Saigoneers ơi!

Over the past few weeks, we've been making some major changes regarding Saigoneer, and we would like to keep you updated on these decisions and how they may affect your readership.

Building on the success of Saigoneer, in 2018 we launched Urbanist Hanoi, our sister site dedicated to the capital and the culture, food and people that make it great. The teams behind Urbanist Hanoi and Saigoneer are one and the same. In the four years since, our Hanoi members have written about many art exhibitions, development projects and social issues, and created the series we are most proud of, Ngõ Nooks, which chronicles our quest to eat our way through Hanoi’s street food.

This month, we are sad to say goodbye to the name Urbanist Hanoi as we transition all Hanoi-related writing to Saigoneer. Despite the name, Saigoneer has long transcended its initial vision as a hub merely for Saigon-centric stories, and with this move, we’re excited to work more closely with our friends from Urbanist Hanoi as they continue to report from their hometown.

Starting with new dedicated sections for Hanoi-specific stories on our website, we hope to extend our very Saigoneer perspective on storytelling to more parts of Vietnam, all housed in one place for your reading pleasure.

Following Urbanist Hanoi, we unveiled Urbanist Vietnam in 2020 as a brand-new website to tell stories about Saigon and Vietnam in Vietnamese. While our Vietnamese articles, voice, and website will remain unchanged, we’re excited (and a bit nervous) to share that Urbanist Vietnam will have a new name — Sài·gòn·eer.

You might have also noticed that Saigoneer's logo has changed. We came up with the new logo, inspired by a window at the Thiên Mụ Pagoda complex, for the launch of Urbanist Vietnam two years ago, and we're delighted to adapt a part of Urbanist Vietnam into our future. Read this article if you're interested in the process behind the logo redesign.

Saigoneer is immensely grateful for, and heartened by, your continued support throughout our nine years of existence. We hope that by bringing Saigoneer, Urbanist Hanoi and Urbanist Vietnam under one roof, we can offer you a more diverse and accessible reading experience. Moving forward, there will be many stellar features written by our Vietnamese-language and Hanoi-based contributors that we can’t wait to share with you. Check them out here:

• Sài·gòn·eer: *inserts Spiderman meme* Just us, but now in Tiếng Việt!
• Ngõ Nooks: The Hanoian counterpart to Hẻm Gems
• Hanoi Heritage: Old photos of Hanoi, historical figures behind street names, and more!
• Hanoi Stories: Updates on current affairs in Hanoi

Thương,

Khôi Phạm
Editor-in-Chief, Saigoneer