Exploring Saigon and Beyond - Saigoneer

An Ode to Saigon’s Chò Nâu Trees

2026-05-08T09:00:00+07:00

It’s too cold for chò nâu to grow where I’m from, but we still gave it an English name: dipterocarp.

It’s too cold for chò nâu to grow where I’m from, but we still gave it an English name: dipterocarp. Dipterocarp. Say it. Aloud. Dipterocarp. That subtle folding and fumbling of lip, tongue, teeth, precise flexing of thousands of muscles, tendons, cells? It’s far simpler than the efforts the great tree endures to gather water into its roots and coax it up to its canopy.

When walking Saigon’s streets, one only gets a good look at a chò nâu's drab trunk and a craned-neck view of their leaf-filled canopy 30 meters above. But those fragile upper limbs clutch delicate white flowers brushed with pink accents as subtle as a butterfly’s whispering wing strokes. You’ve just never seen them. It’s as if the trees are telling us: my fragile petals and soft fragrances are not meant for you; you would ruin them with your human attempts at appreciation.

But the trunk isn’t drab. Fissures, flakes, flecked scabs and multi-color scales: a complex crust akin to a river delta rich with sediment, silt, species. Can you really look at one and not recognize the beauty of an algae bloom, a shrimp spawn?

Jean-Baptiste Louis-Pierre was born on La Réunion off the coast of Madagascar to a family that made a fortune off sugar. But the business went bankrupt when the government emancipated the plantation’s slaves, and Louis-Pierre was forced to drop out of school, drifting from one colonial post to another before landing in Saigon, where he introduced European aesthetics by lining the streets with chò nâu he gathered in the highlands to protect pasty French skin and indulge foreign concepts of nature.

White spray paint stencil numbers grace nearly every chò nâu in the city, allowing authorities to identify which ones need to be trimmed for power line maintenance or be removed so their roots don’t undermine pavement construction or burst buried water pipes.

Tree #11: Saigon’s chò nâu are older than telephone wires, older than chainsaws, older than nylon, polyester and penicillin. Older than motorbikes, bubble tea, bánh tráng nướng and selfies, older than airplanes and the defoliants they dropped.

Tree #152: When the districts erupted in gunfire, casings clattered against the chò nâu trunks that soldiers took shelter behind. Their shade was balm to destroyed buildings, bombed roads, ruined bodies. They’re right there in the background of the grainy documentary footage. No one notices them.

Tree #78: Saigon’s chò nâu are younger than wind chimes, younger than fireworks, younger than kites, xích lô, and spit-roasting. Younger than áo dài, rice wine and cồng chiêng, younger than walking alone at midnight, feeling great pity for oneself before looking up and finding solace in the immensity of nature.

Tree #187: In regions that experience regular seasons, chò nâu flower and fruit with great precision, but in Saigon’s Mobius strip-climate, their cycle is chaotic, their branches bursting into bi-winged seeds that twirl down like surreal snowfall perhaps no more than once a decade.

Tree #45: First day of Tet, confetti strewn across exposed roots like music drifting across a peaceful cove. What is a concerto to a coral reef? What is the Lunar New Year to a chò nâu?

Tree #123: Imagine the rings inside this tree. They are nothing like the golden rings the chả cá seller on Tôn Thất Đạm wears because she trusts money on her fingers more than in a bank; not like thuốc lào smoke rings blown in the idle hours at the bus depot waiting to take the long journey back to the highlands; and not like the rings of traffic that circle the roundabout where Trần Hưng Đạo points triumphantly towards the shore his spirit guards.

Tree #7: Mostly water with organic solutes: urea, creatinine, uric acid, carbohydrates, hormones, fatty acids, pigments, mucins, inorganic ions including sodium, potassium, chloride, magnesium, calcium, ammonium, sulfates and phosphates — after seven beers with a long walk ahead, I am grateful for the city’s stance on public urination and honored that some element of my makeup will seep through the soil, slip into the tree’s roots, shimmy up its cellulose veins and nourish so little as the tiny tip of a leaf.

Tree #61: In the same way women no longer darken their teeth, we no longer ferry the Saigon River with poles firm as folk rhythms. Bridges cannot span shores clotted with trees. The stumps’ exposed rings on Tôn Thất Đạm resemble the whorled prints of a fingertip robbed of its ability to feel. I stand beside one and like a phantom limb, feel an ache of abandoned shade.

Tree #154: To grow a chò nâu, remove the tips of a seed’s wing and soak it in water for one–two hours; place the seed beneath a thin layer of sterilized soil; in three–four days the seed will sprout; in one year it will reach one meter tall; for its first three-four years it will prefer shade, and then sunlight for the rest of its life; during its life it can reach 40 meters tall; it will outlive you and everyone you love.

Tree #36: To get at one’s viscous resin, one must bore a hole, and let it slowly seep out, the way a child’s closed fist opens in sleep.

Tree #42: Uses for chò nâu include paint, varnish, glue, baskets, boxes, panels, kindling, printing ink, tick repellent, laxatives, diuretics, stimulants, antiseptics, charcoal, perfume fixatives, teeth-blackening agent and caulk for the waterproofing of boats.

Tree #167: Epiphytes attach themselves to trunks by tucking into nooks. These leafy air-sippers, thirsty mist-drinkers do not harm the chò nâu nor benefit it, and thus are like barnacles to a whale or the average human to society as a whole.

Tree #99: Chò nâu speak in a language consisting of photosynthesis and respiration, roots, rhizoids, sap and pollen. Our translators are horrendously overwhelmed, yet undeterred.

Tree #58: Driven by some absurd childhood desire to own a dinosaur, I recently purchased a bird. A Japanese white-eye. Its vibrant green feathers would put a chò nâu's lust for photosynthesis to shame. After six days of furiously flinging its body against wooden cage bars, it escaped. I watched with happiness. I hope it made its way to the zoo: a chò nâu roost, its only hope.

Tree #211: They did it while the city slept so as to not draw attention that would distract from what they were doing. Hugging the trees was a communion between human and plant, not a statement. The authorities looked on, waiting to intervene, and yet, what wrong was being done?

Tree #103: Hunched against its trunk in plain daylight a shirtless man dozes, a needle beside his arm. What do chò nâu know of addiction? Can we find a parallel in their thirst for groundwater, the way their leaves crave carbon dioxide, their urge to be pollinated?

Tree #121: Authorities transplant a few of the trees that are culled for the sake of infrastructure. No survival rates are reported. Is it not easier to uproot a person? To, as my friend Quế Mai says: “Eat each breeze that comes...learn to grow new buds…shudder to bloom… grow my fruit from my bleeding roots”? Surely as a man born and raised on a landmass devoid of chò nâu, I must convince myself this is possible.

Tree #6: Walking down Lê Duẩn, a summer wind releases a torrent of helicopter seeds — the nutlets twirl down and flop uselessly on the concrete. Unable to take root, their fibrous wings slump like the dorsal fins of killer whales depressed in captivity. Something inside me keels the same way.

Vietnamese Painter Một Quả Tắc Creates an Intimate and Gentle World on Silk

2026-05-07T10:00:00+07:00

Silk is an inherently finicky, demanding medium. Yet from the very first encounter, Quế Hương had chose to embrace its temperament and has devoted herself to it for nearly a decade.

Recently, Saigoneer had the opportunity to visit Quế Hương’s living space, which also serves as her creative studio. Greeting us right at the doorstep were her two feline assistants.

Photo by Jimmy Art Devier.

Quế Hương’s love for painting blossomed in childhood and grew stronger as she studied Fine Arts at the University of Fine Arts in Hồ Chí Minh City. While searching for her own artistic identity among various materials, silk chose her, perhaps it was her patience that ultimately won silk over.

When asked about her artist name, “Một Quả Tắc,” Hương explained, “It is just a random name without any particular meaning. Among the larger citrus fruits such as pomelo and orange, tắc is the smallest. And I see myself as still very green and small as well.”

Quế Hương. Photo by Jimmy Art Devier.

The journey of a young artist is rarely strewn with roses. Graduating right as the pandemic erupted, Quế Hương faced the crossroads of careers. She even considered setting aside her brushes to find a stable office job. “Thankfully, at that very time, I had the fortune to meet an art collector who bought some of my paintings, giving me more confidence to pursue this path.”

‘Mơn man’ (Caress)

‘Méow’

Looking at Quế Hương’s works in exhibitions or on social media, you'll be immersed in a gentle realm of grasses, trees, flowers, small animals, and youthful maidens. Her sources of inspiration are never far away. They may be self-portraits, the most ordinary moments of daily life, the people closest to her, or, at times, some strange ideas that suddenly take hold in her mind

The two silk paintings currently in progress that Saigoneer observed offer a clear example. One shows a small cat lounging contently across its owner’s lap in a green floral dress. The other captures a pair of cats in a playful tussle. Each painting feels like a diary entry that Quế Hương has recorded and preserved on silk, allowing those memories to endure. Even when they find new owners, the works are likely to evoke recognition or hold personal meaning for whoever takes them home.

‘Mấy đôi giày đã cũ của tôi’ (My old shoes)

‘Hái sao cho em’ (Picking stars for you)

“I’ve never felt bored, discouraged, or wanted to give up on silk painting, because there are still so many ideas I want to explore and so many things I want to paint.”

This persistence has earned Quế Hương multiple awards and a unique place in the art community. In September 2024, she marked a major milestone with her first solo exhibition, “Xôn xao” (Flutter). The show featured 15 paintings with a poetic color palette, creating a serene space where viewers could escape the chaos outside and lose themselves in her dreamy realm and her meticulous technique.

Silk painting ‘Lập xuân’ (Spring beginning) displayed at the “Xôn xao” exhibition.

Learning the silk painting process

By following Quế Hương through each stage of her work, one comes to truly appreciate the intensive care and labor this art form demands.

‘Xoxo’

The silk fabric used for painting is different from silk used for clothing. It is thinner, has a rougher texture, and is usually coated with a thin layer of glue. If needed, the artist can wash some of it away to make the fabric softer. After securing the silk, she builds a wooden stretcher frame of any size she desires. “One time, I made a frame so large it wouldn’t fit in the apartment elevator, so I had to carry it up the stairs. Later, when taking the painting to an exhibition, I had to ask muscular guys to help carry it down the stairs again,” Quế Hương recalled with a smile.

Silk being coated with glue.

Next, she must stretch the silk onto the frame herself, secure it with pins, and apply glue. “During this stage, I usually have to put the two cats away so they don’t run around and get fur on the painting. Even so, while painting, cat hair still easily sticks to it, so once the paint dries, I use a lint roller to clean it.” When the silk frame is ready, Quế Hương selects her idea, sketches, draws the details, and applies color. She mainly uses watercolor, but also incorporates gouache and Chinese ink when needed.

‘Bật một bản nhạc nhé’ (Let's put on some music)

She added: “Silk painters often work standing at a flat table. I used to do that too. It was so tiring on the neck and legs! Luckily now I have this easel that I can tilt, but it still causes back pain and sore knees.” Despite that, because she loves her craft, Hương still paints diligently for hours on end. “When I get too tired, I just massage myself or go to a parlor!”

Finally, Quế Hương mounts a layer of fabric on the back of the painting. It is usually a smooth fabric with minimal texture so as not to alter the structure and image on the silk. Depending on the “mood” of the painting, she chooses light, dark, or neutral backing fabric. “For dark paintings, I’ll choose gray or black fabric. For warm-toned paintings, I use white. I don’t always add backing fabric though. Some pieces I leave as they are, depending on the aesthetic.”

‘Lặp’ (Repeat)

The recent resurgence of interest in silk painting among young people is an encouraging sign. For Quế Hương, it’s not only a personal joy but also an opportunity for this traditional medium to be reinterpreted in more diverse artistic languages.

“I also want to travel more to recharge and gain new inspiration. Besides that, I hope more people will get to know me as a silk painter,” Quế Hương said, her eyes sparkling as she looked out toward the sunlit balcony.

Photo by Jimmy Art Devier.

To learn more about silk painting and Quế Hương's art practice, visit her Instagram @motquatac.

Saigon Commences Metro Line, Major Administrative Hub Project in Thủ Thiêm

2026-05-06T11:56:02+07:00

Municipal authorities in Hồ Chí Minh City are moving forward with a number of infrastructure projects that will majorly transform the peninsula in the future.

Over the long holiday weekend on April 29, Saigon broke ground on the Bến Thành–Thủ Thiêm Metro Line, which will take passengers from the central interchange at Bến Thành Market to eastern regions of the city. The interchange has already served the existing Line 1 and will also link to the Bến Thành–Tham Lương Line that stretches northward.

A cross-section of a station of the Bến Thành–Thủ Thiêm Line.

The line serving Thủ Thiêm begins at Bến Thành, running along Hàm Nghi Boulevard before crossing the Saigon River to Thủ Thiêm, where it will snake along Mai Chí Thọ to the terminal in Bình Trưng (Thủ Đức City). Six stations are based underground: Hàm Nghi, Tố Hữu, Cung Thiếu Nhi, Bệnh viện Quốc tế, Bình Khánh, and Thủ Thiêm.

A map showing both the first (yellow) and second (teal) phases of the line.

Most notably, Hàm Nghi Station will be Saigon’s deepest at 33 meters underground as the line will need to travel beneath the Saigon River. On the other end, the last station is planned to be a meeting point for other transportation modes, such as a high-speed North-South train and an upcoming metro line linking Thủ Thiêm and Long Thành International Airport.

On the same day, the city also commenced construction on the new administrative hub on a 46.7-hectare plot of land in Thủ Thiêm. The ambitious project, expected to cost nearly VND30 trillion (US$1.12 billion), is designed for administrative, cultural, and civic functions for the city.

The design of the administrative center.

Components of the new hub include a 30-story administrative center, a 2,000-seat multi-purpose amphitheatre and convention center, and a central park and central square.

Ho Chi Minh City is accelerating efforts to form the Thu Thiem urban area as its future financial and administrative hub, with the launch of a VND29.6 trillion (US$1.12 billion) central square and administrative complex, one of four major projects expected to shape the long-planned new urban center on the city’s eastern bank.

Have a look at some renderings showcasing the new administrative hub below:

The central park next to the administrative center.

The performance arts and conference center.

A corner of the park.

The central plaza.

Images via VnExpress.

The History of Saigon General Hospital, the Clinic Funded by a Doctor's Generosity

2026-05-04T11:00:00+07:00

The Saigon Hospital at 125 Lê Lợi was originally built in the late 1930s as the Polyclinique Dejean de la Bâtie. The French named it after French doctor Théodose Déjean de la Bâtie, who devoted his life to treating members of the Vietnamese community.

While the wealthy Chinese communities set up their own well-appointed hospitals in Chợ Lớn from as early as the 1870s, medical facilities in Saigon during the first half century of colonial rule were provided almost exclusively for the use of European settlers.

During that period, Vietnamese people living in Saigon had to travel to the Chợ Quán Hospital for treatment, or alternatively to visit the tiny Thị Nghè clinic of the Sisters of Saint-Paul de Chartres, which, according to one government report, “compensated, to some extent, for the lack of an Hôpital indigène in Saigon.”

The need to create a hospital “specifically designated for indigenous people” in Saigon was taken up at the turn of the century by Dr Théodose Dejean de la Bâtie (1865–1912).

A former director of Chợ Quán Hospital who developed a pioneering programme to improve standards of maternity care, Dejean de la Bâtie was elected to the Colonial Council in 1900 and lobbied vociferously for the government to provide more civilian doctors for the treatment of local people.

In April 1903, using his own money, Dejean de la Bâtie set up “a clinic on the rue d’Adran [Hồ Tùng Mậu], behind the Justice of Peace,” which offered “free medical and surgical treatment to all Asians who wished to benefit from European medicine.”

Dejean de la Bâtie personally funded the operation of the clinic for nearly two years, but its success nearly bankrupted him, and, in 1905, the municipal government took over its operation. In that year, the clinic received subsidies from the Saigon Municipality (1,200 piastres), Cholon Province (300 piastres) and Gia-Dinh Province (300 piastres).

According to a report of 1905 in the Annuaire général de l'Indo-Chine française, “Although recently founded, this institution has given brilliant results and seems to be destined to be of great service. For the first 12 months of operation, the free consultation room was crowded with 3,151 patients of all nationalities. In total, they came here 15,717 times to ask for bandages or medication, or simply for advice on their health. During this period, Dr Dejean de la Bâtie, assisted by his colleague Dr Flandin, carried out 166 surgical procedures under chloroform, 86 under cocaine and 21 under ethyl chloride. The free healthcare services are provided here by Dr Dejean de la Bâtie, assisted by a European nun, an Annamite nun, an Annamite nurse and a secretary-interpreter.

When Dejean de la Bâtie died unexpectedly in 1912 at the age of just 47, many tributes were paid to the man who had devoted his life to improving standards of medical care for local people.

Speaking in 1930, his former deputy, Dr Georges M L Montel, commented that he “cared too much for his patients and didn’t charge fees… It was only when his clinic became such a major undertaking, and his personal resources were no longer adequate to pay for it, that he consented to hand it to the municipality. He had a heart of gold. That’s why he died penniless, and his widow, instead of being chauffeured around in a car like so many other ladies, had to be content to live as a modest teacher.”

Two years after his death, the clinic founded by Théodose Dejean de la Bâtie was relocated to a larger building on boulevard Bonard, the site occupied today by the Saigon Hospital. Known initially as the Polyclinique du Marché or the Polyclinique du boulevard Bonard, it was placed under the direction of Dr Georges Montel.

However the demand for medical services by local people continued to grow, prompting Colonial Council member Trương Văn Bền in 1919 to urge the government to build a much larger Hôpital indigene in Saigon in order to cope with the “alarming growth” in the number of local patients.

Indochina – medicine before 1930.

As annual patient numbers at the Polyclinique du Marché rose from 28,982 in 1922 to 37,957 in 1924 and 45,161 in 1926, the authorities responded by opening smaller clinics at Tân Định (1925) and Khánh Hội (1930),

Finally in 1935, Cochinchina Governor Pierre Pagès (1934-1939) approved plans to rebuild the Polyclinique du Marché as a fully-equipped city hospital.

Constructed and opened in stages between 1937 and 1939, the new hospital cost 185,000 piastres (1,850,000 francs) to build. In February 1938, the Colonial Council decided that it should be named the Polyclinique Dejean de la Bâtie, “in honour of the devoted and selfless philanthropist who was the creator of the municipal polyclinique.”

A “colorized” image of the the Polyclinique Dejean de la Bâtie in 1949.

While most of the funding came from the city government, the Hui-Bon-Hoa family made a sizable donation of 38,000 piastres, securing for themselves the naming rights to the south wing (nearest the market), which became known as the “pavillon Hui-Bon-Hoa.” The north wing was named after Bâtie’s protégée Dr Georges Montel, who had become known in the 1920s for his groundbreaking treatment of leprosy, while other smaller donations were recognised by the naming of individual consulting rooms and operating theatres. A marble plaque was posted in the main entrance lobby, bearing the names of all donors and benefactors who had contributed to the construction.

A CFTI electric tram passes the Polyclinique Dejean de la Bâtie in the early 1940s.

After 1955, the Polyclinique Dejean de la Bâtie was renamed the Saigon General Hospital (Bệnh viện Đa khoa Sài Gòn). Since that time it has continued to function as one of the most important hospitals in the city.

However, in recent years the fabric of the building has become badly degraded and, in an article in Người Lao Động, the hospital was described as “seedy, dirty, with inadequate service and bad management.” The same article quoted a leader from the Hồ Chí Minh City Department of Health as saying: “It has all the necessary facilities and a convenient location, but the performance of the Saigon Hospital is very poor....This situation must be resolved. The Department of Health is considering whether the entire hospital personnel should be reorganised or the hospital should be closed completely.”

The Saigon General Hospital today.

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.

How Soy Milk Symbolizes an Imagined Vietnam of My Childhood in France

2026-04-29T15:00:00+07:00

I still remember vividly the anticipation running through my veins, when I saw a waiter bringing me a glass of sữa đậu nành, every time my family took me to one of the many Vietnamese restaurants of the 13^th arrondissement of Paris, the city’s renowned Chinatown. It was a neighborhood I was bound to get dragged to as a French kid with a Vietnamese parent, whether I wanted to or not. For me, this glass represented the quintessence of typical Vietnamese drinks during a good meal: one of the rare glimpses into the daily customs of my ancestors’ culture.

The dishes in those restaurants were good, but I was used to eating them at home, cooked by my grandmother. They were already part of my usual experiences, and as such, didn’t evoke the special feeling of Vietnamese authenticity, not like sữa đậu nành. I can recall restaurants’ over-the-top decorations, and customers shouting, one louder than another. In the midst of it, I only focused on my drink: it tasted mild, but with a slight earthy note. More than anything, the coldness shielded me from the heat of the meal, which I couldn't wait to devour.

A Vietnamese restaurant in Paris with al fresco seats. Photo via Noodlies.

Soy milk isn't the only drink offered there, and there are versions of it everywhere. From cans at the store around the corner to homemade soy milk, the quality might differ depending on the restaurant, but it’s always on the menu. This is why I was certain that soy milk was the go-to drink for any Vietnamese person when eating out: the real taste of Vietnam.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived in Saigon to discover that the first restaurant I went to didn’t offer sữa đậu nành. Was there a shortage at the moment? Did I stumble upon the only restaurant without soy milk? I quickly understood the reality of the matter: the ubiquity of soy milk was an imagination of my own. Baffled by this realization, I looked to see what everybody else was really drinking when the server approached me: “Is trà đá ok?” Everywhere I went, tea was the de facto drink for Vietnamese food, and soy milk was nowhere to be found. Trà đá's role here is what I thought sữa đậu nành would be.

Hot soy milk, among other flavored milks like mung bean and corn, is a beloved beverage in Đà Lạt. Photo via Vinpearl.

Since then, I’ve had opportunities to get my hands on soy milk, be it in higher-end restaurants or special soy milk stalls in Đà Lạt style, a city I have yet to visit. However, the taste is always different from the ones I drank before setting foot in Vietnam. I was eager to find the representation of a country that only existed in my mind, only to realize what I sipped tasted like… soy milk. It was good, but the distinctive taste of getting closer to Vietnam was absent.

Maybe soy milk was just a me-fantasy, not even an experience all French kids with Vietnamese background have. What I have come to accept now is that this mythical “Vietnamese taste” I longed for is not locally present: if I go to Paris now and order one of these glasses I’ve had so many of, I know it won’t feel the same anymore. It was never about milk, nor was it about Vietnam: the Vietnamese daily life I thought I could peek at via the bottom of those sữa đậu nành glasses lit an interest in a side of my heritage that had felt far away.

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

2026-04-29T14:00:00+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.

Into the Earthy, Quirky World of Kramahan's Accessories and Clothing

2026-04-29T14:00:00+07:00

We paid Nhật, the founder of Kramahan.Clothing, a visit on a windy day in Saigon. This room in the heart of the city has many functions: a living space, a working studio, and also a showroom displaying a huge collection of colorful knick-knacks. If you’re in search of uniquely made little things, this place might be an exciting stop to drop by.

Minh Nhật created the accessories and clothing items for Kramahan himself. On his workbench lies a number of wooden blocks, assorted strings, stones, and key chains — all waiting their turn to transform.

Few people know that, before embarking on this creative journey, Nhật graduated with a Chemistry degree from the University of Science and spent 3 years working in cosmetic product development. His career’s watershed moment came after visiting weekend arts markets, where he recognized the immense potential of tiny but interesting accessories. Once it was decided, Nhật returned to Cambodia, where he was born in 1988, to source clothing and checkered scarves.

“I only started the shop as a hobby, but it was unexpectedly successful. I would haul a big bag [of products] to the market and return empty. I got ‘greedier’ and started opening a kiosk every weekend. About six months later, I quit my job to run the kiosk full-time,” he tells Saigoneer.

The childhood creative spark that grew into a flame

After a time doing reselling, he noticed that sales started winding down, and realized that it might have been time to create his own items.

This wasn’t a random decision. At one point, Nhật considered applying for architecture college, as he’s had a penchant for the arts since he was a little boy: “When I was little, I was quite energetic. We didn’t have playdough at the time, so I dug up actual clay to make figurines, and my mom loved it.”

During the years in the chemistry lab, that artistic inclination only went into hibernation. Sometimes, he would hand-make a card for close friends, but never thought that one day it would turn into a career.

The reawakening of an old passion, coupled with a newly formed link with his second home, Cambodia, resulted in the name Kramahan. According to Nhật, “krama” means checkered scarf in Khmer while “han” is a shorthand for “hand” or “handmade,” a nod to the rustic nature of his creations.

In his workshop, Nhật dabbles in a little bit of everything: coloring, sketching, carving, drilling, sculpting, sanding, knotting, etc. He also learned pottery and knitting to enrich his accessory items. Fashion-wise, his designs are based on linen and brocade, produced by textile workers in small batches.

Interesting items for the curious

Just a glance at Kramahan’s inventor, one will encounter a colorful world crafted from Japanese, Cambodian, or even Thai influences.

Looking closer, customers can probably sense the dedication behind Nhật’s works. He meticulously handles small details and spends time balancing out the shapes and finishes. Beside a sense of personal branding and visual language, Nhật could also employ his chemistry training in how he uses colorants.

Nhật's designs.

With a motto to make items that are aesthetically pleasing, distinctive, and just a little quirky, Nhật aims to make things that he himself must feel drawn to. Whichever pieces that don’t quite satisfy those criteria, he never puts on the market. As the items are all hand-made, each version has its own life and even two earring pieces don’t resemble each other 100%.

Everything can disappear into nature

This is also another philosophy that Nhật abides by. He shares: “I sometimes walk around the city to collect wooden chunks, left behind by the municipal park maintenance department, to use as carving materials. Later, I also ordered better wood stocks like sandalwood and lim, which could push up the prices a bit, but I’ll always disclose to buyers the original sources of the woods.”

To Nhật, each travel experience is also a great opportunity to source crafting materials, like shells or unique pebbles. Everything carries the potential to be turned into wearable art.

“When picking strings to make necklaces or key chains, I would test out the material using heat. If it’s not 100% cotton, I would say no. I hope that everything I create can return to the earth and disappear into nature. Only when there are no alternatives, I would turn to materials that are harder to decompose,” he explains.”

At the moment, Nhật focuses mainly on highly practical designs at affordable prices, though he still nurtures dreams to create more abstract and complicated pieces. In the future, it’s hard to say for sure where Kramahan would go, but many surprises might be in store for Nhật, just like how, back then, his childhood artistic streaks dovetailed with his Cambodian roots to compel him to start Kramahan.

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.

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