Exploring Saigon and Beyond - Saigoneer

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

2026-04-28T10:00:00+07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article was originally published in 2015.

Hẻm Gems: At Sara Ethiopian Restaurant, a Chicken Stew for the Soul

2026-04-28T08:00:00+07:00

Before the existence of Sara Ethiopian Restaurant in Saigon, my knowledge about the African country could fit squarely in a child’s palm: its capital, Addis Ababa; the tragic Ethiopian Airlines crash in March; and its national dish, injera.

Editor's note (April 2026): Sara Ethiopian has returned after a few years of hiatus and has moved to Thủ Thiêm. Check out their updated address at the end of the article. This review features the restaurant's original location in Phạm Ngũ Lão Ward in 2019.

Look, I’m not proud of it. Living in Asia doesn’t do wonders for one's immersion in African culture and cuisine, even to someone who sees eating as a sacred hobby, like me. My past experiences with African food, however, have always been stellar. A lady living in the suburban reaches of Gò Vấp District cooks the most divine Nigerian dishes out of her own home. These include fragrant batches of jollof, a golden rice dish that packs in tomatoes, cayenne pepper, curry powder and thyme. Still, jollof is a mainstay in West Africa, at least three countries away from the Horn of Africa along the eastern coast of the continent, where Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia huddle.

I am a firm believer in character development, so after an eye-opening meal at Sara Ethiopian, I set out to wallow obsessively in Wikipedia articles. Ethiopia is currently the most populous landlocked country in the world, though what it lacks in seafood, it more than makes up for with a range of diverse stews and vegetable-based fare, a fact that’s well-represented in Sara’s menu.

Berhanu Demissie opened the restaurant with his wife, Sara Alamerew.

When I arrived for my second visit, the restaurant's general manager, Berhanu Demissie, was casually sweeping the shopfront. Sara Ethiopian is in the basement of a tube house down an alley on Đỗ Quang Đẩu Street. Its front dining area is outfitted with a verdant plastic lawn, and the walls are embellished with a mosaic of food photography, including bowls of hearty stew and platters of salad. Demissie and his wife, Sara Alamerew, officially opened the eatery in Saigon just a month ago after more than two years in Cambodia.

Sara Ethiopian’s Phnom Penh counterpart is already a household name among the expat community there, as well as visiting tourists, thanks to its close proximity to the National Museum of Cambodia. According to Alamerew, opening a restaurant in Asia wasn’t her original plan. A friend of the couple was teaching English in Cambodia a few years ago. “He told us: ‘Why don’t you open a restaurant here, you have the experience’," Alamerew said. “Then I said. ‘okay, why not?'”

They didn’t expect the Phnom Penh joint to blow up like it did, but the success was enough to entertain requests to branch out to Saigon. Even in Cambodia, their patrons included many visitors from Vietnam, who insisted that the husband and wife pair grace Vietnam with their culinary expertise. Requests were made by everyone from travel enthusiasts to the big names at the Ethiopian Embassy in Hanoi, who were stoked to learn of the opening of Sara in Saigon. “They took a lot of injera, even the dry ones, to Hanoi,” Demissie proudly claimed. “Now they’re very happy we’re in Hồ Chí Minh [City].”

Sara Alamerew once owned a successful eatery in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.

Injera is the country’s national dish, a steamed flatbread whose humble appearance might lead the uninitiated to underestimate it, but it bears a unique taste and texture that’s impossible to forget. The most traditional version of the bread is made entirely from teff powder and water. Native to the Horn of Africa, teff is an ancient grain that’s even smaller than sesame seeds but packs ample micronutrients and fiber. Ground into a powder, teff is used as the main or partial ingredient to make injera batter, which undergoes three days of fermentation to give the bread a tangy, sourdough-like flavor and a spongy texture that’s reminiscent of Vietnamese bánh bò, a dessert also made fluffy by yeast.

It is this unique airiness that enables injera to soak up the array of sauces in Ethiopian cuisine. At Sara’s, injera is made fresh by order and served in rolls neatly arranged in a basket. When needed, tear away a small portion and use it to pinch bits of the stew and sauces to put in your mouth. For Ethiopian food novices, you can’t go wrong with the meat veggie combo — including doro wot, a chicken stew; minchet abish, a spiced beef stew; marinated beef; and accompanying vegetables (see the top photo).

A portion of doro wot with a basket full of injera rolls.

Describing doro wot as a stew is unjustly simplistic, but the complexity of the concoction is hard to transcribe in words. A portion of doro wot comes with a hard-boiled egg and chicken meat, drenched in a mahogany gravy. “That one [doro wot] is a little difficult to make,” Alamerew warned me. “Red onions, a lot of red onion.” Early in the morning every day, she wakes up, chops up the onions and sweats them down on low heat. “You do it for a long time, you have to do it with fire,” she said. Once the onions are sweated down, she sautées them with a mixture of spices and Ethiopian clarified butter. It’s also crucial to remove every bit of fat from the chicken, “even from the inside” because, according to her, the stew will spoil if the fat gets into the sauce.

Shiro wot, a chickpea stew, is also the pride of Sara Ethiopian. The velvety soup coats your tongue with a nuttiness and umami flavor so inviting it practically commandeers your hands to never stop dipping. Of course, one can request steamed rice to go with the soups, but “injera is our daily life. This is what we eat all the time,” Demissie said. He emphasized its casual presence in their cuisine, in comparison with doro wot, which is a “special occasion” feast for important days like New Year or Christmas.

Tibs, a stir-fry dish with beef.

At one point during our conversation, Alamerew excused herself and came back with a pot of freshly brewed coffee. The tall black pot is called jebena, an important part of Ethiopian coffee culture. People can drink coffee in the morning, for lunch and in the evening, she said. She likes it that Vietnamese also gather to drink coffee on the street as a bonding activity. As much as the beverage is an indispensable part of Saigon’s daily rhythm, at times Saigoneers don’t take it as seriously as Ethiopians do. While the latter do drink coffee casually, the most ceremonial form of coffee consumption in Ethiopia is a ritual involving incense, flowers and snacks like puffed rice or popcorn.

The restaurant has only been open for a month, but reaching that point required years of planning. Within the span of two years, they went back and forth between Cambodia and Vietnam numerous times to look for a suitable location. Once they found the current location, they liked it so much that they paid rent for three months while the place was still empty because they didn’t want to lose it to other tenants.

Nighttime in Phạm Ngũ Lão Ward.

When asked if she ever misses home during her years abroad, Alamerew laughed and said that she was just in Ethiopia two months ago. She is a veteran when it comes to packing up one’s life to take root elsewhere. Her family resettled in Yemen when she was young, and she once again moved to New Delhi for high school and stayed until she finished her degree in economics at university. Her mother is also a sterling chef and restauranteur, whose 35-year-old Ethiopian eatery is still open in Yemen. Growing up with a food-loving mother familiarized Alamerew with the ins-and-outs of a professional kitchen.

“I used to follow her, she used to teach, she’s a professional. And now she has many stuff going on, she’s only watching people,” Alamerew says of her mother, who stayed with them for three months when they were preparing to open Sara Ethiopian in Phnom Penh, helping to fine-tune their injera. The batter depends a lot on the weather to rise, and Cambodia’s humidity and rainy tendencies necessitated special adjustments to the family recipe. It proved to be a success that not even Saigon’s fickle weather patterns could topple.

Though Demissie occasionally misses home, the husband and wife pair are content with their new endeavor in Vietnam.

“We’re happy. One thing I like about Vietnam: the Vietnamese people, they like to try foreign food,” she said. “The neighbors come to eat, they taste our food, and they appreciate [it]. I love our neighbors. And we have the same culture. You know, Vietnamese people, they like to help others, even if you don’t have money, they will give you, like ‘okay keep it, you can give me back later.’ In that way, in Ethiopia also they do that.”

A bowl of hot shiro wot, or chickpea stew.

Khôi loves tamarind, is a raging millennial and will write for food.

Sara Ethiopian Restaurant

Ground Floor, B-00.01 Sadora Building, Mai Chí Thọ, An Khánh Ward, Thủ Đức City

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exporting health and environmental harms

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Southeast Asia pushes back

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The global plastics treaty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From WWI Monument to Ancestor Temple: The Story of Saigon's Hùng King Temple

2026-04-24T11:30:00+07:00

The Hùng King Temple at 2 Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm was originally built in 1927–1929 under the name Temple du Souvenir Annamite (Annamite Temple of remembrance), primarily to honor the memory of Vietnamese soldiers who died while fighting in World War I.

It is a little-known fact that more than 92,000 Vietnamese men from French Indochina fought in the French armed forces during the Great War of 1914–1918, and it’s been estimated that at least 12,000 of these lost their lives during that conflict.

In 1920, the Cochinchina authorities decided to build a Great War memorial and cenotaph to honor all those who fought and died for France during World War I. This Monument aux morts de la Grande Guerre was inaugurated on November 11, 1927 on place Maréchal Joffre (now Turtle Lake).

The Monument aux Morts de la Grande Guerre.

However, leaders of the Vietnamese community in Saigon felt that there should also be a dedicated memorial to the large number of local soldiers who lost their lives in the conflict, and that this should take the traditional form of a temple to worship their memory. After extensive discussion, it was decided that this temple should commemorate not just Vietnamese war dead, but also great historical figures associated with the south.

Consequently, in 1921, the Cochinchina administration granted a plot of land next to the Botanical Gardens and a committee was set up under patronage of Cochinchina Governor Le Gallen to raise funds for the construction of the Temple du Souvenir Annamite. The fundraising campaign was targeted at the wealthy Vietnamese community of Saigon: “proprietors, shopkeepers, civil servants and others for whom the work or sacrifice of our dear departed has assured happiness.”

The Temple du souvenir Annamite in the late colonial period.

By 1927, a public subscription of 48,000 piastres had been raised, and in November 1927, when architect Auguste Delaval was commissioned to design the new city museum, he was also charged with designing and supervising the construction of the Temple du Souvenir Annamite on the adjacent site.

The temple was built of masonry around a wooden frame supplied by the École professionnelle de Thu-Dau-Mot, and inaugurated together with the new Musée Blanchard de la Brosse (now the Hồ Chí Minh City History Museum) on January 1, 1929. It was described by Le Progrès Annamite newspaper as “a place where the great figures of history, the mandarin benefactors of the people, the writers of talent and the dead of the Great War will be combined in a single official cult.”

Dragons flanked the stone steps leading up to the temple, which was designed in a style typical of Nguyễn-Dynasty mausoleums in Huế, with a three-layered curved roof richly decorated with dragons and phoenixes.

A colonial-era view of the Musée Blanchard de la Brosse from the Temple du souvenir Annamite.

The newspaper described the Temple as “a building of pure Annamite style, its interior decorated with sculptural motifs which bring together dragons and other symbolic animals (cranes, unicorns, turtles and phoenixes)” and featuring “masonry walls which combine durability with the fine elegance of collonades and bas-reliefs made from precious wood.” Each of the 12 black wooden pillars supporting the roof represented a sign of the zodiac.

The Temple du souvenir Annamite has always been popular with photographers.

In the center of the temple was placed “a marble stele, where, next to the famous names of Le-Van-Duyet, Phan-Thanh-Giang, Nguyen-Huynh-Duc, Truong-Vinh-Ky, Tong-Doc-Loc, Tong-Doc-Phuong, Paulus Cua and Le-Quang-Hien, are inscribed the more modest but no less glorious names of our brave Annamites who died on the field of battle.”

The newspaper concluded that “as well as a place of meditation and pilgrimage for the Annamites, the monument will also be a masterpiece where foreign tourists will come to appreciate the beauty of our local art.”

In 1955, the temple was rededicated to the memory of the founding Hùng Dynasty of Việt Nam, and officially renamed the Đền Quốc tổ Hùng Vương (National Hùng King Ancestor Temple), although the original stele remained and the temple continued to be known popularly as Đền Kỷ niệm (“Temple of remembrance”).

This 1950s Ford advert used the Temple du souvenir Annamite as a location.

After Reunification, the memorial stele was removed and the temple was dedicated exclusively to the Hùng kings. Today, the main Hùng king shrine stands at the center of the temple, guarded by a set of eight bronze-tipped weapons (lỗ bộ), a gong and a drum. Various other items are placed around the side of the hall, including two replica Đông Sơn drums and a model of the main Hùng King Temple in the northern province of Phú Thọ.

The plague carrying the temple name today.

Each year, on the 10^th day of the third lunar month (usually around mid April), the temple hosts the city’s official Hùng King Ancestors Festival, which begins with a solemn ceremony giving thanks to the Hùng dynasty for their contribution to the Vietnamese nation.

In the yard immediately in front of the Hùng Temple is a three-ton bronze elephant statue mounted on a rectangular concrete pedestal. This was presented as a gift to the city by King Rama VII of Siam on the occasion of his first visit to Indochina on April 14, 1930.

A 1960s shot of the bronze elephant statue presented as a gift to the city by King Rama VII of Siam in 1930.

The Hùng King Temple today. Photo by Jimmy Art Devier.

This article was originally published in 2015.

Tim Doling is the author of the guidebooks Exploring Huế (Nhà Xuất Bản Thế Giới, Hà Nội, 2018), Exploring Saigon-Chợ Lớn (Nhà Xuất Bản Thế Giới, Hà Nội, 2019) and Exploring Quảng Nam (Nhà Xuất Bản Thế Giới, Hà Nội, 2020) and The Railways and Tramways of Việt Nam (White Lotus Press, 2012). For more information about Saigon history, visit his website, historicvietnam.com.

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

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

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

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

Stunning views appeared often during the ride.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Local creativity and resourcefulness can only go so far.

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

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

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

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

Photos courtesy of Tim Bishop.

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

ACV Proposes Moving 90% of Saigon's Overseas Flights to Long Thành

2026-04-23T08:00:00+07:00

The Airports Corporation of Vietnam (ACV) has proposed plans to transfer flight operations in Hồ Chí Minh City from Tân Sơn Nhất Airport to Long Thành International Airport in Đồng Nai Province. The plan aims to transfer 90% of HCMC’s international flight operations to Long Thành by 2027.

The roadmap for the plan consists of two phases. In phase 1, all long-haul international flights — accounting for approximately 19% of Saigon's international passenger traffic — will be moved from Tân Sơn Nhất to Long Thành. This first stage will span the start and end of the Winter 2026 flight schedule, beginning December 1, 2026 and ending in March 27, 2027.

In phase 2, the remaining international flights will continue to be transferred, with the exception of short-haul routes under 1,000km operated by Vietnamese airlines — a radius which roughly encompasses regions in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Malaysia. The second phase would start March 28, 2027, the beginning of the Summer 2027 flight schedule, through 2030. By the end of the second phase, the aim is to have Long Thành handle 90% of international passenger traffic.

After 2030, all international flights would operate exclusively out of Long Thành. According to ACV, the state-owned joint-stock company that manages 22 airports across Vietnam, the goal is to establish Long Thành as a global aviation hub.

To develop operational expertise ahead of Long Thành’s opening, the ACV is implementing workforce training programs and has signed a consultancy agreement with South Korea’s Incheon Airport Consortium.

According to the ACV, it will be crucial for domestic airlines to move their operations to Long Thành promptly in the early stages of the plan. Hesitations to do so could pose significant risks to achieving project goals and diminishing investment efficiency. Citing analysis by consulting firm IAC, the ACV also warned that failing to concentrate international routes in Long Thành will fragment the flight network, causing Vietnamese airlines to lose significant market share to foreign competitors.

Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính has set a hard deadline for Long Thành Airport to launch by late 2026. Major challenges remain, however, most recently concerning a shortage of 6,000 workers to finish construction on time.

Photo via Pháp Luật.

US Presidents, Russian Mascot, and Tintin: The Surprising History Behind Vietnam's Dog Names

2026-04-22T12:00:00+07:00

As Vietnamese society progresses, dogs and cats’ role in our families have gradually elevated to worthy life companions instead of mere animal help in previous generations. While the archive of pet names today seems endless and every day you can easily bump into pets bearing hilariously human names, tasty food dishes, or glorious adjectives, the naming conventions of Vietnamese domestic animals in the past had recurring themes that directly correspond to the cultural and historical atmosphere of when they were coined.

The simplest and most timeless way to name dogs in Vietnam, today or in the past, is still after their coat color. Popular examples include Vàng (yellow), Nâu (tan), Mực (black) or Vện (swirly). Vện is a distinctive coat pattern often seen on dogs related to the Phú Quốc ridgeback, one of a few dog breeds native to Vietnam. The earliest record, and probably most famous dog, from this naming formula was Cậu Vàng, the treasured companion of Lão Hạc in Nam Cao’s titular short story from 1943. This formula, sadly, also spawns the name Xà Mâu, a name often used to describe dogs afflicted with skin diseases that result in patchy skin and fur.

Cậu Vàng as depicted in a 2021 film adaptation of Lão Hạc.

Starting from the 1960s all the way until the decades immediately after the war against the US, a cheeky new naming convention emerged: dogs were named after American politicians with prominent involvement in the war. The most common ones were Giôn (Lyndon Johnson), Ních or Mích (Richard Nixon), and Ki, Kiki, or Kít (Henry Kissinger). In writer Nguyễn Quang Lập’s personal essay ‘Con chó Giôn của tôi’ (My dog, Giôn), part of the essay collection Ký ức vụn (Fragmented Memories), he reminisces about his most favorite furry friend growing up:

“His name was Giôn, meaning Giôn Xơn [...] When we first brought him home from Aunt Thé’s house, the family called him Giôn Xơn, but it proved to be hard to say, some said Giôn Giôn Giôn, some called him Xơn Xơn Xơn. He was as small as a banana blossom, eyes wide in confusion. A week in, he still didn’t know what his real name was, so we agreed to call him just Giôn.”

These were fascinating expressions of passive aggression that were also short and vague enough for plausible deniability. In today’s social climate, it is a little bizarre to think of anyone naming the beloved fur babies they pamper and care for after something so entrenched in wartime bitterness, but one could look into the role that animals once occupied in the typical Vietnamese household for a possible answer.

Across Vietnamese history, any animal kept at home usually served a specific utilitarian role to justify its husbandry: water buffaloes ploughed the field, chickens laid eggs, ducks gave feathers, etc. Dogs protected the home and cats hunted rodents; they often weren’t seen as pets or family members. These clear HR boundaries might have provided sufficient emotional detachment for people to engage in some sassy name-calling.

The popularity of the comic series Tintin helped Milou become one of the most common dog names in Vietnam. Image via Studio Brillantine.

Anecdotally, with every new decade, the prevalence of Giôn and Ních seems to have waned, perhaps due to their very glaring non-Vietnamese spelling. Ki and Kiki, however, are still going strong — dare I say, because, removed from their historical origin, they sound rather… cute? After the war ended and as quality of life in Vietnam improved, our family structure opened up to welcome more dogs and cats as life companions, and their naming convention also shifted to reflect this changing dynamic.

From the 1970s until now, there are increasingly diverse and affectionate ways to name pets: after a favorite food or fruit like Quýt, Mì, Bánh Bao (because people love food and their pets); just a dude’s name like Huy, Minh, An (because people see pets as their children); or after a wish of wellness like Lạc, Lộc, Như Ý. Descriptive names based on appearance, of course, are timeless — like Vàng, Cam, Nâu, Xù, Bông, Béo, Vằn, and more.

Misha, the mascot of Moscow 1980, on a stamp. Image via Wikimedia.

There are, still, two common names with cultural significance that arose during this time period. Firstly, Mi Lu, Lu Lu or Lu originated from Milou, a white Wire Fox Terrier in Les Aventures de Tintin. This French-language comic was one of the most iconic European series of the 20^th century, documenting the thrilling global adventures of Tintin, a Belgian reporter, and his dog Milou. Legally dubious Vietnamese translations started circulating pre-1975 and continued throughout the 1980s, as part of the rise in French-language cultural products in Vietnam at the time, which brought Lucky Luke, Schtroumpf and Tintin to local readers.

Lastly, one less common but fascinating Vietnamese dog name with surprisingly European origin is Mi Sa or Misa, local versions of Misha, the official mascot of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Misha is a cuddly bear designed by children’s illustrator Victor Chizhikov, widely deemed the first character from a sporting event to achieve major commercial success. Moscow 1980 — and by extension, Misha — was also historically significant to Vietnamese because it was the first Olympics in which Vietnam participated after the war ended, even though we didn’t win any medals.

5 Quixotic Books About Vietnam for When You're Craving a Little Quirky Read

2026-04-21T10:00:00+07:00

There are too many good Vietnamese books to recommend, let alone read.

If you search around online, you’ll find some pretty good lists to steer you to works translated from English and written by diasporic writers. There are also a few publishers who focus on the genre, such as Curbstone Press’ now-completed Voices From Vietnam series, which featured several Saigoneer favorites, including An Insignificant Family by Dạ Ngân and The Cemetery of Chua Village by Đoàn Lê. The newly established Major Books recently released Water: A Chronicle by Nguyễn Ngọc Tư and the first English version of Making a Whore by Vũ Trọng Phụng.

Popular works by authors like Bảo Ninh, Ocean Vuong, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai are recommended, rightfully so, all the time. But what if you are looking for something a little stranger, lesser-known, or quixotic?

Saigoneer has assembled a list of quirky, off-kilter, or overlooked books to supplement the familiar titles for you. While unlikely to occupy a bookshop’s limited selection of Vietnamese literature, they can all be tracked down and are very much worth the effort.

1. McSweeney’s 78: The Make-Believers

This doesn’t look like a book*. The Make-Believers arrives in the form of a cardboard cigar box with a lid featuring seven brooding figures smoking cigarettes. Opening it reveals a back lid depicting three more writers, also smoking cigarettes, as well as three pieces of literature. The smokers are all members of DVAN, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network, a multi-genre collective. In 2023, ten members met in France for a writers residency, and this collection, edited by Thi Bui and Vu Tran, captures the spirit and conversations of their time together and serves as an introduction to the group and Vietnamese diasporic writers, in general.

When the music industry was operated via physical CDs put out by record labels, an occasional sampler disc would be released with a track or two from each artist on a single label as a means of introducing the cohesive sound or ethos shared by the label as a whole. The main 182-page The Believers book functions much this way for DVAN. Self-described as spanning “from highbrow to lowbrow, proper to naughty, logical to absurd, and painful to funny,” it's a great way to acquaint yourself to the energy, styles, and concerns of some of the diaspora’s most accomplished writers.

A heart-wrenching story of regret tinged with ghosts set in Đà Lạt by Vu Tran; a collection of politically charged poems by Bao Phi; and a snapshot of life within early 2000s American rave culture by H’Rina DeTroy are amongst the standouts. The box, beautifully illustrated by Thi Bui, of The Best We Could Do fame, also contains a hilarious glossary of broken Vietnamese as understood by Doan Bui; and a separate collaborative poem with lines from each resident assembled by Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, DVAN’s co-founder along with Viet Thanh Nguyen. Like the best label samplers CDs of the 2000s, not every piece will be your jam, but at least a few will play on repeat inside your head, and you’ll have an easy way to get an overview of a larger scene.

*Technically, this is a special edition of a literary journal, but it features a book-length selection of short stories, essays, and poems, and literary journals deserve more love.

2. Wetland Plants of the Mekong Delta

Did you know the Mekong Delta is home to 698 different species of plants? You can read the names of each one, marveling at the pretty sounds such as Ipomoea triloba and Digitaria setigera in Wetland Plants of the Mekong Delta. After a brief but instructive 40 pages introducing the region’s water and soil characteristics and the plants that occupy the region, you'll find a listing of the scientific name and group type for all 698. Then, it's page after page of gorgeous, glossy photographic plates of plant species. Numerous images of different plant parts — such as stamen, flower, fruit, pistil and leaf — are presented along with a sentence of notable characteristics and their habitat.

Intended mainly for scientists and researchers, Wetland Plants of the Mekong Delta may function best for average readers as a coffee table text. The photos do feature the Vietnamese names along with scientific ones, making it perhaps the most niche vocabulary study tool available.

And if you’re like me and draw pleasure and inspiration from plants, having the a verticle cross section of a Canalavia lineata in reach is a particular gift. Saigoneer’s favorite botany illustator, Phan Thị Thanh Nhã, contributed several works to the text. It's a travesty that all our daylight hours are not adrift in a melaleuca peat swamp, but at least we have this book brings tidings from those magical realms. And next time we visit, we will be able to identify a few plants, much to the chagrin of any non-plant nerds you are traveling with.

3. Down and Out in Saigon: Stories of the Poor in a Colonial City | Haydon Cherry

Few people associate fun with academic texts, but this work by Hayden Cherry offers a thrilling opportunity to picture turn-of-the-20^th-century Saigon like no other work. Pushing back against conventional efforts to understand history through significant dates and powerful figures, Cherry identifies six regular individuals to explain what average life was like in the colonial capital.

Relying on archival documents, including police records across several languages, he provides conjectures for what decisions were made by a prostitute, a Chinese laborer, a rickshaw puller, a Catholic orphan, an incurable invalid, and a destitute Frenchman. Readers are left with an overarching understanding that, within the turbulent time period, much was beyond the control of society’s lower and middle classes, while happenstance and the whims of the elite reverberated across the populace.

Even though 1900s Saigon was only a few generations ago, the time period feels utterly impenetrable compared to the present landscape. While it is a quick and light read, as far as academic texts go at least, what I appreciate most about Down and Out in Saigon is how intimately it renders the realities of living then. It can be difficult to imagine yourself as a colonial authority or a rich landowner, yet when entering the experiences of ordinary citizens, it's possible to envision yourself there and thus discover Saigon anew. It’s bold to say, but to best understand Saigon today, you should pick up this book and go back 130 years.

4. Parallels | Vũ Đình Giang

This list could use a novel, and this is a strange one! Parallels by Vũ Đình Giang, translated by Khải Q. Nguyễn, upends expectations from the beginning. Perspective shifts between characters and epistolary interludes while surrealism creeps in through a series of bizarre behaviors, such as attempts to drown the sun in a crude sluice made with cleaning supplies or plans to murder an adopted puppy. And just when you get the sense the book is content to list on via a nonlinear series of depictions of urban ennui, violent incidents whose veracity cannot be questioned take place. It becomes a revolting examination of humans’ propensity for evil.

Parallels is frequently presented as the first modern homosexual story published in Vietnamese. Hearing that, in a relatively conservative environment, you might expect the book to take a restrained, understated approach to discussing gay sex, but it’s graphic and intertwined with violence. These lurid elements, combined with the experimental writing style is a perfect contrast to many of the popular novels that adhere closely to conventions and deliver near-Disney-esque levels of family-friendly entertainment. It’s nice to be reminded that not all books that make it from Vietnam to the world play it safe, and some have the potential to shock and challenge as well as entertain.

Read Saigoneer’s full review of Parallels here.

5. The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam | Michael G. Vann and Liz Clarke

Do you like to learn about the selfish cruelty of colonialists and root for the oppressed Vietnamese who employ trickery to outsmart them? Want to do it while looking at colorful illustrations? The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt, an entry in Oxford University’s Graphic History series, which tells intriguing and largely unknown stories with a comic style, is one of those elusive works that is as educational as it is enjoyable.

The core of the book’s pleasure rests in the story itself. France’s empire-building involved “modernizing” Hanoi in western terms, and the transporting of Parisian elements resulted in some unintended consequences. Plague-carrying rats ran rampant via the newly constructed sewer system that connected to the private dwellings of rich French residents. Colonial officials responded by offering a bounty on the rats as issued per submitted tail (dealing with an entire corpse was deemed undesirable by authorities). Inevitably, locals would simply cut the tails off rats so their revenue stream would continue to breed and even open rat farms outside of the city.

The graphic novel provides a great lesson in hubris and unintended consequences that applies to contexts far beyond colonial Vietnam. But it should be particularly interesting if you are interested in the nation’s history as its filled with asides and anecdotes, including the story behind the statue of liberty that once stood in Turtle Lake. Clever layout decisions, such as including rendering Vietnamese dialogue red-bordered speech bubbles and French in blue to show how the two groups lived side-by-side yet maintained only a minimal understanding of one another, enhance the experience.

Following the graphic novel, there are extensive prose sections that delve into the primary sources used, offer historical context for those not familiar with Vietnamese history and, most interestingly, a “making of” discussion that reveals how the book was envisioned and completed, offering a powerful guide for how to find and tell stories that make history engaging, which is something Saigoneer can certainly get behind.

Read Saigoneer’s article about The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt here.

Voọc Cát Bà: The Endangered Primate of Karst Land

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Video by Fauna & Flora International

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

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

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

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

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

Did you know?

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

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

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

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

Photos courtesy of the Cat Ba Langur Conservation Project.

This article was originally published in 2021.

Far From Vietnam: A 1967 French Anti-War Film Grapples With Its Own Contradictions

2026-04-18T21:26:38+07:00

French cinema experienced a creative renaissance in the 1960s with arguably the most influential movement in its history, the French New Wave. Intellectuals within this movement strived for new techniques to tell stories in ways never seen before. Most of them were socialists who were against the American war in Vietnam.

While the filmmakers were often at odds with the general public on many topics, in this situation, both sides' views were aligned. French society viewed the intervention as aggression against Vietnamese people’s right to self-determination. After the escalation in 1965, public opinion was strongly on the Vietnamese side. Therefore, when Robert Bozzi, a Parisian gallerist, organized an operation to send medicine to Vietnam with the help of many artists, it was rather surprising that local cineasts were silent.

Bozzi pointed out the matter to his director friend Chris Marker, who then decided to create a project for Vietnam. Always seen as separate from his contemporaries because his works resemble those of an essayist rather than a director, Marker might be less famous than some of the most renowned directors of this period. He would progressively work on the relationship between political engagement and art throughout his filmography. Loin du Vietnam (Far From Vietnam), the cinematic work that was born of this initiative, is no exception.

The film poster.

Loin du Vietnam is hard to classify. Marker gathered a group of more than 150 cineasts, intellectuals, technicians, and historians to work on the film voluntarily, including Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais who served as directors with him. At first, the project was intended to be a cohesive piece of work from every participant, but it evolved into an 11-chapter movie released in 1967. A militant essay criticizing the US intervention in Vietnam, it goes further than simple political commitment and mixes fiction and documentary to offer different perspectives on the event, going from historical review to personal, intimate thoughts.

War of the rich against war of the poor

The entire film's perspective on the war is established on the outset via an opening voice-over sequence:

“On one side, the United States of America, the largest military power of all time. Since 1965, the start of the escalation, the Americans have thrown over a million tons of bombs on North Vietnam, more than those launched on Germany during World War II. A country whose 200 million people spend more on wrapping paper than 500 million Indians spend on food has many resources to give its army. Every morning in the gulf of Tonkin, the aircraft carriers of the 7th Fleet are filled with bombs. It’s a war of the rich. On the other side, it’s the war of the poor, that of 17 million North Vietnamese and their compatriots in the South who fight for their independence. They are the poorest but not the weakest. They are the least in number, but not the most alone.”

Still from the film showing Vietnamese soldiers.

The contrast described here is even more striking in the images: the US, armed with boats filled with rows of bombs, dominates the hostile environment of the sea with metallic and mechanized power. After this shot, the Vietnamese blend into the fields with their clothes covered with leaves, trying to use their surroundings as an advantage. The message is clear: the scale of the war is not balanced. But the stakes are where the true fundamental unfairness of the war lies, as stated shortly after the previous quote: North Vietnam fights to claim “the right of the poor to create, for progress, a society based on something besides the interests of the rich,” whereas the US fight to “show the world that revolutionary struggle is a dead end.”

The disparity of resources, which emphasizes the cruelty of the one-sided aggression, is illustrated by Joris Ivens, who had just released an acclaimed documentary on North Vietnam at the time, in several chapters of the film. In the first chapter, entitled ‘Bomb Hanoi,’ he shows footage of the shelters people in Hanoi have learned to develop in response to the incessant bombing. Buried along the roads, the cement tubes were mass-produced using casts in wooden molds, designed to be accessible shelters that civilians could find easily and quickly in case of sudden raids. Ivens captured the unexpected serenity found on Hanoi streets, acknowledging that “by living with them, one becomes calm like them. And certain of victory.” The unbothered will is poignant, even more so when one realizes that this is the calm before the storm, which is the next shot. The loud sounds of the sirens interrupt the tranquil atmosphere, and everybody seeks refuge in the shelters. And yet, amid this chaos, some are still confidently walking through the streets.

Boys playing beside solo sidewalk bomb shelters, Old Quarter, Sommer Mark, May 1968.

The original footage captured by Ivens shows the power imbalance, like a modern David and Goliath. Even though the opposition has overwhelming power, resilience is the key to victory. The parallel with the myth is pushed even further by the voice-over: “On the American side, the same ignorance of the adversary. American society has a principle: the poorest is always the least equipped. Poverty can be the basis of moral strength superior to the rich aggressor and America doesn't understand this.”

War as a spark of polarized reactions

To emphasize how the conflict was relevant to citizens around the globe, Loin du Vietnam features footage from outside Vietnam. William Klein effectively offers a perspective of the war by manifesting it through people’s emotions. A renowned street photographer, he adopted direct cinema aesthetics, which entail hand-held cameras and portable sound systems to capture the raw emotions in different live demonstrations.

William Klein

As the only US citizen of the group at the time, Klein had the opportunity to travel there to film without being asked too many questions. His footage of the demonstration on Wall Street on May 1, featured in the second chapter entitled ‘A Parade Is a Parade,’ offers nuanced perspectives to the project. It was originally an anti-war parade in the famous New York financial district, as can be read on the signs of demonstrators walking the picket line: “The rich get richer, you get drafted.” But Klein goes further, and true to direct cinema’s aim to represent reality, he stands in between the demonstrators and the crowd of traders gathered for the occasion, who boo the protesters before screaming “Bomb Hanoi” in unison.

More than just a figure behind the camera filming both sides, Klein was also an instigator, provoking heated debates, as shown in the last chapter of the movie called ‘Vertigo,’ which focuses on the famous parade led by Martin Luther King on April 15, 1967. This was one of the biggest demonstrations for peace, gathering more than half a million people from various socioeconomic backgrounds to march from Central Park to the United Nations. This variety gave the director room to spark discussions, some of which were very heated. Klein decried the war through the initiation of debates, trusting that, because the war is so unjustified and absurd, his ideas would eventually prevail.

Photo shown in the movie, taken during the April 15, 1967 anti-war demonstration in New York.

Manichean war in a complex world

While it’s represented as an unjust American intervention against the self-determination of the Vietnamese people, this war is embedded in a complex geopolitical situation. The film acknowledges this history in the didactic fifth chapter, ‘Flash Back,’ which starts with the First Indochina War. The chapter doesn’t shy away from how French colonialism precipitated and contributed to the US’s imperialist involvement. The parallel between those two imperial aggressions is shown historically: documentary footage and a voice-over bring up important moments of colonial history in Vietnam, but end up in comic strips fighting each other. This technique is clearly inspired by the Situationists, whose influence was at its peak at the time of the movie. The Situationists were a political group merging avant-garde artists and far-left militants. Their particular aesthetic, called le détournement, involves using footage of comics, ads and movies and changing the context to protest against capitalist societies and the effects of over-consumerism.

Situationist International using the détournement, text by Raoul Vaneigem and image by André Bertrand, 1967. Sarcastic comic image used to address culture as a commercial product in capitalists societies.

This connection to a niche political movement serves as a reminder that the movie is directed by a group of French intellectuals and self-described Marxists outside of the general public. While their perspectives represented an undeniable part of the western opinion on the American War, they didn't reflect the whole of it. Most of this group was already against imperialism during the era of French colonization and the First Indochina War. Amongst the average French layperson, anti-war views only started becoming more popular during the decades of the American War in Vietnam.

In January 1948, a survey included the question “What were the most important events of 1947?” and so few French respondents were aware of the Indochina War that it was grouped in the “Other” category — which amounted to 6%. In 1966, however, when queried about the American involvement in Vietnam, 41% of the people disapproved, four times higher than the 10% that showed approval.

The film becomes more ambiguous in Alain Resnais’ chapter ‘Claude Ridder,’ which portrays a fictional French bourgeois intellectual performing a long monologue about his struggle to support Vietnamese people. This character, meant to be despised, speaks his mind in brutal honesty about his contradictory feelings. He’d love to support the Vietnamese people wholeheartedly, but cannot fully put himself in their shoes. For example, he explains his turmoil about the war by drawing an inevitable connection with his past experience in World War II as a member of the Resistance against Nazis:

“The Germans were monsters, no visceral problems. I still feel a kind of animal panic when I hear German spoken. Then I remember the last days when suddenly, near a small village, we ran into an American armored division. The Jeeps, the heavy artillery, the tanks, chewing gum, 1944. We were rather happy to see them arrive. After all, we had no ammunition, I owe the Americans my life. I will always love them. Until the end of time, I’ll continue to kill Germans and love Americans. Except the Americans are the Germans of the Vietnamese. Everything gets complicated.”

A still from the ‘Claude Ridder’ chapter showing Alain Resnais’s fictional character, who can also be found in his movie Je t’aime, je t’aime (1968).

He feels that, as a French person, it’s almost hypocritical to protest after the long history of colonization, that it’s futile to just “protest” from the other side of the world, while people give their lives in battle. He also feels that it's reductive to focus on the Vietnam War while a lot of other people also face violence and aggression. All of this piles up into an overwhelming sense of being ill-equipped to address the issue that his intellectual morals can’t disregard, and creates visible uneasiness towards a situation that should be simple.

This character can be seen as a fictional mirror of the directors, and a stand-in to voice their dilemma: they want to capture the war truthfully, but in order to do this, they need to take a step back and look at themselves picturing the war.

Letting the war ‘invade’ us

The fictional representation of bad faith created by Resnais raises the question of the role of the outsiders, full of their own biases, in a war, and how art can tackle the complex subject. This necessity in maintaining a critical distance to wonder about the role of everyone in the conflict is what leads to the deepest layer of the movie. Godard tries to answer this question in a chapter called ‘Camera Eye,' where we can exclusively hear him reflect. The footage feels at first even more off topic: it is mostly him behind a huge camera, and we almost can’t even see his face. The topic is clear: as a French director, why is it important to protest against the American war in Vietnam?

Jean-Luc Godard

Godard begins his monologue with what he would have filmed, if he could have gone there: he wanted to describe how a cluster bomb impacts a naked body or the effect of defoliation on humans, and more. However, the director was not able to go there to execute these ideas; he tells us he asked Hanoi for authorization, but was refused. He is very humble about it, yet we can feel a touch of pain while he explains that he agrees with this refusal, because his ideology was still vague, and more than anything, falsely generous. It cannot come from the bottom of his heart, as he hadn’t experienced it: “It seemed difficult to address certain topics, to speak of bombs when they don’t fall on your head.”

Building on this idea, he chose to “let Vietnam invade us.” This means seeing it as a symbol, “Vietnam” here is not the country, but a more general image of resistance. The “invasion” means realizing the importance of the conflict, and that it’s not alone. Many other countries are facing imperialism, and Vietnam is a synonym of resistance when the director quotes Castro about the importance to “create two, three, many Vietnams.” It also implies creating a Vietnam inside each one of us, and resisting the oppression that applies to us: for Godard, it was against the economics and aesthetics of American cinema which he deemed to have corrupted the global cinema landscape. As a cineast, he viewed “being invaded by Vietnam” also to involve talking about it and picturing it in movies. Which is why he told us about mentioning Vietnam in his other works, to diffuse Vietnam — the symbol of resistance.

Fan footage of a Fidel Castro interview used in the movie.

This movie is 11 chapters long and offers many different perspectives on one of the most prominent conflicts of the century. Its original run in the few cinemas that agreed to screen it was cut short by protests orchestrated by an armed far-right group, followed by numerous bomb threats. Since Loin du Vietnam was restored about 10 years ago, the film has remained under the radar, almost impossible to watch. Now, 60 years after it first aired, the war in Vietnam has been extensively covered in media products from a wide range of sources. However, the clarion call against aggression in Loin du Vietnam is just as relevant today as it was in 1967. More than a simple documentary about the Vietnam War, it provides deep reflections into global oppression and how its affect our society at large.

Loin du Vietnam (Far From Vietnam) is available for viewing in full on YouTube.

How Saigon's Free Water Coolers Quench Thirst and Spread Kindness

2026-04-17T10:00:00+07:00

In recent years, stories about climate change's impacts on the lives of Vietnamese people have been increasingly making the news.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Vietnam is among the six countries most severely affected by climate change worldwide. In rural areas, extreme weather often manifests as natural disasters such as floods, while in urban areas like Saigon, prolonged heatwaves pose the greatest challenge.

Photo by Alberto Prieto.

As the dry season sets in, city dwellers find themselves battling record-breaking temperatures. Heat rises from the asphalt, blending with vehicle exhaust and musty fumes from narrow alleys to form dense and suffocating clouds of air.

In response, people rush to air-conditioned cafes and shopping centers, seeking refuge from the relentless heat. Those who must venture outside wrap themselves in jackets, masks, or hoodies. But not everyone has the privilege to easily escape the scorching sun.

Photo by Cao Nhân.

Among those most affected are informal workers in urban areas. Jobs like construction, street vending, motorbike taxi driving, or garbage collection often lead to prolonged exposure to the scorching sun.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Labor has advised outdoor workers to rest in cool places and stay hydrated to prevent heatstroke and reduce body temperature. While scientifically sound, these recommendations overlook the harsh reality that shade and clean water are often luxuries for those working outside.

Unassuming water coolers and messages of kindness. Photos by Cao Nhân, Trinh Nguyễn, Paul Christiansen.

A day’s worth of bottled water can cost as much as a light meal and is cumbersome for those constantly on the move. Yet access to free, clean drinking water is limited.

Fortunately, much like mushrooms sprouting after the rain, “grassroots” water sources have appeared during dry spells in every corner of the city. Bearing friendly messages like “Free drinking water” or “Cool water for travelers,” stainless steel containers and insulated buckets dot the sidewalks to serve as mobile wellsprings.

Anonymous benefactors. Photo via VnExpress.

Operating on a beautiful principle of “those with excess give, those in need take,” kind-hearted benefactors fill these stations with iced tea, filtered water, and sometimes even snacks. People can stop by to quench their thirst and cool down for free. There are no thank-yous, no observers, just thousands of silent exchanges happening daily.

This heart-warming practice is not new. In the rural southern regions of the past, residents would set up leaf huts, water jars, and coconut ladles along the roads. Travelers and neighbors could stop to rest and refresh. While the jars may now be replaced with modern materials, the spirit of local generosity continues to flourish.

Clay jars were often used to collect rainwater for daily use and to offer refreshment to passersby. Photo via Phụ Nữ Online.

In response to the severe heat, the city government is piloting more public water stations. Until then, these unmarked containers will continue their humble legacy: providing water and support to ease the hardships of daily life.

Free water pitchers provide blue-collar workers with much-needed refreshment. Photo via Dân Trí.

This article was originally published in 2024.