Exploring Saigon and Beyond - Saigoneer

5 Indie Bookstores in Saigon for Those Who Are Addicted to the Scent of Paper

2026-09-12T21:00:00+07:00

Most Saigoneers who spent their formative years in the 2000s and 2010s probably grew up amongst the aisles of bookstores, not because we were particularly bookaholic, but because they were pretty much the only third place around with free air-conditioning.

When I was growing up, coffee shops seemed more like places where adults conducted business deals, and I couldn’t afford them anyway. Tạp hóa corners could satisfy snack cravings, but had no seats, so before the advent of convenience stores, I sought solace in the brightly lit, paper-scented, somewhat dusty shelves of bookstores: FAHASA locations, Nguyễn Văn Cừ, Minh Khai, Xuân Thu, Cây Gõ, amongst others. Just simply being in close proximity with books sparked my first interest in reading — much love to the staff at my district FAHASA back then for seeing us on the floor engaging in intense đọc cọp and turning a blind eye.

In 2026, many major bookstore locations are facing a decline: in April, Cá Chép Bookstore bid farewell to readers after 13 years in the business and shuttered all locations; PNC also announced the closure of a 44-year-old location just last month. Changing consumer habits and rising operating costs were the most common reasons given.

Still, it might be too hasty yet to deduce that Saigoneers have stopped reading: they are still into books, but a new generation of readers have turned their attention to the more intimate and personalized book-shopping and reading experience at independent stores. The indie bookstores featured in this article each offer slightly different stock, but share some similarities: their presence is made known via word of mouth and social media reviews; and they seek to satisfy not only a need to buy books, but also a space to read them.

1. Pages of Passion

L6, 35 Nguyễn Văn Tráng, Bến Thành Ward, HCMC

Photo by Jimmy Art Devier.

Hidden on the sixth floor of an old apartment in central District 1, Pages of Passion is perhaps the most impressive entry on this list in terms of growth. Thảo and Huy, the store’s owners, started selling books online in 2024 as a passion side project to assuage their corporate burnout, but eventually quit their jobs to operate the physical store full-time. Since Saigoneer’s first visit in mid-2025, when the space only hosted shelves of new and gently used books, Pages of Passion has flourished into a mini community of book lovers, with a quiet cafe dedicated to reading, and a small space for talks and workshops.

Pages of Passion focuses solely on English-language titles, and while you can find universally respected classics here, the owners do a sterling job curating both new and obscure titles, including a diverse Vietnam-specific section featuring works by Vietnamese authors or written about the country. Full disclosure: Pages of Passion has a small shelf housing titles that have been highlighted in the Saigoneer book review series Loạt Soạt. Check us out!

Photos by Jimmy Art Devier.

Read our interview with Pages of Passion here.

Contact: Website | Instagram

2. InBook

25A Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm, Sài Gòn Ward, HCMC

InBook had its start in Hanoi, and recently expanded to Saigon in the form of a two-floor space above a stylish cafe. Lan, the founder, studied in France and used to work on a few projects translating books from French into Vietnamese. She established InBook first as a way to introduce more children’s literature to her daughter, but the store’s library has slowly expanded over time.

The bookstore specializes in brand-new books written in French and English. My visit showed a sizable collection of literary classics and genre fiction, including YA, romance, and crime. The French section features a lot of children’s literature, too. If you’re in search of less-mainstream titles, InBook might not be a place to look, but I do appreciate that it also has a dedicated space for translated works of Vietnamese origin, as well as an area with free beverages to read. Besides, one shelf is reserved for “storekeeper’s picks” with thoughtful reviews that are hand-written — a cozy addition.

Contact: Website | Facebook

3. Bá Tân - Sách cũ Thư viện

451/22 Hai Bà Trưng, Xuân Hòa Ward, HCMC

Photos by Cao Nhân.

Bá Tân carries with it the towering book piles and nostalgic old-paper musk of the used bookstores of our childhood, but with a commendable level of organization and cleanliness. This is one location of a few that its founder Lê Bá Tân has tirelessly worked on for the past years. Tân majored in History in college and taught it for a few years; by complete chance, he inherited a friend’s substantial book collection and started posting photos of the titles to give away on social media. Queries from strangers began to come, so he answered the call of the universe by becoming a vintage book seller.

Photo by Cao Nhân.

The store focuses on used Vietnamese-language books, comprising two sections: one that sells by the kilos, and the other features “like new” gently used books. Bá Tân has one of the largest and most eclectic inventories of the list, with everything from rare first editions of literary classics to comic books and manga sets. The price is very affordable and the staff is knowledgeable, should you be looking for anything specific.

Photo by Cao Nhân.

Read our profile of Tiện sách Bá Tân here.

Contact: Website | Facebook

4. Hiệu sách Mùi Của Giấy

41 Street No. 9, Trung Sơn Residential Area, Bình Hưng Ward, HCMC

This bookstore has the most poetic name of the five: Mùi Của Giấy means “the scent of paper.” The book storage space can be a little claustrophobic, but is well-maintained and overall quite comfortable for browsing. The stock is mainly in Vietnamese though I did spot some new arrivals in English; it might be a bit hard to navigate the small space, but there’s a website of available titles and the two staff members are always happy to lend a hand. By “staff members,” I meant the human ones, because the feline staff is extremely illiterate — I give them a pass because they are so friendly and welcoming. For those who can’t wait to enjoy their latest finds, Mùi Của Giấy has space for reading and even a drink menu for refreshments. I’ve obtained their royalty card and can’t wait to find out what five drink stamps or three book stamps would get me.

Contact: Facebook | Website

5. Emtrangtri Bookstore

451/50 Hai Bà Trưng, Xuân Hòa Ward, HCMC

I first discovered Emtrangtri on social media and thought the space looked cool, so I decided to pay it a visit. As I made the turn into the 451 alley, I quickly realized that it was based in Bá Tân’s hẻm as well, just a few doors down. I am so jealous of this alley’s residents, living with two bookstores within walking, nay crawling, distance!

Emtrangtri is a mysterious new find in the list, occupying only one living room at a residential house. Upon entering, I was greeted by a female bookkeeper who was eating chips out of a bag while lounging on the sofa reading a book and listening to Laufey. I knew immediately that I had found my people. This was exactly what I look like reading at home. The store inventory focuses on thrifted books in English, Vietnamese, and French. The selection is facetiously obscure. With any given author, you won’t be able to find their Top 3 most famous books. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice? No can do, you will take Northanger Abbey, and you will like it. According to the staff, they personally thrifted each book to put on the shelf.

All in all, the books are moderately priced, if on a slightly high side, but I have to say that the curatorial taste is impeccable. Every title seems esoteric but very interesting; I want to read all of them. There are cozy armchairs and sofas to read, even if you don’t buy anything. I will be back. Maybe with chips.

Contact: Instagram | Threads

In Defense of Vietnam's Iced Beer and Why, in My Beer, I Want Ice Ice Baby

2026-09-11T15:00:00+07:00

The snobby beer connoisseur may scoff at those who drink beer with ice. But in Vietnam, as much as 75% of drinkers enjoy their beer with ice, a habit I myself have picked up and have grown to love whilst living in Saigon. If I’m having beer, I’m almost certainly having it on the rocks, be it room-temp or already chilled; a cheaper beer from a convenience store or a craft IPA at a pub — in which case I will somewhat embarrassingly ask for a separate glass of ice. Iced beer is far superior to normal, boring beer. Below, I offer my five-point defense of why.

1. A cold plunge

No one likes lukewarm beer. And what better way of fast-tracking the cooling process than pouring it directly into a glass of ice? Though it needs saying, ice is not just for the tepid. On a hot and steamy day (by which I mean night, obviously), I crave an ice-cold beer atop ice-cold ice. I like my beer so cold, in fact, that it might just give me a thrilling brain freeze — the stuff of childhood, sure, back when we had yet to learn how too fast or too much might just backfire up along the neck. Though who would’ve thought, many a year later, what joy it would be to re-learn that same lesson over again?

2. A snack

When drinking, I constantly find myself seeking something to nibble on, accustomed to Korea’s “anju” culture, a parallel to Vietnam’s nhậu culture. A sip to whet my appetite, a bite and a nibble, and a swish to awash the food, ad infinitum. But rarely do I not feel sick once I’m done, a problem of too much bloat. I find ice a perfect zero-calorie solution — something to suck and bite on to ease the boredom of the mouth. After all, an ice is just an ice.

3. A lie

As a lightweight, I delight in the fact that ice can give the illusion of multiple drinks in one. What would have filled merely one tall glass can now be poured into multiple icy glasses. The volume of beer is the same but what do I care? Oh, the satisfaction of slamming down a glass in one go like a boisterous viking! Why split the G when you could go all the way?

4. A natural timer

Critics of iced beer will complain that ice waters down beer. Yet how come the same critics do not bat an eye when it comes to other commonly iced drinks? Coffee, tea, cocktails, juice, the list could go on and on. Sure, ice waters down beer like any other drink, but must that be a bad thing? When my beer begins to taste more and more like piss, I take that as Dionysus’s sign for me to gulp down what has probably already gone flat anyways and order myself another one.

5. Bubbles!

Beer experts will tell you that creating foam when pouring beer in fact helps enhance the taste of the beer and the drinking experience. But personally, I drink beer for its carbonation and the belch that helps to release — nay, sublimate — not just gas but something more incorporeal like pent-up discontent. (Is this a good place to emphasize that I am not an alcoholic?) I mention this for the reason that, apparently (and I’ve long suspected such from experience), pouring beer over ice helps to reduce the amount of CO₂ that escapes. Granted, the ice needs to be “rinsed” — but who says it has to be with water? I prefer to rinse my ice with a swirl or two of beer.

To be clear, none of this is an endorsement of alcoholism. Ideally, we should avoid drinking altogether. But if we are going to drink anyways, we might as well have our beers in their optimal form: served ice-, ice-cold.

Living, Learning, Loving From the Earth at Ninh Bình's Lá Library

2026-09-11T10:00:00+07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Soil-covered feet. Photo by Ellie Shipman.

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

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

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

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

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

This article was originally published in 2021.

Review: Saigon Soul Revival Returns to Familiar Inspiration on 3rd Album ‘Chốn Ta Về’

2026-09-10T12:00:00+07:00

More ambitious and self-assured than ever, Saigon Soul Revival (SSR) embraces their own sound and its many influences on their latest album, “Chốn ta về.”

Having made a name for themselves over the last decade by reviving and reinterpreting the eclectic music of 1960s and 1970s Saigon, Saigon Soul Revival’s third full-length album is grander and more polished than the work that earned them initial praise and attention. Steadily growing beyond the covers of beloved nhạc vàng songs that first brought them together, “Chốn ta về” witnesses the group confidently wielding disparate influences, instruments, and approaches that bridge Vietnamese and western traditions.

Saigon Soul Revival playing live in studio at l’Antipode in Rennes, France, during Trans Musicales 2024. Video via KEXP YouTube.

No singular genre or influence defined the time period Saigon Soul Revival pays homage to. Psychedelic rock is perhaps most prominent, but it's punctuated by soul, funk, blues, ska and surf rock. The assemblage acquires new dimensions via local tastes, rhythms and instruments. One of the greatest pleasures of listening to a Saigon Soul Revival record is the surprise that accompanies recognizing how different tracks bring the disparate sonic traditions together. Some seamlessly blend them, such as on standout ‘Trúc xinh,’ where Nguyễn Thị Hải Phượng’s đàn tranh slithers behind the electric guitar before the two instruments trade off taking the lead during an instrumental breakdown. It’s even more holistic on ‘Khúc tình yên vui,’ which features ska and psychedelic rock elements underpinned by Chăm musical references.

Even on tracks that foreground a single style, Saigon Soul Revival’s penchant for cross-cultural pollination produces an exhilarating sum of its parts. The reggae instrumental ‘Lý qua dub,’ for example, begins with an extended đàn tranh and đàn bầu duet before giving way to plodding bass and drums. Similarly, the aptly named ‘Chachacha ngây thơ” interjects Vietnamese into the Cuban 4-4 beat via a chorus with repeated “anh hãy” following the familiar “cha cha cha” refrain and a subtle allusion to ‘Saigon ơi’ in the final trumpet portion.

Saigon Soul Revival. Photo by Nghi Ngo courtesy of the band.

Unlike their first album, which featured primarily covers, the only non-original song on “Chốn ta về” is Mộng Long’s ‘Hoạ mi ca,’ which the band puts their own spin on with the help of local virtuoso Đinh Nhật Minh’s sáo trúc (bamboo flute). Similarly, Vietnam’s most prominent jazz saxophonist and jazz club luminary Trần Mạnh Tuấn provides a boisterous solo to ‘Ơ kìa, em ơi!’ Such support by guest musicians signifies that even as Saigon Soul Revival indulges their own creative impulses, they remain deeply connected to the musical cultures surrounding them.

Whether foreigners at raucous shows here in Vietnam or attendees at the band’s festival appearances abroad, SSR has always attracted listeners unable to understand the Vietnamese lyrics. Members of the band have noted that this reality simply adds another means for appreciating their work, as the vocals become an instrument to intuit rather than understand. Indeed, one doesn’t need to know ‘Độc huyền cầm oán khúc’ is sung from the perspective of a young widow reflecting on her children to feel the longing and despair in Nguyễn Anh Minh’s voice, as reinforced by a wilting đàn bầu. Conversely, listeners don’t need specifics to pick up on the exuberant determination of ‘Ta về với ta’ as conveyed through Minh’s vocal delivery, Nguyễn Khoa Đăng’s enthusiastic keys, and Indy Laville’s soaring guitar solo. Moreover, Minh’s laughter to close out ‘Tình điên’ makes the entire situation’s absurd tragedy obvious.

Cover design by Dan Ni with illustration by Phương An.

More than 40-some minutes of solitary streaming, “Chốn ta về” arrives as an opportunity to experience in person. The band is embarking on a world tour with stops in China and Europe after a few Vietnam dates, including September 19 in Saigon. Meanwhile, a behind-the-scenes documentary is complete and ready to be shared with fans. Physical records are also available, with gorgeous mid-century Vietnamese modernist graphics by Dan Ni and Phương An that feature the Cubist influences which emerged from the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine, informed by local printing techniques.

What's That Saigon Soul Sound? documentary feature film trailer. Video via Cake Collective YouTube.

Shortly after Saigon Soul Revival formed in 2016, German DJ and music producer Jan Hagenkoetter asked them to perform at the release party for Saigon Super Sound Vol 1, where they helped young Vietnamese discover forgotten local musical histories while allowing foreigners to better connect with the modern-day culture. Since then, and in the process of making “Chốn ta về”, as Laville notes in the documentary, the band discovered their own sound. When considering their place in the evolving traditions of global pop here and abroad, Hagenkoetter remarked that they might now be creating music that inspires future generations.

To sum up:

Type: Album
Lyrics: Simple and catchy
Danceable: Very
Cryable: A few songs if you're really sensitive
Karaoke Potential: If your friends are cool

Score: 84/100

Hẻm Gems: The Izakaya Where Happiness Is Wrapped in Pork Belly and Grilled

2026-09-09T10:00:00+07:00

It took a few visits before I noticed that the music at Sakaba Sasuke was always the same.

It was a male Japanese artist, and the songs that consistently drew my attention had twinges of what I could only describe as a 1980s-esque combination of Jon Bon Jovi and Paul Stanley. More than once, I asked the staff if they could tell me what was playing. Exceedingly friendly and polite, they did their best to find out but could only intimate that The Boss was in control, and he was not around.

My nagging curiosity led me to finally ask The Boss myself, whom I suspected was the person on the other end of the Facebook messages I sent to make reservations. Eikichi Yazawa was the musician, he told me, and upon a cursory scan of the internet, his longevity, prominence and style seem to be much more David Bowie than KISS.

While the black noren is instantly recognizable for Star Wars fans, Takamura-san has no particular fondness for the sci-fi franchise and just likes the font.

The izakaya that “cool” builds

The Boss is Shumpei Takamura, and when I had the chance to ask him why Yazawa dominates the speakers at Sasuke, his answer was simply “because it’s cool.” Because it’s just cool would be part of the reason why Sasuke is one of my favorite restaurants. What even is cool can be so easily argued, but for my version of cool — and I’m guessing Takamura-san’s as well — I felt it immediately on my first visit. Before opening Sasuke in 2019, he came to Vietnam a few years prior to launch what he best describes as a “franchise” location of Japanese ramen restaurant Mutahiro, which is mere steps away from the pub. The idea for opening Sasuke was inspired by his actual experience working at a now-closed Sasuke in Tokyo.

Sakaba Sasuke doesn't have the typical decorations of classic izakayas, apart from the noren.

In a city with no shortage of izakayas to choose from, Sasuke doesn’t boldly try to announce its presence or distinguish itself from the pack. With its neutral decor, it doesn’t look the traditional part of rollicking Japanese pub, walls plastered with the written menu and a lantern or two overhead. A visitor exploring the labyrinth of Thái Văn Lung in Japantown might not take much notice of it. If they do make it to the quiet corner of the hẻm where Sasuke is located, they likely will only stop to read Sasuke’s noren, the traditional curtains that grace the entrance way.

After a meal at Sakaba Sasuke, one will eventually learn that there are few things that can't be improved by being wrapped in pork belly and grilled.

For better or for worse, the noren is how some people even know of Sasuke. “Oh, you mean the place with the Star Wars font on the curtains?” someone once asked me. Yes, the place with that (purely coincidental) font, which, in addition to carrying the name, also promotes the izakaya as “The Gather of Monkey Business.” Again, Takamura-san only has a simple reply when asked about the tagline. He said that he just liked the word “monkey,” and was stoically mum on any knowledge of the English phrase and its use to suggest what awaits you when you cross the threshold.

The monkey business is a small place that probably holds no more than 20 in the front room that houses the kitchen, a narrow bench-seated counter, and a few tables. There are more private tables in a back room, but your typical customer wants the monkey business that they first see.

Just pork belly-wrap that up

A portion of niku dofu.

Although the size brings intimacy, the bright lights at Sasuke are for action and attention seeking. Front and center for all to see when they walk in is a large nabe that is constantly simmering with niku dofu, a classic Japanese beef and tofu stew. It is one of Sasuke’s signature menu offerings that inspires both awe and appetite.

Contrasting the giant nabe that holds the stew, an order of niku dofu is a small bowl with a towering display. A block of tofu from the nabe is deftly presented on top of the tender beef; how to make your first move for a chunk is not an easy decision. As a sight to behold, the niku dofu on display is not rare in Japan, but it is here in Vietnam, and that is one of the reasons why Takamura-san wanted it to help shape Sasuke’s identity. Considering the music, noren, and slogan, his instinct was right.

Asparagus, cherry tomato, boiled egg, and even yakisoba swirls are amongst the many things on skewers here.

A specialty of that Sasuke location in Japan was yasai kushimaki, which are skewers of any manner of ingredients that have been rolled in thinly sliced pork belly. Takamura-san ensured they also made it on the menu here in Vietnam, and you’ll see them listed in English as “meat roll ups.” While yakitori gives you an appreciation for just how wonderful every part of a chicken can taste, yasai kushimaki gives you an appreciation for just how much better things taste when glistened with pork fat drippings. It is the most popular menu item for good reasons. Aside from it being an item that’s not easy to find in Saigon and, aside from it being delicious, Sasuke’s kushimaki is an adventure in learning all the unexpected items that can, indeed, be cooked on a skewer.

“While yakitori gives you an appreciation for just how wonderful every part of a chicken can taste, yasai kushimaki gives you an appreciation for just how much better things taste when glistened with pork fat drippings.”

Flavor is no doubt a factor, but rolling a ribbon of pork around something also gives it structure and some protection from the intense heat of the grill. So, how about a yakisoba skewer — a personal favorite of Takamura-san’s? Or spinach and cheese? That latter is a gooey delight, but I prefer the Camembert one for the funk. King oyster mushrooms with butter is another winner, but don’t sleep on the broiled tofu one. It sounds a little plain, but its texture wins your heart.

Pork-wrapped lettuce is a strange but delightful menu item.

Yasai means vegetables, so getting a few of the roll-ups with vegetables is a good idea. But the vegetable one you must get, the coolest one for me, is the lettuce skewer. Yes, lettuce. It is the most popular and most attractive. On one skewer, you will get what looks like four, tightly-packed green ranunculus bulbs. The lettuce petals can’t unfurl because of those porky ribbons that keep them in place. Unlike the other kushimaki, the special lettuce ones are served in a puddle of a dashi-vinegar dressing. The pork fat doesn’t penetrate to the center of the pretty bulbs, so that extra bit of seasoning is an appreciated touch to bring everything together. The pork is crispy, the lettuce isn’t wilted, and the dressing reinforces the salt and gives welcome acidity.

Crispy chicken skin, pork and lettuce stir fry, and chicken dumplings in broth.

The other must-order, the last signature menu item, and the item that first piqued my interest when I saw Sasuke’s food on Instagram before even arriving in Vietnam, is the steamed chicken meatballs called mushi tsukune. Fans of yakitori associate tsukune with oblong chicken meatball skewers often served with a raw egg yolk for dipping. Sasuke’s mushi tsukunes are spherical and maybe the size of a golf ball. One order comes with four meatballs, and each meatball contains minced chicken with combinations of different ingredients to create four distinct flavor profiles. The mushi tsukunes are served on a wooden platform and a small paper legend of the four flavors is set behind. You will be instructed to eat the tsukune balls from left to right.

The chicken balls' fillings change often depending on what Takamura-san gets inspired by.

It sounds like a gimmick, but it functions only as pure fun. The flavors change every week, and the anticipation of a new experience with every visit is endearing. Traditional Japanese ingredients such as seaweed, mentaiko, burdock root, and sesame seeds are common, as are aromatics like chives, ginger, and garlic. But then anything else is game from any vegetable to shellfish to hard-boiled egg to sausage. I’m sure I’ve had the dish almost a dozen times, and while some individual ingredients repeat, I’ve never had the same combo twice.

When asked how he comes up with the weekly ideas, it’s another simple reply — “Instagram.” Any dish or flavor pairing he might see in food photos from restaurants or his friends in Japan could serve as inspiration. Japanese curry is one that he found particularly memorable. Not shockingly, natto was the biggest failure. While the fermented soybeans can be an acquired taste for many, their aroma is not a selling point for anyone. Takamura-san’s fatal miscalculation with his natto tsukune was not realizing that, in the steamer, the other three tsukunes would also emerge with the very distinct eau de natto.

The ins and outs of running an izakaya

From left to right: karaage, shumai, and deep-fried tofu.

The space can be elbow-to-elbow packed with sounds of laughter and friendly banter, and the host turning away those without a booking. It can also be a comfortably quiet hideout, where you’ll get to fully appreciate the Yazawa soundtrack and the back-and-forth calls and responses that servers and kitchen staff make to one another. Weekends are busier, but a Monday can also see a full house. Recently, Sasuke transitioned to opening seven nights a week.

“In a city with no shortage of izakayas to choose from, Sasuke doesn’t boldly try to announce its presence or distinguish itself from the pack. For better or for worse, the noren is how some people even know of Sasuke.”

Takamura-san says that his customer base is roughly two-thirds Japanese, and they are a captive audience that he was able to build from Mutahiro and networking through the community on social media. Offering yasai kushimaki would have been an initial draw, but once Takamura-san’s knowledge and expertise with it became known, interest turned to trust. When working at the Tokyo namesake, he had spent time learning how to make kushimaki in the region of Fukuoka where it’s from.

We're in izakaya heaven.

Takamura-san’s leadership allowed Sasuke to weather the pandemic lockdowns and continue to grow a customer base, but he has struggled like any restaurateur. He has found that many non-Japanese customers have izakaya menu expectations when they visit and question menu absences, with sashimi being the one he hears about the most. He may feel confident in most decisions, knowing that he has loyal customers, knowing that he knows what’s cool, but it’s clear he also knows he is running a business. He has recently made some menu changes, including a few fish skewers, to see what works.

Staffing is probably his biggest constant concern. A challenge with a chef in charge of yakitori and kushimaki is that they cannot taste as they go along. Like a steakhouse grill master who needs to know how to cook a steak medium rare or medium well, touch, sight and experience are what to be relied on in cooking kushimaki. At Sasuke, the chef on the grill has to know the difference between medium or well-done chicken livers and ensure those pretty lettuce rolls are sufficiently warmed through before the pork belly burns. It’s a craft that takes time and patience from both mentor and student, and keeping craftspeople around is not always easy.

Working a yakitori grill is a skill not many cooks can master.

Takamura-san’s team is largely Vietnamese and all seem to speak enough Japanese to get by with him and their primary customers. The main menu is in both those languages as well as English, while the specials are often only in Japanese and English. Pointing has always served me well, and the staff is so affable and friendly that I could probably still find success using my limited Japanese or Vietnamese.

He jokes that as much as the nabe of niku dofu or the drama of the grill’s flames are beloved by customers, it’s the smiling faces of the open kitchen that people like best. I’d agree. Whether it’s trying to find out about the song I can hear or asking for another glass of shochu, grins both shy and wide are always on offer, making the experience one that is as comfortable as it is delicious.

Sakaba Sasuke is open from 17:30 to 23:00.

To sum up

Taste: 6/5
Price: 4/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Friendliness: 5/5
Location: 5/5
Cool factor: 10/5

Rhianna loves to eat fridge-cold bánh chuối nướng with canned whipped cream, would choose a boule of sourdough and a block of French butter for her death row meal, and often daydreams about going for an ice cream stroll with Larry David.

Sakaba Sasuke

8A/A22 Thái Văn Lung, Bến Nghé Ward, D1, HCMC

Phương Mỹ Chi's Latest MV Tells Eternal Love Story in Vietnam's Khmer Community

2026-09-08T15:00:00+07:00

After forays into the worlds of reality TV and cinema, Vietnam’s folk pop princess Phương Mỹ Chi has returned to her roots with a fresh new full-length album, pioneered by the lead single ‘Thiên đường với người thương’ (lit: In heaven with my beloved).

‘Thiên đường với người thương’ is a rare track in Chi’s oeuvre that makes a romantic narrative its focal point. Across her song library, the Saigon singer-songwriter has predominantly created music with expressed intentions to promote Vietnam’s cultural and literary wealth. Still, in the new single, while the story might heavily feature a romance, Vietnamese culture — especially that of the Khmer ethnic group — also shines, but in every other aspect of the production, including production and costume design, lyrics, and song arrangement.

To be clear, Phương Mỹ Chi is not of Khmer descent, she is Kinh Vietnamese, though she shared that, to ensure the production is as accurate as possible, she consulted professors of the College of Southern Khmer Language - Culture - Arts and Humanity of Trà Vinh University.

Khmer is one of the oldest ethnic groups to have settled in continental Southeast Asia. Today, Cambodia is home to the world’s largest population of Khmer people, followed by Vietnam and Thailand, each with over a million people. In Vietnam, Khmer communities concentrate in the Mekong Delta, with Sóc Trăng and Trà Vinh provinces making up over 60% of Vietnam’s Khmer population.

The video story follows the connection between the two main characters, played by Chi and actor Bảo Định, from childhood to old age. They formed a kinship when she was a little trainee dancer, and he was learning to play traditional instruments. The childhood sweethearts eventually professed their love as young adults, culminating in a boisterous wedding. The music video ends with the husband, now at the end of his life, alone on the river where they once traversed together as a couple.

The narrative is rather uneventful and simplistic, but what makes ‘Thiên đường với người thương’ stand out is its inclusion of Khmer culture in quite a number of ways. The lyrics include the Khmer-language line “បងមានស្រឡាញ់អូនទេ?” (Anh có thương em không? / Do you have feelings for me?), in addition to other Mekong- and Khmer-specific cultural elements like boat races, cá kèo, and mắm me.

The cinematography takes viewers into the mesmerizing sights and colors of Vietnam’s Khmer community through scenes recorded at famous landmarks in Trà Vinh and An Giang provinces in the Mekong Delta, such as Ao Bà Om, Cỏ Thum Pagoda, Vàm Ray Pagoda, Trà Sư Cajuput Forest, and palmyra palm fields in An Giang. Meanwhile, Khmer dance performances made up a significant scene filmed inside a local community center, while Khmer wedding traditions and ceremonial clothing were replicated for the couple’s matrimony.

Watch the music video of ‘Thiên đường với người thương’ below:

Images via Facebook page Phương Mỹ Chi.

Observing the Day-to-Day Care and Diligence at Ardingly College Vietnam (ACVN), Vietnam’s First Authentic British Boarding School

2026-09-07T10:09:00+07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ardingly College Vietnam's website

Ardingly College Vietnam's Email

Phone (028) 38 95 95 95

Ardingly College Vietnam, Intersection of 19/5 road (B9-B10 road), Cam Duong Ward, Lao Cai Province, Vietnam. Vietnam

Tracing My Family's Fondness for French Tunes, From Colonial Times to Vietnamese Versions

2026-09-04T11:00:00+07:00

“Tombe la merde; tu ne viendras pas ce soir [Shit is falling; you’re not coming tonight]”: an outburst of laughter and applause would inevitably fill the room as my dad, in his deep, mellifluous voice, put his own profane twist on Salvatore Adamo’s ‘Tombe la neige.’ This track, like ‘Paroles… Paroles…’ by Dalida or Christophe’s ‘Aline,’ are widely known and adored in both France and my family in Vietnam. My childhood unfolded against these rhythms, melodies, and lyrics, whose origins were so far removed from me, both temporally and geographically.

After my 15 years in French school in both Hanoi and Saigon, French, alongside English, gradually became the primary vehicle of my thoughts and interactions, in and outside of school. Only recently did I discover that my family’s entanglement with French music dates back four generations, and that it is embedded within a much larger context of French instrumentalization of music as a colonial tool in Vietnam.

Four generations ago, my ancestors — like many Vietnamese households under French rule — spoke the imposed language of administration, business, and higher education, fluently. In the mid 19^th century, my paternal great-grandfather served as Minister of Education under Emperor Bảo Đại. The ministry operated on a bilingual basis, with French dominating as the language of official communications and decrees. He was also a scholar who worked closely with French texts. My maternal great-grandfather translated and interpreted for the French administration, while his wife sold silk to French buyers. Outside of work, French culture followed my great-grandparents home primarily through classical romantic compositions unaccompanied by lyrics. I’ve always assumed that the presence of French music in Vietnam was an organic cultural residue from colonization, but the discovery that French musical education in Vietnam was a colonial strategy came as quite a shock.

My paternal great-grandparents, Phạm Quỳnh and Lê Thị Vân

My maternal great-grandmother who did business with French textile buyers

French music as a “civilizing” tool

The genesis of French music in Vietnam can be traced back to the early 20^th century. French musical performances began as early as 1883, shortly after the conquest of Hanoi. Military troops sought entertainment in impromptu musical shows, which eventually became more formal musical and theatrical concerts. At the time, only private instruction of western music was available to residents of Hanoi. It was not until the 1920s that official calls for a music school intended to instruct locals were made. The colonial administration realized something crucial: it would be impossible to foster a new generation of Vietnamese — a class of “Francais de couleur,” or Frenchmen of color — without French-organized and -operated schools. This context favored the implementation of French musical pedagogy, set to accompany French academic training, in Hanoi.

The “mission civilisatrice,” the narrative that masks exploitation of colonies as the humanitarian and ethical duty of imperial powers, was the chief justification of French colonization. If the construction of urban infrastructure — buildings, bridges, transportation networks — is often cited as successful “civilizing” efforts, France quickly saw that material embellishments alone failed at molding Vietnamese “with French tastes and habits[,] whose success would encourage the rest of the Vietnamese public to assimilate.”

An excerpt of L’Avenir du Tonkin from April 25, 1925 includes a review of a music recital performed by the pupils of “l’Institut Musical de Hanoi.” Albert Poincignon opened the Institute in 1913 before opening the Conservatory of the Far East in 1927. This review contains the names of (some) participants of the recital: no Vietnamese names appear in the review, which suggests that there might not have been any Vietnamese students.

In 1927, efforts to establish a rigorous and formalized French/Western musical education in Hanoi amounted to the creation of the French Conservatory of the Far East by Albert Poincignon, a customs official for the colonial administration and private music instructor. Its explicit purpose was “to alter the sensibilities and tastes of the Vietnamese.” Although some colonialists believed Vietnamese to be “unmusical and incapable of appreciating western aesthetic traditions,” others saw in Vietnamese an “innate musicality” and instrumentalized this as a means for drawing the Vietnamese majority closer to the French. Thus, formalized French musical pedagogy began in Hanoi with rigorous piano lessons accompanied by intensive training in western musical history and theory.

Initially, the conservatory taught French pupils and a minority of wealthy Vietnamese students; by 1930, the latter had outnumbered the former. It was a short-lived institution, but ultimately achieved its goals with the help of societal forces: knowledge of western classical music became not only trendy, but a marker of belonging to an elite class. My great-grandparents did not have to be enrolled at the conservatory to experience this phenomenon firsthand: their musical taste and sensibilities had indeed been altered, and would be passed down to my grandparents.

My grandparents were born in Hanoi in the 1930s, when French music was just growing in popularity across the country. My maternal grandmother grew up taking private piano lessons and learning western musical theory before becoming a pianist and teaching the curriculum herself after 1954. In the 1930s–1940s, French music maintained a strong presence within urban culture in both North and South Vietnam, particularly amongst the elites and bourgeoisie. At the same time, Vietnamese musicians and composers began embedding French and other western musical elements into tân nhạc, or “new music.” It was in this musical context that my paternal grandfather was completing his study of Medicine in French, before joining the revolution as a military doctor shortly after 1945. In his adolescence, he enjoyed western classical music, which continued playing in his house long after independence, throughout my dad’s childhood.

My maternal grandmother playing the piano (she was in band practice).

When French melodies took on Vietnamese identities

In 1954, Vietnam was officially divided into North and South Vietnam, and a musical split followed. During the 1950s and 1960s, Saigon became a cosmopolitan musical hub where French, American, and Vietnamese musical cultures intermingled and flourished. By the mid 1960s, French artists such as Dalida, Christophe, and Françoise Hardy were well-known amongst the youths of Saigon, far from my family. This decade was also considered to be the golden age of Vietnamese adaptations of French songs: ‘Tombe la neige,’ ‘Histoire d’un amour,’ ‘Viens m’embrasser,’ ‘Bang Bang’ all took on new local lives, respectively becoming ‘Tuyết rơi,’ ‘Chuyện Tình Yêu,’ ‘Lại gần hôn anh’ and ‘Khi xưa ta bé.’ The lyrics of these French-language classics were all rewritten in Vietnamese by Phạm Duy, who is regarded as “the most prolific, varied, and influential of all the tân nhạc composers.” Decades later, I would rediscover these songs, first in French, then in Vietnamese, but more on that later.

These French singers have all had their songs refashioned into Vietnamese tân nhạc hits.

Meanwhile, Hanoi saw French popular music, and some of the Vietnamese tân nhạc that it influenced, gradually succumb to heavy censorship. In the north, the Vietnamese government promoted revolutionary and patriotic music to boost morale during the war — a genre often known as nhạc đỏ (red music). Simultaneously, tân nhạc, deemed a threat to public morale due to its sentimental and nostalgic qualities, was restricted. Surprisingly, French and western music survived the restrictions through conservatory training: classical music continued to be taught and performed, while Vietnamese composers incorporated western compositional techniques into revolutionary songs.

It was during this great musical split that my maternal grandfather served as head of the Cinematography Department, under the Ministry of Culture. His job granted him frequent trips to both Saigon and international destinations. My mom recalls how more often than not, my grandfather returned with CDs of French medleys he either purchased abroad or smuggled in from the south. Thus, my mom grew up to the notes of classical French music and the voice of Dalida, a voice I would grow up to know all too well.

French language skills were not passed down from my grandmother to her daughter, except musically. With no knowledge of the language, my mom knows all of the words to her favorite French pop songs; still today, she sings them, in near perfect pronunciation, instinctively. In comparison, my dad’s childhood saw significantly less French influence. It wasn’t until 1973 that he truly encountered French music, playing on the TV in the Soviet Union, where he studied. When he came home in 1979, western music, and French music in particular, was widely accessible across the country. His homecoming, as is true for his contact with French music in Vietnam, was brief. In 1982, my dad taught himself French while interning in Strasbourg. There, his encounters with French songs multiplied, deepening his connection to and appreciation for them. When he returned home for good, he continued listening to those songs and eventually passed them down to me.

Christophe, Don Hồ, and Thế Sơn perform Christophe’s ‘Aline’ in French and Vietnamese (Paris by Night, Volume 54).

Fast forward to the 2010s, the years of my childhood. Before the age of MTV and the hegemony of American pop princesses, my musical consciousness was largely dominated by Paris by Night. Specifically, the voices of Bằng Kiều, Elvis Phương, Tuấn Ngọc, Thanh Lan left a lasting impression on me, or rather, were insisted upon me. Whenever they came onto the TV screen, my parents would praise not just their voice, but their skillful rendition of French songs. I grew up with these songs in both languages, then quickly forgot about them until my high school years. During this period, my household saw a renaissance of French music, but this time with the original French lyrics. One sunny afternoon, I was passionately screaming “Et j’ai crié, crié, Aline!” with my parents in the car when something strange occurred: I began to remember distant Vietnamese words being sung to this same melody. Where are these songs from? Are they French or Vietnamese? My parents' inconsistent answers fueled my confusion.

Thanh Lan and Elvis Phương performing a medley of French songs (Paris by Night, Volume 50).

As it turns out, they’re both. Many Vietnamese adaptations of French melodies have become so popular in Vietnam that they have taken on lives of their own, almost entirely distinct from their French blueprints. In the couple of decades before and after 1975, the distinction between French pop classics and their Vietnamese adaptations might have been very clear in people’s minds. But today, decades after the golden age of tân nhạc, these Vietnamese adaptations no longer exist strictly as a version of pre-existing French songs, but as staples in their own right. Thus, one would be correct in referring to ‘Aline’ as Christphophe’s song, and also as Phạm Duy’s ‘Gọi Tên Người Yêu.’ Perhaps it is for this reason that I feel rather awkward when receiving comments such as “You must be at least half French” or “You’re as French as our kids,” when I revealed my familiarity with classic French pop. The French adults in my life understood this fluency, in addition to my command of the language, as marks of some “Frenchness” that 15 years of French education must have instilled in me.

The excessively congratulatory tone of the remarks felt misplaced. Their speakers conditioned me to subconsciously view knowing these French songs as a testament to my achievement of becoming “French” in their eyes; I was proud because it seemed like the only appropriate reaction to such praise. Today, my feelings about the same compliments are much clearer: I do not view my perceived fluency in French culture as any achievement, for I never aspired to it. I recognize the history of the songs that my family and I cherish and acknowledge the French influence on those melodies, but I refuse the narrative that they signal any “Frenchness” in me.

In my mind, these tracks’ Vietnamese identities far predate my awareness that they had originated elsewhere. I inherited them as artifacts of both Vietnamese culture and my own family history, so these “compliments” deceived me into thinking that these songs were merely remnants of French culture. This narrative underplays my relationship with these songs as a Vietnamese person; more crucially, it ignores that these songs have Vietnamese lives. These melodies have travelled far and wide; they began as pieces of inherited culture, and eventually underwent significant transformations by Vietnamese talents who made them their own.

The Saigon House That Swapped Its Front Door for a Moat

2026-09-04T10:00:00+07:00

Does a house need walls?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photos by Hiroyuki Oki via ArchDaily.

A Brief History of Saigon's Art Deco Eye Hospital, Formerly the Clinique Saint-Paul

2026-09-03T11:00:00+07:00

For those condemned to a long daily commute along that busiest of city arteries, Điện Biên Phủ Street, the clean, elegant lines of the Hồ Chí Minh City Eye Hospital offer a refreshing contrast to the surrounding urban clutter. The compound was formerly known as Clinique Saint-Paul, so many older Saigoneers still refer to it by the name Bệnh viện Xanh-Pôn.

Funded and operated by the Sisters of Saint-Paul de Chartres, the Clinique Saint-Paul was built in 1936–1937 at the junction of rue Legrand de la Liraye and rue Pierre Flandin (modern Điện Biên Phủ and Bà Huyện Thanh Quan streets) to replace their earlier Clinique du Docteur Angier (1908), which had stood at 1 rue Docteur Angier (now Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm street), immediately behind the St Paul’s Convent.

The Clinique Saint-Paul pictured in the early 1950s.

The new Clinique was built by the Société Indochinoise d’Études et de Constructions (SIDEC), one of the leading construction companies in the colony, which was also responsible for the Tân Định Market as well as numerous other civic works in Cambodia.

The Clinique was designed by distinguished Saigon-based architect Louis Chauchon (1878–1945), whose other major works include the Public Library (now the National Library of Cambodia, 1924), the Psah Thmey Central Market (1937) and the Palais du Commissariat de France (1938) in Phnom Penh and the Pavillon de la Cité Universitaire in Hà Nội (1942).

The south and central wings of the former Clinique Saint-Paul. Photo by Tim Doling.

According to the Echo Annamite newspaper, the Clinique was inaugurated on December 19, 1938 in the presence of Cochinchina Governor André Georges Rivoal and several other local dignitaries. Its Director, Dr Roton, treated them to a tour of the state-of-the-art facilities which “made a great impression on the visitors.”

Functional yet elegant, the Clinique is noteworthy for its stylish fusion of art deco curves and traditional four-panel roofs. Truly a sight for sore eyes.

Top image via Wikimedia.

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.

But What Even Is an Expat: Unpacking the Highly Contentious Term, in Vietnam and Abroad

2026-09-02T14:00:00+07:00

“Expat is a racist as hell term” — this is the take of Misan Harriman on the popular internet show SubwayTakes. The reasoning goes that the term expat, short for expatriate, is racist because it is applied to migrants unevenly. Along this line, Mawuna Remarque Koutonin writes in Silicon Africa: “Africans are immigrants. Arabs are immigrants. Asians are immigrants. However, Europeans are expats because they can’t be at the same level as other ethnicities. They are superior. Immigrants is a term set aside for ‘inferior races.’”

The argument goes that “expat” is designated for white Europeans and westerners and carries a certain kind of prestige and privilege that is made inaccessible to other peoples who are labelled “immigrants.” Similar sentiments can be found surrounding the recent controversy of a Bali-based, Dutch-run run club’s alleged discrimination against locals. As one Instagram comment on an Al Jazeera post reads, “They are not expatriate[s]. They are immigrants. Please don't label people of color as immigrants and call white people as an expatriate.” Or, as Fred Wissenk remarks closer to home in Vietcetera (though he appears to suggest we call all foreigners expats), “If you’re white, people automatically label you as an expat. I disagree with that.”

The Bali run club that allegedly discriminated against locals. Photo via The Guardian.

Yet, to accuse the term expat of racism is much too reductive and obscures nuance, for the simple reason that there exist plenty of non-white expats who are labelled or identify as such. Thus, the assumption that expats are white may itself constitute a kind of whitewashing, not just of the present but also of the past, overlooking, for instance, the history of South Asian expatriates in East Africa whom the British brought for colonial civil service positions. More broadly, it is also worth questioning whether words can ever be inherently racist, for the meaning and significance of words inevitably vary with context. This is to say, of course the term expat can be racist when wielded in racist ways — for instance, when one calls a white person an expat and an Arab person an immigrant, even when they occupy similar class positions and professions — but cannot be seen as an inherently racist term for the fact that “expat” denotes no single stable type of migrant, its use, meaning, and scope dependent on context and geography.

Defining the expat

Indeed, the expat is a notoriously slippery term, not only because there exist discrepancies between formal definitions of the term and everyday usage, but also between those who identify as versus those who are labelled as expats. So, what even is an expat? How should we understand the category in Vietnam? And what distinguishes an expat from an immigrant or a migrant? The Cambridge Dictionary offers the following definitions.

Expatriate: “someone who does not live in their own country”
Immigrant: “a person who has come to a different country in order to live there permanently”
Migrant: “a person that travels to a different country or place, often in order to find work”

Firstly, what differentiates the expatriate from the migrant is that expats move across countries, while the movement of migrants may be either inter- or intra-national. “Migrant” is thus treated as the broadest migration category, hence why academic literature will describe the expatriate as a type of migrant. Yet, in practice, expatriates are often considered not as a subset of migrants, but rather a category separate from migrants, as is made evident when a Việt Nam News columnist follows up his use of the word “migrants” with the parenthetical comment, “sorry, ‘expats,’ this is you.”

On the other hand, the primary differentiating factor between expats and immigrants is presented as the intention of the duration of stay. An immigrant intends permanent residence, while duration of stay is undetermined and unspecified for expats. Yet, common and practical usage of the term, both within general publics and in academia, deviates substantially from such definitions — most often, what is meant by expats are none other than “rich, educated, developed elites,” whereas all other migrants are seen as immigrants. Still, even this definition appears to be imperfect, for as Sarah Kunz explains in her book Expatriate: Following a Migration Category — which has been indispensable in writing this article — those who are labelled and/or identify as expats often vary significantly in socioeconomic class, whose professions range from “diplomats and CEOs, to English teachers, humanitarian volunteers, yoga teachers and unpaid interns further down the socio-economic ladder.” Kunz describes of the expats she met during her fieldwork in Nairobi: “some lived luxurious lives while others barely made ends meet, and yet others relied on support from families ‘back home.’”

A foreign teacher in Hanoi. Photo via Tuổi Trẻ.

To complicate things further, there is also the fact that the equivalent to the term “expatriate” often does not exist in other languages. For instance, an equivalent to the term “expat” does not really exist in Vietnamese. Arguably, the closest substitutes that exist are “người nước ngoài,” which simply means foreigner, or “người tây,” meaning westerner — though we should note that there also exists a term for migrants, “người di cư.” Neither does a translation for expat exist in Korean: expats residing in Korea are commonly referred to as “oekuk-saram,” which again simply means foreigner. While the French cognate expatrié or expatriée has similar connotations to English, the dominant meaning of the Spanish cognate expatriado or expatriada is one of exile, or those banished from their home country — which is in fact what “expatriate” denoted prior to the 20^th century in English as well.

But even within the English language, the term does not travel the same across geographies. For instance, in the US, one notices that the term expat is rarely used, for which there may be two reasons: one, the country’s dominant narrative of itself as a “land of immigrants,” and two, the fact that the US is much harder to simply come into and stay in the way that many expats do in other countries. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are the Gulf states, where all foreign workers, ranging from the heavily exploited construction workers to high-ranking corporate managers, are called expats — arguably in order to restrict a sense of belonging for non-citizens who make up significant portions, or even a majority, of the population. As for Vietnam, it seems that distinctions between expats and immigrants are rarely made — though as we will see, this does not mean that the expat functions neutrally in Vietnam either.

Workers in Dubai. Photo via The New York Times.

Because of the term’s polysemy, to call “expat” inherently racist is rather reductive. Alternatively, a better way to understand the category is not as racist per se, but as racialized. To expand upon the notion of racialization, there is an important distinction to be made between describing a concept as racist versus racialized. An imperfect but useful example to think about is that of the concept of the human. Certainly, the human is a racialized concept. Here, we might think about how Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawing, ‘Vitruvian Man’ — which depicts a white, male, able-bodied person — is often invoked as the “classical ideal” or “universal model” of “Man.” And it is, of course, furthermore true that the concept of human is deeply intertwined with racist histories of violence and subjugation in which various colonized peoples were, and continue to be, denied the label of human as rationalization for such violence. But does that mean the concept of the human is itself racist? Debatable, but I think that most people would argue no. It may be useful to think about the term expat along similar lines: not racist per se, but racialized, normatively white — as well as, we should add, classed (obviously) and gendered (as evident in the fact that an “expat wife” is often not herself referred to as simply an “expat”).

A brief history of the expat

The racialized nature of the expat is rooted in the history of empire and capital of the 20^th century that have shaped the category. We may understand the historical development of the expat in the 20^th century through three paradigms. To start, there was first the colonial expatriate, the likes of British colonial officers in India — or, as Anne-Meike Fetcher more vividly caricatures, “the British gentlemen who, after prolonged exposure to the tropical climates of South or South East Asia, suffer from world-weariness, alienation and alcoholism, as they are portrayed in the novels and short stories of Anthony Burgess, Joseph Conrad and Somerset Maugham.”

Servants around a British general and his guests in Bangalore. Photo via The New Statesman.

But with the wave of successful anti-colonial movements that swept the formerly colonized worlds following the end of World War II, expats came to mean something different. With the fall of European colonial empires rose to power a new global empire, namely that of the US, which dominated and shaped the world through both military and economic dominance. And central to the ascent of the US empire was the rise of US multinational corporations (MNCs), which emerged as powerful actors in the international political economy through their control of the flow of foreign direct investments. The rapid growth of US MNCs increased demand for a “new breed” of expatriate workers that would soon replace their European colonial predecessors: that is, the intracompany assignee transferred abroad for temporary periods of time for purposes of overseas management of operations.

Following the shift from the colonial expatriate to the corporate expatriate, the emergence of the next new model of the expat came in the 1980s and 1990s with the advent of neoliberalism, characterized by, in big-picture terms, minimal government intervention domestically and globalization and free trade internationally — the defining outcomes of which have included worsened inequality, decimation of the public, cuts in welfare, deregulation of worker protections, and the atomization of individuals.

In Vietnam, the neoliberal turn took shape in the form of Đổi Mới, which opened the country up to foreigners. As a precursor to the third type of expat that would follow the corporate expat, it is illuminating to take a look at the example of the multinational oil company Shell and the corporate restructuring they pursued in the 1990s. As Kunz details, with the neoliberal turn, Shell expats “got increased ‘choice’ and ‘flexibility’ but also found themselves more precarious and unequal. Payment structures were increasingly tied to individualised performance, implying greater inequality among expatriates and an emphasis on competition instead of the harmony thus far nurtured and expected.” While since at least the 1950s Shell expats understood themselves as part of and embedded within a larger “Shell family,” in the 1990s, the “company man” was re-fashioned into “individualised and disembedded global ‘expatriates’” — or in other words, neoliberal subjects.

Travel writer Mark Hudson and his friends at the Majestic Hotel in 1992. Photo via Saigoneer.

The new individualized, global expat was to be an early harbinger of the rise of what academics call the “self-initiated expatriate” (SIE) — a globally mobile worker who moves abroad without necessarily being told to, often highly-skilled. This includes, of course, the “digital nomad”-type professional, as well as English-language teachers, travel influencers, freelancers, and more. To clarify, SIEs did not replace corporate expatriates per se, who of course still exist — rather, they displaced the corporate expatriate as the dominant model evoked by the term “expat.” In many ways, SIEs are fundamentally neoliberal subjects in their reproduction of neoliberal ideology, in that their espousal of an international lifestyle often masks and obscures the fact that the feasibility of such internationality is itself ordered in uneven ways globally — dependent on, say, the strength of one’s passport or the feasibility of navigating borders and immigration systems, in addition to access to capital. As Kunz poignantly writes, “The self-styled international person, who possibly even rejects the label expatriate, in their performance of a celebratory and ‘border-blind’ internationalism… arguably has the markers of a tragic figure that is possibly well-intentioned yet hubristic, invested in rereading structural privilege as individual achievement.”

A view of Thảo Điền, a hub for expats in Saigon. Photo via Vinhomes.

Despite the association of the SIE with internationality and thus diversity, the SIE arguably remains racialized as white. For Kunz, this seeming contradiction must be understood via neoliberal ideology. Specifically, she suggests that the category’s “conceptual multiplicity and malleability” — its inclusion of “contingent insiders” of other backgrounds — helps to mask its largely racialized nature and in maintaining “a guise of a borderless internationality” that is in reality asymmetrically structured by persisting colonial and neocolonial relations, as much as the project of neoliberal globalization would want to have us believe otherwise. It is for this reason that criticism of the term expat as designated for white people is so common, despite the fact that non-white expats exist. From this view, the logic of (select) inclusivity of the category of the expat functions in the same way that the neoliberal celebration of “multiculturalism” and “DEI” by corporations functions to mask and obscure the violently racial nature of racial capitalism on a global scale.

The expat in Vietnam

The broad picture of the historical development of the expat from colonial to corporate to self-initiated expats offers a compelling account of the historically racialized nature of the expat, at least globally. But in Vietnam, the expat cannot be seen as racialized straightforwardly as white, given the significant population of East Asian expats. In fact, in 2025, a majority of the country’s officially counted international workforce — which, granted, is not the same as the population of expats, but is nonetheless illuminating — were from either China, South Korea, or Japan. Very tellingly, a Vietcetera article titled “Expats’ View On Working In Vietnam” features six expats, at least five of whom are not white, whose professions range from managers to yoga and ESL instructors.

The opening ceremony of a Coca-Cola manufacturing plant in Hà Tây Province (now Hanoi) in August 1995. Coca-Cola is one of the earliest American MNCs to arrive in Vietnam following Đổi Mới. Photo by Hoàng Đình Nam via Instagram page @tonkin.jpg.

Yet, this does not mean that the expat in Vietnam is unracialized — it is more so that different types of expats are racialized differently. Here, it is useful to contrast the article cited above with another series of expat profiles, “Expats In Ho Chi Minh City.” While the former features majority Asian expats, the latter features overwhelmingly “western” expats. It is no coincidence that the article that features majority Asian expats focuses on the topic of work, while the profiles that feature majority western expats focus more broadly on the expat experience and lifestyle. This is because, in Vietnam, the two archetypes of “business” expats and “lifestyle” expats are “racialized” differently, as (East) Asian and Western respectively.

As one study of Korean expats in Saigon notes, interviewees often referred to their stay in Vietnam as “a long-term business trip” — which runs counter to what we might expect of “western” expats, by contrast. Thus, it is not exactly that race is irrelevant to the category of expat in Vietnam, but rather that the logic of race operates differently and unevenly, given the huge proportion of FDI from other Asian nations like Korea, Singapore, China, and thus the business-skewed orientation of Asian expats. The so-called “expat community” in Vietnam is thus in fact not singular — as Fred Wissink, the producer of the “Expats In Ho Chi Minh City” series writes of Korean expats, “they’re very closed off. It’s a 100,000-person strong community, but they’re all in District 7… They have their own group and don’t have to deviate outside of it to do business or live comfortably. Outside of the Korean community, there’s an estimated 50,000 expats in Saigon.” In line with our comments above, what we find here also is a kind of inter-expat stereotyping, for of course it is not true that “all” Korean expats live in District 7 nor live secluded from the rest of the city.

View of Phú Mỹ Hưng, often referred to as Saigon’s Koreatown. Photo via VnExpress.

While it may initially seem like, in Vietnam, the term expat is inclusive of all foreigners, two examples make clear that the expat by no means operates as an innocent category in Vietnam either. There are two instances that make this evidently clear.

Firstly, while it is true that the country has long been a country that has exported rather than imported “unskilled” labor, there still exists a notable population of manual laborers from abroad, specifically, from China. As anthropologist Nguyễn Văn Chính explains, while it is unclear what percentage of 33,000 Chinese contracted laborers in Vietnam are manual workers, it is commonplace for Chinese contractors in northern Vietnam to hire workers from China for several reasons, including ease of communication in Chinese and the relative ease of mobilizing workers from cities just across Vietnam’s northern border. Most of these laborers work illegally on short-term contracts, usually between three months to a year, though some stay up to ten years. Surely, according to dictionary definitions, most of these migrant workers should be considered not as immigrants but rather expats. Yet, at several moments in his study, Chính refers to them as “immigrants” — very telling moments of how “expat” remains a category both racialized and classed.

As much as 90% of thermal power plants in Vietnam are built by Chinese contractors. Photo via UNDP.

Our second example concerns the most prominently covered naturalization of a migrant in Vietnam in the media: specifically, the story of Kenneth Atkinson, a British entrepreneur, who, after three decades of living in Vietnam, finally naturalized to become a Vietnamese citizen in 2025. Interestingly, the media coverage of his naturalization on Tuổi Trẻ and VnExpress does not once mention words like “immigrant” or “immigration.” The former is in fact categorized under the “Expat Life” column and the latter article is tagged with various tags containing the word “expat.” With respect to both Kenneth Atkinson and Chinese manual laborers, the point isn’t that the former is an expat and the latter are immigrants, but to point out “edge” cases in which the terms are not in fact wielded neutrally.

Naturalized citizen Kenneth Atkinson at the launch of his memoir in September 2025. Photo via VnExpress.

At the end of the day, popular discourse around expats and racism tends to be reductive and obscures a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon of “expats.” But even with a more nuanced understanding of the category, I think that there is a strong case to be made for the abandonment of the term altogether, given how confused and confusing the term remains. In opposition to abandoning the term, some may feel that the term “expat” may still be salvageable if used as a category to identify those who already possess a certain level of privilege. Yet, the problem with such a proposal is that what is intended as identification of privilege may in reality inadvertently constitute bestowal and/or reproduction of privilege and status, especially given that it is rarely possible to determine someone’s “level” of privilege in any straightforward way. Given this mess, it may be best that we abandon using the term altogether.