1961.

Nón lá smile, 1961.

A bánh mì stall in chợ cũ on Tôn Thất Đạm Street, 1965.

The crowds in a temple in Chợ Lớn during Tết, 1965.

A view of downtown Saigon from District 4, 1965.

A security post where the police pat down two bikers, 1965.

A porter in Chợ Lớn (left) and a roast chicken store in chợ cũ (right), 1965.

The Lê Lợi-Pasteur intersection, 1965.

A group of students practicing judo at the Quang Trung Judo Center on Phạm Đăng Hưng Street (now Mai Thị Lựu), 1965.

Rows of students praying at the Quang Trung Judo Center, 1965.

A suburban neighborhood (left); a vendor using his mouth to water branches of apricot blossoms during Tết (right), 1965.

Rows of bikes and bicycles in a parking lot on Nguyễn Huệ Boulevard, 1965.

The Tàu Hủ Canal, which links District 1, 5, 8 and 6.

Photos by Wilbur E. Garrett via Flickr user manhhai.

Water as a Metaphor for Trauma, Memories and Unspoken Histories in Quế’s Art

2026-03-30T14:58:42+07:00

Through installations and animated films, Quế traces the flow of water as they move through personal memories and collective histories, carrying generational trauma amidst urbanization, and even natural disaster.

Water exists everywhere: within our bodies, in rivers and oceans that surround us; it is often considered the essential source of life. Yet, when water is no longer calm and clear, and seeps into every single aspect of our existence, what kind of life remains now?

Originally from Đà Nẵng, artist and art producer Quế (Nguyễn Đức Hùng) once lived along the Nhiêu Lộc–Thị Nghè canal in Bình Thạnh district after he moved to Saigon for work. Observing and absorbing everything around him, he began to question how locals manage to sustain their life near the canal, which is well known for its severe pollution. His interest towards “water and what is found in water” led him to artistic practice of engaging with personal and collective memory and history, labor conditions and urbanization. Working across photography, moving images, animation and installation, his works have been developed and presented in art residencies such as Á Space (Hanoi), Leipzig International Art Program (Leipzig, Germany), A.Farm International Art Residency (Saigon), Artist-in-Residence Vietnam Network (Hanoi), and various exhibitions and screening events.

Portrait of Quế (Nguyễn Đức Hùng).

A fish tank, ‘Water permeates through the divine’ (2024), is filled halfway with water and glows in a darkened space. Developed during his residency at A.Farm International Art Residency (Saigon), the installation resembles what the artist describes as “a pixel of mud, water and anything that belongs to the river,” featuring mud collected from the Nhiêu Lộc–Thị Nghè canal. Inside the tank, particles slowly drift and separate under the aurora-like green light, where everything seems transparent and detached despite the polluted water. The work reveals a paradox of something beautiful, yet toxic — an isolated fish tank but without fish, where life cannot be sustained.

‘Water permeates through the divine,’ 2024. Glass tank, mud, water, and anything that belongs to the river, plexiglass, single-channel video.

In contrast, ‘Into purified water’ (2025) was developed as a part of his open studio during his residency at Leipzig International Art Program (Leipzig, Germany). This time, the water remains clear enough that one can view the video work of animated ants projected through the water against the wall, thanks to Germany’s trusted purified water system. Tracing the migration and labor histories of Vietnamese communities in Germany, combined with the artist’s observation on the rise of xenophobia and racism happening in Germany during his residency, a critical question emerges: at what cost would individuals or communities go in pursuit of “filtered” water in a distant promised land?

‘Into purified water,’ 2025. Single-channel video, glass tank, water. Running time: 3 mins 30 secs.

Quế’s interest in water goes beyond environmental conditions, turning towards the body as a site of inheritance. His experience living by the canal led him to question how children grow up in such environments, and why they fall ill easily, both physically and mentally. This returns to the artist’s personal upbringing, where he considers water in human bodies as a metaphor for transmission and inheritance: carrying life, memory, and familial memories. What is often understood as “heritage” passed down across generations, unfortunately, is inseparable from inherited traits and generational trauma.

‘Elles’ (2024) comprises a series of works that confronts one’s personal memories and inherited generational trauma. In a video installation, the artist himself lies still as the water drips steadily onto his head, until its weight intensifies and becomes unbearable over time. Resembling the image of his mother taking a siesta, the accumulating pressure and headache evokes physical and psychological pain that a woman goes through for many years. As the artist notes, “the stream of water is the violent impact of the man in the family,” and by placing himself in this position, he aims to “let the memory be implicitly voiced.” As the human body is largely composed of water, the materials in his works serve literally and metaphorically: as a carrier of traits passed from mother to child across generations and beyond, and as an imagined conduit where memory and trauma persists.

(Right) ‘Elles,’ 2024. Two-channel video installation, sound & scent installation.
(Left) ‘Elles,’ 2017 - 2022. Digital image.

Another highlight of Quế’s artistic practice is his animated films, in which he takes a deep dive into research on Vietnamese animation and propaganda posters. Instead of featuring human elements as main characters, he chooses a non-human approach: through the perspectives of mosquitoes and ants. While exploring the history of the house at No. 23 Châu Long Street (Hanoi), which survived through the Indochina wars, Quế attempted to interview locals living in the neighbourhood, but did not seem to get the answers he was looking for. At the same time, he found himself surrounded by mosquitoes near a canal. ‘Healthy diseases with water’ (2024) features a mosquito and the ghostly presence of a French monologue inside the house. One line in the film reads: “I forgot everything, the war made me the parent of so many children that I no longer remember, who don't even exist to see the sun.” It speaks to an extreme trauma and history that now seems almost nonexistent — something left unsaid, perhaps too overwhelming for one to fully comprehend.

Film stills of ‘Healthy diseases with water,’ 2024. Animated film. Duration: 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, ‘The ant and the rice grain’ (2026) takes direct reference from the original animated film of the same title Con kiến và hạt gạo by Nguyễn Thế Hội in 1976. The film follows a small ant on duty, reporting an approaching heavy storm to the colony, and ensuring that all others evacuate first before returning to the nest to carry his own rice grain. However, unlike the original version’s happy ending, the storm arrives and the flood sweeps away everything in its way. In the works’ description, Quế explained: “Throughout the process, my obsessions with water, storms and floods, hydroelectric dams, and dead bodies of ants floating in the kitchen sink and water containers at home emerged as reminders of the misfortunes endured by Vietnamese people.”

Film stills of ‘The ant and the rice grain,’ 2026. Animated film. Duration: 10 minutes.

Installation view of ‘Water, Ant, and Rice Grain’ (2026) in collaboration with Huế as part of the Solo Marathon 2025 program at Á Space (Hà Nội).

Mosquitoes are known as disease transmitters in stagnant water, and the mosquito “exploding” and collapsing at the end of the film signifies the helplessness and the weight of trauma carried throughout history. Meanwhile, ants are considered extremely hard-working even under dangerous conditions, yet they can be swept away by a forceful flow of water, in a situation where evacuation or migration remains impossible. The film recalls the disastrous 2025 Central and Northern Vietnam flood and how the situation was poorly handled, which took place at the same time Quế was making the work. Both films employ non-human elements of mosquitoes and ants as the main imagery, pointing to natural causes that are largely shaped by human-made factors. One film dwells on the forgotten histories of a house that survived through wars, the other one reflects on the vulnerable and collective struggles against environmental catastrophe today.

Open studio ‘Nature on the roof’ (2024) in Hà Nội, in collaboration with Saya Nguyễn. Organized by Artist-in-Residence Vietnam Network (AiRViNe).

Water embodies adaptability, resilience, and fluidity, and yet, it can be violent and carry everything in its path. In Quế’s works, what appears as personal and collective memories of generational trauma and urbanized living environment are deeply intertwined with bigger structural conditions shaped by inequality and social mobility: who gets to migrate and access “purified” water, and who is unfortunately left behind amidst disaster. No longer just “a source of life,” water links heritage, human well-being, and environmental instability together, revealing power dynamics along with slow violence, and questions how we can sustain our own vulnerable lives while navigating cultural norms and changing landscapes today.

Photos courtesy of Quế (Nguyễn Đức Hùng).

Hẻm Gems: Atop a Beef Bowl Eatery, the Hidden Cozy World of Shochu Bar Mitsuboshi

2026-03-29T12:00:00+07:00

Looking back at my days in Japan, I cherish most the moments I decided to get lost in yokochos — small and narrow alleys filled with shops, often bars — and push on a random door, not knowing what could await me behind it. It could be a wooden stall illuminated by blinding lights, its noisy customers showered with beer; or a 19^th-century-style Manhattan bar, where the only movements come from trails of smoke off the customers’ cigarettes and streams of light going through bottles of whisky behind the counter.

When I first heard of Bar Mitsuboshi in Saigon, whose menu revolves around shochu, I was not really impressed, as there are already many izakaya-style bars serving this liquor. Still, my curiosity got the better of me and, after I discovered online about its hidden aspect, limited seating, and supposedly convivial atmosphere, it piqued my interest. Reminiscing about my time in Japan, I decided to see where this adventure could lead.

To get to Bar Mitsuboshi, you need to go to “Japan Town,” Saigon’s famous neighborhood on Lê Thánh Tôn Street. Enter a beef bowl restaurant and after climbing up the stairs, you will face a wooden door that seems to have been transported from half a century ago. Mustering the courage to push it, I am sent back in time. The shop is the classic type of speakeasy you can stumble into in Japan. One long wooden counter splits the tight room in two, fronted by only six high stools for a cozy, intimate atmosphere. In the back, a cabinet filled with Japanese liquors is illuminated by a tamisé light against the darkness of the room.

The mysterious steps leading to the door of the bar.

While it might feel impersonal, Bar Mitsuboshi reflects the owner’s appreciation of authentic Japanese bars: very simple spaces that bear no resemblance to the trendy “fantasy bars to take photos” that some patrons like nowadays. This simplicity exists to encourage conversations in a comfy environment. As Chinh later told me, the cozy atmosphere and the Japanese pop music playing in the background were all designed to give room to the patrons and let them talk freely, be it with other customers or with the owner.

Chinh is the bar’s living soul. During her five years working for a Japanese travel company, she was sent to Osaka for two months to learn to better plan for her Vietnamese customers. It was there that she discovered the captivating world of Japanese bars and took the opportunity to open her own when she got laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It will become obvious right away what the stars of this establishment are: the diverse range of liquor on the shelf.

In Japanese culture, tatemae (建前) is a mask or facade that people wear to conform to society’s norms. It’s a matter of social etiquette that helps contribute to what foreigners often admire in Japan: politeness, organization, and convenience. Rarely can you see a person’s true feeling; what lies behind the mask, the honne (本音) — going to bars is such an occasion when the atmosphere, alcohol, and proximity can crack the mask and let these feelings loose. It’s precisely what Chinh admired when she was taken to a bar in Shinsaibashi, Osaka’s bustling street for nightlife, by her coworkers: “Normally, Japanese are very cold, they don’t talk too much. But in that bar, they are [sic] very friendly! I was very surprised, but it’s a good place to find out [about] Japanese character [sic],” Chinh told me in English.

Simplicity in a glass.

Opportunities for banter are one of Mitsuboshi's greatest strengths. Chinh is fluent in Japanese, which helps her connect better to her clientele, who is 90% Japanese. For the other 10% — mainly Vietnamese, American or Korean — she can speak English very well.

The menu is centered around shochu. While still not as globally famous as its widely popular brother sake, shochu has consistently outsold sake and whisky in Japan for more than a decade, and is now expanding to the world at a fast pace. It’s a distilled spirit that can be made from different starches such as sweet potato, rice or barley. There are a lot of different types offered on the menu, but it’s not limited to them: you can find many liquors that are frequently consumed in Japan. Chinh told me that Japanese patrons are more keen to order whisky, whereas westerners often set their sights on sweeter drinks like sake or umeshu (plum liqueur).

There are only a few stools at the counter for a cozy experience.

The menu reflects the bar’s client-first philosophy, as Chinh admitted to me that she always pays attention to recommendations from patrons about what kind of alcohol they would like to try.

Similar to the ones in Japan, Bar Mitsuboshi has a table fee, which is a mandatory charge for your seat in exchange for an otoshi, a little appetizer that will serve as an accompaniment for your drinks.

The famous Hanshin Tigers bottles.

Among the wide variety of choices on the menu, two unusual bottles stood out to me. The first was showcased at the end of the counter: a whisky bottle branded with the Hanshin Tigers, one of Japan’s most legendary baseball teams. When I asked Chinh if a patron who was a fan of the team gave it to her, I did not expect the answer to be Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi, a former pitcher of the team. She very proudly told me that he visited the bar. She flipped the bottle around and showed me the autograph he left as a sign of gratitude in a classic Japanese fashion.

A special homemade bottle offers a surprising local twist.

The other bottle I was intrigued about was the listed “Vietnamese shochu” on the menu with no brand name beside it. It comes from Chinh’s hometown of Bà Rịa and is made by none other than her mother. When asked about it, she told me her mother has always made this liquor at home, as it’s a common belief among Vietnamese older generations that it’s healthy to drink to a certain extent: “If you drink it once a day, it’s good for health, you can sleep well. So my mom made it for my dad. The flavor is good, so I wanted to introduce it for [sic] my customers.” It is made by mixing crystal sugar and sticky rice, and letting the mixture ferment in dried wild bananas. Captivated by the story, I ordered a glass and couldn’t believe it was a rice-based alcohol: the brown color and rich taste with subtle sweet notes kept leading my thoughts to whisky.

The unassuming entrance below.

The drinks on offer at Bar Mitsuboshi can take you down the rabbit hole of Japan’s drinking culture. The beverages here are faithful to the customs, yet the highlight of the experience lies elsewhere. Maybe it comes from the way Chinh succeeded in making me relive my own memories of Japan in her own way. Bar Mitsuboshi doesn’t mimic Japanese bars, it honors their tradition by making its own local stories, which is precisely what will resonate with anyone interested in Japan’s drinking culture.

To sum up:

Opening time: 7pm - 11pm
Parking: N/A
Contact: @bar_mitsuboshi_hcm
Average cost per person: $$$ (VND200,000–under 500,000)
Payment: Cash, Card, Transfer
Delivery App: N/A

Bar Mitsuboshi

15B/16 Lê Thánh Tôn, Bến Nghé Ward, HCMC

Insights, Polished History Lessons Await in Hanoi's Massive, Brutalist Military Museum

2026-03-27T08:00:00+07:00

When I pitched a review of Hanoi’s massive new Vietnam Military History Museum to the Saigoneer editorial staff, I expected to find the museum somewhat boring. After all, although I am a historian, I am not really that interested in military stuff, and I’d been to the original location on Điện Biên Phủ Street several times — how could this new museum improve on the old one? What could this new museum say that the old one didn’t? What could I learn here that I haven’t already learned at Saigon’s War Remnants Museum and Hồ Chí Minh Campaign Museum, at Điện Biên Phủ’s war museum, at Hải Phòng’s naval museum, and at the countless other shrines to Vietnamese martial prowess across the country? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Opened in early November 2024, the museum covers 386,600 square meters and cost approximately VND2.5 trillion (US$98.5 million) to build. Within the severe concrete walls are 150,000 objects related to several thousand years of conflict in Vietnam. Construction, hampered by COVID-19 delays, took almost five years. The opening roughly coincided with the 80^th anniversary of the People’s Army of Vietnam, which was founded on December 22, 1944.

The museum campus’s architecture is something one must experience in person. The main building and the Victory Tower soar higher than they look in pictures; cameras can’t capture the scale of the new campus’s courtyards and hallways. The main building rises from the plains of Hanoi’s southern suburbs like nothing else nearby. The only other structure close to the museum is a Vincom Megamall, which is hidden behind an elevated highway. The museum is a symphony in concrete, so far beyond Soviet-style brutalism that it becomes almost neo-Neolithic, a cement Uluru in dull grey. The museum is more than half an hour’s drive from Hanoi’s city center, and it is worth taking the journey just to marvel at the building. As many of the north’s old socialist brutalist buildings fall to the wrecking ball, there is something heartwarming in seeing new constructions taking those classic design principles to new heights. It seems especially fitting that the military museum’s architecture and its contents both owe so much to the ghost of the Soviet Union.

The next thing that hit me, quite literally, was the crowd. On a Wednesday morning, the museum’s courtyard had more than a thousand guests already, all Vietnamese, milling about and marveling at aircraft, tanks, and artillery pieces. Many of them were school groups on field trips. I was invited to join several photos — I stopped counting after 30 — and told a hundred kids that my name was David, I was from America and that I loved Vietnam very much. I was soon overwhelmed and had to take refuge behind a mask and a pair of sunglasses. This did not help much, but I was able to float around the rest of the outdoor exhibits mostly unbothered.

In front of the museum are two large collections of vehicles: the western courtyard holding French, American, and RVN equipment; with the DRV, Soviet, and Chinese in the eastern courtyard. Highlights in the west include a Chinook twin-rotor helicopter, a Lockheed Martin C-130, and the amazingly sculpted tower of French and American aircraft debris that used to rise above the old military museum. To the east are some T-34 and T-54 tanks, Soviet aircraft like the AN-26 and some MiG fighters, and various SAM missiles. The Victory Tower, 45 meters tall, looms over the whole space. Though I’d seen the photos and heard the reports of unruly crowds climbing over everything when the museum first opened, that behavior seems to have stopped. The visitors I saw were well-behaved and respectful, though perhaps that was due to the watchful eyes of the many museum guards in full military uniform sitting around every major exhibit.

Moving inside the main building, it was clear to me that despite having opened a few months ago, the museum is still very much a work in progress. Stairs and hallways were cordoned off with caution tape. Plywood and construction tools lay piled around dusty corners of rooms filled with empty display cases. Half of the exhibit halls on the map were not yet open. Because of this confusion, I ended up looping around through several hallways, wandering in search of an exit or an exhibit, before I finally found where I was supposed to go. The crowds of schoolkids and army officers did not make navigation any easier, though being a head taller than anyone else sure helped me keep my bearings in the sea of uniforms. I ended up going through the main historical exhibit halls backward, just because it was not clear where I should start my tour.

The museum exhibits are laid out in chronological order in four main halls, beginning with 900 BCE and ending in the present day. All the exhibitions’ messages are variations on a theme: for thousands of years, the Vietnamese people have fought to remain free. This message is neither new nor surprising; it was the main theme of the older military museum in the center of Hanoi, and it is an important element of modern Vietnam’s foundational mythos. In its previous incarnation, the military museum showcased many objects but often neglected to contextualize them within the broader arc of Vietnamese history or explain their use. The new museum does not make this mistake: the informational panels, videos, and audio guides are a big improvement to the way that this museum tells its stories.

To keep history personal, every gallery is full of small panels about individual heroes throughout history who were committed to the Vietnamese cause, many of whom sacrificed their lives for the nation. I stopped to read as many of their stories as I could, but I would have run out of time trying to read them all. Even people with the loosest grasp of Vietnamese history can follow along and, hopefully, learn something new. Around me, plenty of other people were. Though the museum had its share of the ever-present TikTok selfie squads, the diverse group of Vietnamese visitors around me — elementary school kids on field trips, teenagers in their trendy jackets, military service members in uniform, older aunties and uncles, and grandparents — were all engaged in reading the signage and marveling solemnly at the martial artifacts imprisoned in glass displays.

The first exhibit hall focuses on ancient, medieval, and early modern Vietnamese history. Through interactive displays and little cartoon shorts, I learned about several important battles in early Vietnamese history. Display cases along the wall held rusty spearpoints and sword blades, sharpened stakes pulled up from northern riverbeds and Đông Sơn bronze drums, long entombed and oxidized beneath paddy fields. Larger artifacts include a crossbow and some cannons. As a scale modeler myself, I loved exploring the intricate models of Cổ Loa Citadel (3^rd Century BCE) and the Battle of Bạch Đằng River (938 CE). Naturally, the common thread running through these exhibits is Vietnamese resistance to various Chinese dynasties’ invasions; though some attention is given to inter-Vietnamese conflicts like the Period of the Twelve Warlords (965–968 CE) and the Tây Sơn Wars (1771–1802 CE), there is little information on Vietnamese military interventions into Khmer, Chăm, or Highland spaces, which I was interested in learning more about.

After that came the struggle against the French. The exhibits breezed through some of Imperial Vietnam’s early defeats and instead cast a spotlight on various resistance movements after the French colonial takeover in the latter half of the 19^th century, most of which were unsuccessful. The part of the exhibition on the First Indochina War from 1945 to Điện Biên Phủ covered the creation of an independent Vietnam, and the successes of the People’s Army against the French colonial forces. Most of the exhibit space in this hall is filled with display cases holding rusted guns, but the signage is interesting, and I learned more about some lesser-known revolutionary heroes like Đội Cấn (for whom my home street is named) and highlander Đinh Núp. One spot that I found particularly affective was a life-size recreation of a barricaded street during the 1946 Battle of Hanoi, in which almost a third of the city was leveled, the event dramatized in last year’s hit film Đào, phở và piano. I was also interested in an exhibit on the “Deer Team,” a group of American spies with the OSS (the precursor to the CIA) who parachuted into northern Vietnam towards the end of WWII to assist Hồ Chí Minh in fighting the Japanese occupation. At the end of the hall is a semi-circular mini-theater with a scale model of Điện Biên Phủ and an audiovisual light show that goes through the definitive battle of the First Indochina War, which was a beloved fixture of the old museum campus. I was delighted to see that it had survived the move.

Then came the Second Indochina War, variously called the American War and the Vietnam War. I’ll admit I didn’t really pay close attention here. As an American and a historian who has lived in Vietnam for a while, I am getting tired of being asked about this conflict. Nonetheless, I suspect that ongoing domestic and international fascination with this tumultuous period of Vietnamese history will make it a favorite hall for many visitors. Different subsections of this hall covered the usual main points: Ấp Bắc, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the Tết Offensive, the war for the Central Highlands, the Hồ Chí Minh Campaign, and the Liberation of Saigon. Within this hall are plenty of guns and uniforms, as well as larger and more notable objects like a SAM missile launcher from Hanoi’s air defenses, a Renault Juvaquatre car, a MiG 21 fighter plane, and T-54B tank number 843, which played a critical role in the liberation of several southern cities during the Hồ Chí Minh campaign in 1975.

The final hall, which covered the period from 1975 to today, was more interesting to me. The two major sections here explored the border wars with China in 1979, with Cambodia from 1979 to 1989, and the ongoing troubles in Vietnam’s East Sea islands, delving into the rationale and method behind the literal nation-building projects in the Hoàng Sa and Trường Sa archipelagoes. At the end of the hall, a coda explains how the People’s Army of Vietnam is not just for fighting wars but also is ready to assist the public in case of natural disasters. This is the smallest of the historical exhibit rooms and has fewer artifacts than the preceding three halls, but I was engrossed in reading many of the panels here because I am less familiar with the history of the recent border wars than I am with the older anti-colonial conflicts.

The map I had showed several other exhibit halls, most of which were still under construction. The only other one I was able to see was a gallery featuring military-themed artwork. The gallery was seemingly unfinished — the floor was just exposed concrete and dust hung in the air, swirling around the spotlights — but the art was interesting. Like the rest of the museum’s exhibits, subjects ranged from ancient Vietnamese history to the modern day, and materials varied from painted canvases to sculptures. My favorite painting here was one depicting the Vietnamese victory at Điện Biên Phủ in 1945, with three scared-looking Frenchmen surrendering in the center of the canvas.

The one inconvenience — besides the fact that the museum is more than 20 kilometers from downtown Hanoi — is that, like many of Vietnam’s other museums, this one closes from 11:30am to 2pm for lunch. I don’t usually mind these long lunchtime closures, since so many of Vietnam’s museums are located in semi-urban areas where it’s easy to find a meal and a café to wait out the siesta, but this museum is truly in the middle of nowhere. It’s also so expansive that it takes several hours just to walk briskly through the exhibits, way more if you want to actually stop and read the signage or sit and watch some of the many videos playing throughout the halls in small semi-circular cinema rooms. I had to cross several lanes of busy highway to get to an overpriced but air-conditioned lunch at the Vincom Megamall nearby, though there were a handful of carts selling trà đá and various other refreshments by the museum entrance. The museum map said that there was a café on site somewhere (allegedly in the basement), but I never found it or the souvenir store.

Having finally visited the museum, I understand the hype. Though parts of it are still under construction, I can tell that a lot of care went into every step of the exhibits’ designs. These are not the dusty halls and wonky translations that characterized a visit to the old museum. There are 3D interactive models, exhibits that utilize light and sound, searchable touch screens, and more than sixty different videos, both animated and live-action. With a phone and mobile data (only one of the exhibit halls has free WiFi), a visitor can access a whole extra layer of multimedia experience. There are QR codes and audio guides available to stream for those who wish to dig deeper.

Despite my general disinterest in military history, this massive stone cathedral to steel and gunpowder is now my favorite museum in Hanoi. Although I liked the charm of the old military museum on Điện Biên Phủ Street in the old pale-yellow French colonial office building, this museum has weight and presence in a way that hits deep in my brutalism-loving heart. It would have been so easy for the government to just build some generic glass-and-steel museum full of airy, well-lit atria. I am glad that they did not. I’ll be back.

This article was originally published in 2025.

When Rush Hour Hits, The Straits Offers a Singaporean Alternative

2026-03-26T13:59:00+07:00

Saigon’s streets snarl with hot, sticky knots of traffic every evening. As people finish their workdays and look ahead to quality time with families at home, precious hours pursuing hobbies and meeting with friends around the city, they must first contend with horrific congestion. This rush hour period, when movement is slow and frustrating, coincides with peak skyline beauty.

Instead of tedious hours in the back of a car or clutching handlebars, wouldn’t you rather have a panoramic view of the skyline as it’s drizzled with dusk colors? Sunset should be savored, peacefully, ideally with a refreshing drink and tasty snack in reach. On the 28th floor of Saigon Centre, Sedona Suites offers just this experience in the recently redesigned The Straits Kitchen and Bar.

The Straits sprawls out in front of you as you exit the elevator, the spacious room expanding to floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the Saigon River in one direction and past Landmark 81 and the seemingly endless scramble of development that constitutes central Saigon in the other. Plush couches invite you to rest, recline, and meet with friends in what could be the day’s first moment of true relaxation. In the center of the room are similarly comfortable chairs around tables with The Straits’ sleek, brightly lit bar behind.

A Singapore Sling may be the most obvious drink to order upon your arrival. The glowing orange gin-based drink with a tropical profile not only matches the sunset, but is in line with The Straits’ identity as a Singaporean restaurant. While the cocktail’s precise origins are debated and the original recipe uncertain, the namesake beverage was first enjoyed in the now-city-state more than 100 years ago.

While less directly tied to Singapore specifically, The Stratis’ signature cocktails capture the nation’s sunny disposition and abundance of fruit. The Straits Side contains vodka, Midori, lemongrass, and pomelo syrup, and the Tropical Frozen Margarita offers fresh mango and passionfruit juice, while the star ingredient of the Guava Martini is self-evident. These adventurous drinks are joined by classic cocktails as well as local beer, mocktails, smoothies, and soft drinks. If you need a refreshing pick-up and will be driving home, Saigoneer recommends the coconut coffee, which contains not just fresh coconut juice and flesh but an invigorating splash of pandan syrup for a special twist.

It's never wise to drink on an empty stomach, and after a full day in the city, whether working, shopping, or sightseeing, a snack is a welcome sundown accompaniment. Served from 10 until 10, The Straits bar bites include international standards such as charcuterie platter, spiced cashews, and crudites alongside some Singaporean items. Har cheong gai, crunchy, mid-joint chicken wings with prawn paste batter and spicy dipping sauce, is an easy favorite as is the soft shell crab gau bao.

The Straits is a perfect post-work place to gather with friends and co-workers to wait out the rush, but once you’ve sat down and smelled the wonderful dishes being served, you might decide to stay for dinner. The menu, frequently assessed and enthusiastically approved by Sedona’s Singaporean owners for its authenticity, gives diners a thoughtful introduction to some of the nation’s most cherished dishes. The char kway teow, for example, underscores how cuisine is the result of time, place, and tradition. Working-class members of immigrant communities married their traditional flat rice noodles with the abundant seafood of the region. The resulting wok-fried dish is a harmonious medley of prawns, cockles, Chinese sausage, bean sprouts, and garlic.

Singaporean cuisine’s commitment to flexible balance is evident in the laksa. Its rich, creamy coconut broth depends on which locally available spices and herbs are available, as well as the preferences of the chef. Similarly, the hor fun is a whole that's even greater than its beef or seafood, vegetables, and Peranakan sauce parts. And of course, the chicken and rice that started as a humble way to make the best use of the finest breed of chickens and now graces Michelin Guide books must be present.

If you squint, the shimmering tail of water flowing between Saigon skyscrapers resembles the strait running along Singapore. Given that and the two metropolises’ proximity, it’s rather shocking that Saigon has so few Singaporean restaurants that cater to discerning tastes in a refined atmosphere. But not only does The Straits meet those needs, offering a plate of mee siam or nasi lemak in a relaxed dining room, it also provides an elevated oasis of cool comfort. Far above the 5 pm chaos, it’s a perfect place to watch the afternoon slip into evening and a dignified serenity fill your mind.

Sedona Suite's Website

Sedona Suite's Email

The Strait's Facebook Page

090 667 79 23

Level 28, Sedona Suites, 67 Le Loi, Ben Nghe Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thriving trade in Vietnam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Better enforcement and trade monitoring needed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From North to South, a French Photographer's Glimpses of 1992 Vietnam

2026-03-24T12:31:57+07:00

How much of Vietnam have you explored? For many of us with a busy life and working schedule, one or two trips a year might be as much as our time and money can afford, and even so, at times, visiting a location only involves staying at an all-inclusive resort to recuperate from work stress.

French photographer Renault’s trip to Vietnam in 1992 was perhaps one of the most productive photographic journeys we have ever come across in our history of sharing vintage albums of Vietnam. From north to south, Renault seemed to have checked off nearly all popular destinations — and with awesomely shot visual receipts to prove it: Hanoi, Ninh Bình, Hạ Long, Saigon, Hội An, Nha Trang, Đà Lạt, Huế, Đà Nẵng, Mỹ Tho, and Phú Quốc.

Have a closer look below:

Long Biên Bridge, Hanoi.

The capital's St. Joseph's Cathedral has always been a popular landmark for tourists.

Children play next to old plane carcasses in the former Lenin Park (now Thống Nhất).

A bakery selling French pastries and traditonal treats at 252 Hàng Bông.

A clock store and the family who ran it.

Inside an electronics store in Hanoi with brand-new Samsung TVs on display.

Elementary school kids in Hanoi.

The Metropole Hotel is one of Hanoi's oldest structures.

Downtown Saigon from the balcony of the Rex Hotel.

Riding xích lô in Saigon.

A newsboy in Saigon and his stock of French-language papers.

French brands like Peugeot had a prominent presence in Saigon.

The State Bank of Vietnam building, which used to house a branch of the Banque Nationale de Paris.

A poster of the local showing of the French erotica film L'Amant.

In Chợ Lớn, neighborhoods were largely undeveloped and streets weren't even paved.

A helicopter carcass in Củ Chi.

Khải Định Mausoleum in Huế.

A rural classroom in Hội An.

Inside Tam Thai Pagoda, Đà Nẵng.

On the road between Nha Trang and Đà Nẵng.

Fishing boats in Nha Trang.

A bánh mì vendor next to a Renault Goélette in Nha Trang.

Students in Đà Lạt wearing their sweater uniform.

Ninh Bình.

Hạ Long.

A Citroen in Mỹ Tho.

Phú Quốc.

Photos by Pool Renault/Rieger/Gamma-Rapho via RedsVN.

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

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

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

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

Photo via Vietnam.vn.

Ba khía, the tiny crab from the delta

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

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

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

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

How to hunt the mangrove forest's runner

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

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

Photo via Người Lao Động.

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

Making mắm ba khía

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

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

Photo via Người đưa tin.

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

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

Photo by Huỳnh Anh/TTX Việt Nam.

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

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

Ba khía, the iconic Cà Mau delicacy

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

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

Photo by Huỳnh Anh/TTX Việt Nam.

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

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

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

Pristine Blue Sky and Memorial Park: Ruminating on What the Covid-19 Pandemic Left Us

2026-03-21T20:00:00+07:00

Recently, I visited Saigon’s newly inaugurated COVID-19 memorial park. Located at 1 Lý Thái Tổ, Vườn Lài Ward, the park opened in February as a part of the city’s efforts to expand its green spaces. The centerpiece of the park is its teardrop-shaped sculpture, a monument commemorating the solidarity and care that carried the city through the hardships of the pandemic.

As I sat surrounded by the stairs that form the outlines of a ripple, I reflected upon the pandemic.

The last time I lived in Saigon was in 2021, during the height of the pandemic. After many months of relative success in containing the virus, Vietnam began seeing a surge in cases and deaths in April. Days before graduating from high school, we were told that our graduation ceremony would be virtual. In the months between graduation and heading off to college, my life remained largely static, still as water.

Reflecting on those long days, one image stands out above all others, perhaps because it encapsulates so well how I felt: the image of a pristine blue sky. It felt like the sky was as clear as it had ever been, due to the absence of Saigon’s traffic frenzy, if I had to guess. There was a quality of mesmerizing blankness to it all — one which made it easier to notice and appreciate the little things: the brilliance of the sun, specks of white clouds.

I think my life largely felt the same way. It felt remarkably uninteresting, but amidst the bareness of it all sprouted a deeper appreciation and passion for life and the ordinary. One could say my fascination with the clear skies stemmed from this, too.

Needless to say, for many, the pandemic was neither simple nor peaceful. And for some, it never ended. Variant strains of COVID continue to circulate and affect vulnerable populations. Many still suffer from the effects of long COVID. Many of us lost loved ones. Such deaths and their ripples never truly leave us.

I tend to be skeptical of monuments, because they inherently function to homogenize what is never homogenous to begin with: the plurality and incongruence of uneven experiences contained within any historical event. The droplet is no exception, but I do appreciate that its surface mirrors its surroundings. What's reflected changes with who stands before it and when — an acknowledgment of the impossibility of any single, monolithic construction of public memory.

Piercing through the monument is a heart-shaped hole. It is a hole that, for me, represents indebtedness towards those who showed immense courage, strength, resilience, and more — family, friends, colleagues, and most of all, the countless essential workers who, with little to no other choice, put their lives at risk to keep society’s wheels turning.

The hole exists because we are all incomplete alone, incomplete without the care and labor of and for one another, a reciprocity so often unfulfilled. I hope the city’s new monument can serve as a reminder to all of us that such a need for care and reciprocity, too, should never leave — and with it, a call to imagine what it would look like for the world to truly organize itself around such principles.

Standing before the droplet, I observe what it reflects. I’m there, tiny amidst it all. And above me, the bright blue sky, still looming large, still looming high.

Hẻm Gems: Tokyo Moon Cafe Introduces Homey Korean Flavors to Japan Town

2026-03-21T15:00:00+07:00

Stepping into Tokyo Moon is like venturing into a world of wonders, neatly packed within a mere 35-square-meter space.

Tucked inside Saigon’s Japan Town on Lê Thánh Tôn Street, Tokyo Moon is run by an older Korean couple who has been serving tea and sweet treats for more than six years. The cozy cafe has been a time-honored Saigoneer favorite ever since we featured it back in 2018. About a year ago, a new Tokyo Moon location opened nearby, so we decided to go and check it out.

Tokyo Moon II is unfortunately closed.

Unfortunately, upon arriving at the new location, we found out that it had closed, seemingly permanently. We lingered there awkwardly for a while and captured some snapshots of the shop’s elegant pastel-pink facade. Then, we took a short walk to the original Tokyo Moon in the maze of alleys on Thái Văn Lung to see if it too had closed. Luckily, the OG cafe is open.

The tiny corner of Tokyo Moon in Japan Town.

Once inside, I immediately felt the snug and cozy atmosphere for which Tokyo Moon is renowned. Our group of three was just enough to occupy the largest table in the shop. Classical music was playing in the background, and from time to time, the owners would let out the common Korean expression “Uwaaa!” in delight whenever familiar Korean patrons entered the store.

Our drinks came with mismatched cutleries and glasses.

We picked an array of options from the menu, mostly tea-based beverages. After a brief wait, our order arrived. Alongside our drink was an additional ginger tea presented in an odd-looking ceramic teapot that piqued my curiosity. A Google Search informed me that the unique vessle was a “Yokode kyusu” teapot. The Japanese teapot with a distinctive cylinder-shaped handle is quite different from the usual pots I've seen.

The ssanghwacha comes with an egg yolk.

According to one of the owners, Madame Moon, the Tokyo Moon tea was steeped with various Chinese herbal medicines. The brew had a brownish hue, with tiny jujube slices and pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top. As I slowly sipped the hot tea, a warm, lightly sweet, gingery taste lingered in my throat — a comfortable feeling indeed. The cup of Tokyo Moon tea also came with a small spoon to scoop up the garnishes and have a nibble.

I also chose to try yulmucha, mainly because of its name. A type of Korean tea made from powdered adlay millets (hạt ý dĩ in Vietnamese), yulmucha fit well in Tokyo Moon’s roster of healthy beverages. What surprised me about this drink was that, while originating in Korea, yulmucha felt so familiar. As soon as the cup was brought to my table, the tea’s aroma reminded me of the of the instant nutritious cereals I used to have as a kid. After having a taste, I realized that the liquid had a thicker consistency than a regular drink; its nutty flavor and creamy texture reminded me of chè mè đen. The inclusion of jujube slices and pumpkin seeds meant this tea could be both a drink and a warm, light snack for the afternoon.

Knick-knacks and keepsakes fill the space at Tokyo Moon.

But tingling your taste buds with healthy tea beverages is not all that there is at Tokyo Moon, because you can also immerse in the cafe’s vivid decorations. We sat beside a wall-mounted shelf full of books, vintage film cameras, ceramic figurines of kittens, etc. Even on our table, there was a tray that contained colorful chocolate candies, and a notebook with the owners’ handwritten menu and adorable pencil sketches.

Mr. and Mrs. Moon behind the counter.

“Many of the decorations here are gifts from our customers, even things like the coasters and cups are handmade by the customers too,” Madame Moon shares with us. When we first walked into the cafe, we were greeted with a wall full of polaroids of the shop’s past visitors, and it seems like one of the factors that make this place look so charming is you get to see small traces of patrons who had enjoyed their stay in Tokyo Moon through the years.

The wall of Poraloid shots preserving generations of customer visits.

Other than the perceivable things that adorn the cafe, the sounds also contributed to the soothing atmosphere at Tokyo Moon. The playlist is handpicked by Mr. and Mrs. Moon, and their preference for classical music is because “back then, Mr. Moon’s dream was being a maestro in an orchestra.”

Due to the small space, Tokyo Moon discourages laptop use and limits visits to 1.5 hours.

Madame Moon let us in on some of their plans for the future, telling us they recently opened a new cafe in South Korea. And just like how Tokyo Moon was named in honor of their family name and Mr. Moon’s Japanese roots, they combined personal identities to come up with the name Ssanghwacha & Cafe Saigon. They are hoping to introduce some Vietnamese beverages to South Koreans, “something like ‘cà phê muối’ for example,” Madame Moon explained of the planned menu. We also got an explanation behind why the new Tokyo Moon was permanently closed: it was simply too overwhelming for the couple to run three cafes at the same time.

Many decorations here were gifts from past patrons.

Before going to Tokyo Moon, I came across an online review commenting that Tokyo Moon carries a very Studio Ghibli vibe, and I wholeheartedly agree. Enjoying a cup of tea in the middle of many whimsical, appealing decorations and velvety classical music makes it a calm and relaxing space to forget about the worries of the world for a few hours, just like watching a Studio Ghibli film. I got so lost in the atmosphere that when was time to leave, I forgot to take my bag with me. Luckily, Madame Moon was quick to notice and brought it to me when I was about to hop on my bike. It was a small but funny moment to cap off a day full of good tea, charming sights and memorable interactions.

This article was originally published in 2024.

Tokyo Moon opens from 10am to 10pm every day.

To sum up:

Taste: 5/5
Price: 3.5/5
Atmosphere: 5/5
Friendliness: 5/5
Location: 5/5

Tokyo Moon

8A/1C2 Thái Văn Lung, Bến Nghé Ward, D1, HCMC