In the not-too-distant past, elephants were an important part of highland lifestyles, including use in cultural activities, agriculture.

Before they had achieved their current position of closely guarded endangered creatures, elephants had many roles in Vietnamese society. As glorified by the Trung sisters and Bà Triệu, two hundred years later, they were once important war machines. The Nguyễn lords in Huế even built a large arena to watch them battle tigers to the death. They have also been used for more peaceful, but certainly not stress-free, purposes. As the VND1,000 bill pays homage to, they were instrumental in 20th-century forestry efforts. Meanwhile, hundreds of domesticated elephants tamed from wild populations were adopted into highland communities to assist with agriculture and take part in important cultural activities.

Elephants were used for routine transportation along the dirt roadways.

Seasoned photographer John Dominis (1921 - 2013) documented this later use for LIFE magazine. These photos from 1957 reveal how elephants were an everyday occurrence in an Ê Đê community in Buôn Ma Thuột. Saddled with baskets and chairs, they transported people and materials in the remote village while taking part in celebrations and gatherings. Tended to trainers and accustomed to the rhythms of daily life, they appear little different from domestic cats or dogs.

Elephants grow to great sizes but never outgrow their curiosity.

Economic development, as well as technological, ecological, and societal change, in tandem with evolving understandings of human-animal relations, have all made these scenes one sof the past. But viewing them allows us to more deeply understand the gentle giants that acted as intermediaries between the wild and developing world. 

An elephant arriving at a traditional Ê Đê stilt house.

Elephants at work would have been a familiar sight in this village, little different than a buffalo set to plow.

Elephants were enlisted in cultural performances. 

The few hundred elephants that remain in Vietnam are now allowed off the roads and out of the chains to stomp around in the forests freely. 

[Photos via RedsVN]

In 1964, Saigon’s Phù Đổng Roundabout didn’t feature the towering bronze statue of folk hero Thánh Gióng. Instead of the congestion hot spot the intersection is known as today, it was actually spacious and airy, with nary a shop or bubble tea parlor in sight.

These film shots, taken by American serviceman Chris Newlon Green, are perhaps some of the most well-preserved and –composed images of 1960s Vietnam that we’ve come across: arty night shots with light painting, intimate portraits, and expansive landscapes: Green shows a knack for photography, aided by the roll of film’s incredible colors.

Follow the chronicles of Green’s stay in Vietnam through the photos below:

Phù Đổng Roundabout.

The intersection between Trần Hưng Đạo (right) and Trần Phú (left).

Downtown Saigon from above.

The Đề Thám-Trần Hưng Đạo intersection.

Mekong Delta children.

The holiday home of Madame Trần Lệ Xuân in Bến Tre.

A villa in Bến Tre.

A bird's-eye view of Vũng Tàu.

A Vietnamese lady in Long Hải.

An inter-province bus in the Mekong Delta.

A ferry taking commuters from Mỹ Tho to Bến Tre.

Biên Hòa from above.

A rubber plantation in Biên Hòa.

The central roundabout of Bến Tre.

A railroad bridge in Bến Tre.

Vĩnh Kim Market in Châu Thành, Tiền Giang Province.

Going across towns by boat was and still is a common aspect of life in the Mekong Delta.

[Top photo: Phù Đổng Roundabout at night/Photos vis Redsvn]

In our previous article on Vietnam’s southern citadels, we covered a mix of ancient structures and those constructed just before the dawn of French colonization of Indochina. In particular, we focused on Gia Định Citadel, a hulking structure that once stood in what would become Saigon’s city center. Undertaking a similar exercise for Vietnam’s central and northern regions is less practical, given the sheer quantity and variety of citadels in those regions. So, for the second part of our citadel series, we instead will focus on a unifying feature across such fortifications — Vauban architecture.

The style is the brainchild of Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a Frenchman described as one of the most prominent and influential military strategists during the reign of Louis XIV. His designs, strategies, and principles remained in use until the early 20^th century. The development of Vauban architecture emerged against the backdrop of the turbulent geo-political and religious strife which engulfed Europe in the 17^th century, which involved major siege warfare. At this point in military history, it was accepted that even the strongest fortifications would eventually fall, so their ultimate function was to absorb the attacker's energy to take the wind out of the larger offensive at hand.

The fortress Neuf-Brisach in France, Vauban's final work and the culmination of his "Third System." Completed in the early 18^th century after Vauban’s death. Photo via Forte Cultura.

With this in mind, Vauban improved upon previous designs by using specific shapes, including pentagonal and hexagonal outer walls and layers in his fortifications. They would sometimes include residential and commercial districts within a fortification’s walls. Therefore, Vauban theory went beyond simply military strategy, architecture and construction, but also extended to civil engineering and economic and social organization.

Fortifications of this style which, per UNESCO, “bears witness to the peak of classic bastioned fortification, typical of western military architecture of modern times.” Some of them endure long after Vauban’s death in 1707. During his prolific career, he personally oversaw the construction of 300 such structures across the globe, from the Americas to what is now Vietnam, where French engineers helped construct such fortifications for the Nguyễn Dynasty.

Pigneau de Béhaine, painted by Maupérin during his 1787 trip to Paris with Crown Prince Cảnh, on display at the Paris Foreign Missions Society. Image via Wikipedia.

According to a research paper by Frederic Mantienne, the influx of European military technology coming in to Vietnam arose out of the need to overpower the Tay Son army after their victory against the Nguyen dynasty in 1773. Four years later, Nguyễn Ánh, the Nguyễn family survivor, became acquainted with a French missionary named Pierre Pigneaux de Béhaine — whose mausoleum was replaced by a roundabout near Tân Sơn Nhất Airport in 1983, better known by the name Lăng Cha Cả — more commonly known in Vietnam through his Vietnamese name Bá Đa Lộc. Bá Đa Lộc became Nguyễn Ánh’s advisor and the individual that persuaded him to seek military support from France, a major reason for Nguyễn Ánh’s rise to power.

Five years after Nguyễn Ánh proclaimed himself king in 1780, Bá Đa Lộc was sent to Pondicherry, in modern India, and then France to lobby for French military assistance for the Nguyễn army. The trip resulted in the Versailles military treaty (Traité de Versailles de 1787) between France and Cochinchina. While the treaty ultimately wasn’t enacted, Bá Đa Lộc managed to create enough French commercial interest to bring ammunition and a number of French naval officers, including two army specialists, to Cochinchina. These specialists were trained in fortification and artillery techniques.

With this new assistance, Nguyễn Ánh, who went by Emperor Gia Long at that point, ordered the first citadel to be built using the Vauban technique — Saigon’s Gia Định. According to Mantienne, French engineer Theodore Le Brun was tasked with the design for the citadel, and Oliver de Puymanel and the king would oversee the construction.

The second and last citadel with French involvement in Vietnam was Diên Khánh, located in Khánh Hòa Province near Nha Trang, which was built in 1793 after Nguyễn A!nh succeeded in leading a campaign there against the Tây Sơn. It was constructed under the command of Bá Đa Lộc, Puymanel and Gia Long’s eldest son, Nguyễn Phúc Cảnh.

Portraits of Gia Long. Images via Disan Vietnam.

The Diên Khánh Citadel witnessed many battles between the Nguyễn army and the Tây Sơn. One of particular importance is a 1795 attack on the citadel led by Tây Sơn General Trần Quang Diệu. The Tây Sơn army managed to win the battle, however, they could not take the citadel. In this way, Diên Khánh proved to the Nguyen leaders the effectiveness of Vauban fortifications in their tactics.

Left: Diên Khánh citadel plans. Image via Wikipedia. Right: Present-day Diên Khánh Citadel in Khánh Hòa Province. Image via Google Maps.

French scholarship points to Oliver de Puymanel as the mastermind behind the Diên Khánh Citadel, and that it was Le Brun and Puymandel who also designed and built the Saigon citadel. However, Vietnamese intellectuals continue to debate Puymanel’s roles in the construction. Some, such as critic and journalist Thụy Khuê, in her collection of research essays, suggests that French colonial scholars might have exaggerated the two Frenchmen’s importance in the construction thanks to a reliance on flimsy sources. The inflated claims were published in Vietnamese texts as facts and became a myth.

Regardless of whether it was via direct or indirect transfer of French technologies, there is no denying that the Vauban style made its way into the design of fortifications in Vietnam and continued to exist and influenced fortifications under Gia Long, Minh Mạng and Thiệu Trị. 

The third citadel that has Vauban influence after Diên Khánh was the famous Huế imperial city, which was built in 1802 when Gia Long (Nguyễn Ánh) moved the capital to Huế. From 1802 until 1844, 32 new citadels with a design resembling Vauban architecture were built in Vietnam, their placement and location obeying feng shui principles. Some also featured details reflecting traditional Vietnamese architecture elements.

Under the rule of the Gia Long emperors, many citadels were polygonal, with a few exceptions. In the north, Bắc Ninh Citadel was the first fortification to be built with a hexagonal shape. The citadel was built in 1805 under Gia Long using soil. Under the sixth Minh Mạng ruler, the citadel was rebuilt using laterite (a metal-rich clay), and in 1841 under Emperor Thiệu Trị, the fortification was rebuilt again with bricks.

Left: Turcos and fusiliers-marins at Bắc Ninh, 12 March 1884. Image via Wikipedia. Right: Present-day Bắc Ninh Citadel. Image via Google Maps.

The Hạc Thành Citadel, or Thọ Hạc, is another example of a hexagonal citadel. It was built in 1804 and marks the birth of Thanh Hóa Province as the geographical area as we know today. 

Right: Hạc Thành Citadel seen on a French 1909 map. Image via Wikipedia. Left: Present-day Hạc Thành Citadel. Image via Google Maps.

In his paper, Mantienne mentioned that pentagonal citadels, a hallmark of the Vauban style, also appeared during Gia Long’s rule, including ones built in Quảng Ngãi and Hải Dương in 1807. However it’s unclear if this is indeed true, as the remaining outline of the Quảng Ngãi Citadel today has a square form with eight protruding corners. As for the citadel in Hải Dương, Vietnamese sources suggest it had a hexagonal shape instead. While the citadel in Hải Dương was left in ruin by French colonialists and the Second Indochina War, a search on Google Maps reveals its remaining outline.

Left: Present-day Quảng Ngãi Citadel. Image via Google Maps. Right: Present-day Hải Dương Citadel. Image via Google Maps.

Citadels built under Minh Mạng emperors no longer saw an abundance of polygonal shapes. Instead, square or rectangular forts were used more often. While this may seem like a simplification of the design of earlier citadels due to lack of French assistance, Mantienne and Cong Phuong Khuong argue that these citadels followed some of the latest fortification innovations in Europe at the time.  

An example of a citadel that exemplifies Minh Mạng-era fortifications is the Đồng Hới Citadel, which comes in a generic quadrangle shape with an additional four corners, each sticking out from the center of each side. The citadel was originally built by Emperor Gia Long using soil in 1812. However, in 1824, under the reign of Minh Mạng, the citadel was redesigned and rebuilt using bricks. It is located in Đồng Hới, Quảng Bình Province.

Present-day Đồng Hới Citadel. Image via Google Maps.

Another example of a citadel that underwent reconstruction during the Minh Mạng era is the old Quảng Trị Citadel, located in Quảng Trị Province. It was first constructed in 1809 with soil and rebuilt using bricks in 1837. Square in shape, with four bastions extending from four corners, the citadel shape is more similar to some inner layers of Vauban structures in France, such as the fort of Saint-Martin-de-Ré built by Vauban himself in 1681. Under French colonial rule, a prison, along with other buildings, were erected inside the citadel (seen in map below). Today, the citadel is known as a “cemetery without headstones,” due to the death toll during a 1972 battle that occurred there. 

Left: Quảng Trị Citadel seen on a 1889 French map. Right: Present-day Quảng Trị Citadel. Image via Google Maps.

New citadels built under Minh Mạng existed too, such as the Sơn Tây Citadel. Its square shape, with four round protrusions on four sides, differs slightly from others. It was one of the earliest built after Minh Mạng became emperor in 1820. Erected in 1822 with laterite and located in Sơn Tây, 40 kilometers outside of Hanoi, the structure is currently known for its octagonal 18-meter high flag post, which also doubles as an observation center. On the top of the post, a transmitter was installed for emergency communication.

Left: Sơn Tây Citadel seen on an old British map. Right: Present-day Sơn Tây Citadel. Image via Google Maps.

While Gia Long and Minh Mạng hold an impressive Vauban fortification portfolio, only one citadel is credited to Emperor Thiệu Trị, perhaps because of his relatively short reign of just six years, from 1841 to 1847. This is compared to Gia Long’s 18 years of rule (1802–1820) and Minh Mạng’s 21-year rule (1820–1840). The citadel in question is located in Tuyên Quang Province. Though not originally built under Thiệu Trị, the emperor conducted a massive reconstruction of the structure, which was first erected during the Mạc dynasty in the late 16^th century with a square shape. 

Thiệu Trị was also involved in another large reconstruction project at Điện Hải Citadel in Đà Nẵng. According to historian Tim Doling, it was first built by Gia Long as a fortress. The Vauban architectural elements spotted in the remains of the citadel today are courtesy of Thiệu Trị’s reconstruction in 1847, which is also the year that he died. 

Left: The current entrance to Điện Hải Citadel. Photo via People's Army Newspaper. Right: Present-day Điện Hải Citadel. Image via Google Maps.

A deeper understanding of these structures, some of which have faded from view, and others prominent symbols of Vietnam’s heritage, gives one a deeper appreciation of their roles in the country’s history. They also show that many of humanity’s best ideas often migrate, across constructs including borders and time, like humans themselves.

Read the first part of Unearthed, our series on Vietnam's past citadels here.

Although the forces of modernization encourage constant progress and leaving behind the pre-modern past, the trails of yesterday never fail to leave our presence.

Old citadels in southern Vietnam are a testament to the above remark. Unlike their northern and central counterparts, which are preserved as heritage sites, citadels built in southern Vietnam no longer have their total physical presence seen and felt by most residents living near them. However, their remnants are still somehow present: the area where the Gia Định Citadel once stood now forms Saigon’s center and encloses government buildings representing the centralization of power; the remainders of a citadel wall in Biên Hòa can still be spotted; and the round vestiges of ancient lives in Bình Phước Province yearn to be studied and explored.

Saigon Citadels

Lũy Bán Bích

Before Saigon had a true fortress or citadel, a city wall called Lũy Bán Bích was erected by the Nguyễn Dynasty general Nguyễn Cửu Đàm to ward off Siamese invasions in 1772, when the city carried the name Gia Định. Though, like much of Saigon’s feudal fabric, no physical remnants of the wall exist, it did help to inform the trajectory of Lý Chính Thắng and Trần Quang Khải streets. The name Lũy Bán Bích is also used for a street in modern Tân Phú District.

The Lũy Bán Bích wall (red line). The map was drawn by Trần Văn Học in 1815 and republished in a 1987 geography book on Saigon. Photo via Wikipedia.

Gia Định Citadel

Saigon’s first true citadel was constructed by 30,000 laborers under the auspices of Nguyễn Phúc Ánh with French technical support in 1790. Meant to act as a temporary royal capital during the Tây Sơn rebellion, the polyhedron-shaped citadel was made of Biên Hòa granite. The fortification — which sat in the middle of today's Lê Thánh Tôn, Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa, Nguyễn Đình Chiểu and Đinh Tiên Hoàng streets — featured five-meter-tall walls and a deep moat, with its main entrance located at the intersection of modern-day Đồng Khởi and Lý Tự Trọng streets.

The citadel had royal housing, military support structures and medical facilities; it acted as an interchange for the Thiên Lý road, which linked the city to the Mekong Delta, Huế and Hanoi.

Following the Nguyễn Lord's victory over Tây Sơn rebels, the capital was moved back to Huế, and Gia Định was officially downgraded to a provincial capital. In addition, following a separatist uprisings in the south which occurred in 1832–1835, the grand Gia Định citadel was demolished and replaced by a smaller “Phoenix Citadel” (thành Phụng) constructed in 1837 in the area now bound by Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Nguyễn Du, Mạc Đĩnh Chi and Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm streets in Vauban style, similar to its predecessor. 

The outlines of the Gia Định (in red) and Phoenix (in blue) citadels superimposed over a map of colonial Saigon. Photo via Flickr user manhhai.

The Phoenix Citadel’s lifespan was a short 22 years, as French forces razed the structure in 1859 and replaced it with a military compound (Caserne de l’infanterie), though the area retained its “citadelle” moniker through the colonial period.

French forces attack the Phoenix Citadel. Photo via Wikipedia.

This military complex served as a barracks until 1945, when, under Japanese control, it was used to intern French officers. Following independence from France, the compound was again a historical focal point during the 1963 coup against Ngô Đình Diệm and suffered extensive damage.

The site was then redeveloped with educational and telecommunications facilities and today is occupied by the Hồ Chí Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities and the headquarter of local TV network HCMC Television (HTV).

Today, all that ties the location to the long line of citadels and military facilities are the two colonial buildings that stand where the Gia Định citadel’s main gate was.

Gates of the Caserne de l’infanterie seen in the colonial period. The buildings to the left and right are still standing today at the intersection of Lê Duẩn and Đinh Tiên Hoàng streets. Photo via Flickr user manhhai.

Photo by Brandon Coleman.

Biên Hòa Citadel

While Saigon’s citadel might be the most well-known, the Biên Hòa Citadel, also known as the Kèn Citadel or Cựu Citadel, is believed to be the oldest fortress in southern Vietnam. In his work on the history of the area, Biên Hòa Sử Lược, Lê Văn Lương mentions that the citadel was first built by the Chenla Empire during the 15^th and 16^th centuries using soil.

Under the 15^th Minh Mạng ruler in 1834, the citadel was reconstructed by 1,000 laborers who were paid in money and rice for their work, according to the verified records of the Nguyễn Dynasty, Đại Nam Thực Lục. Three years later, under the 18^th Minh Mạng ruler, the citadel was renovated using laterite as the main construction material. The citadel had four gates and a flag post and covered an area of 18 hectares, making it the second-largest citadel in southern Vietnam after Gia Định.

An old map illustrating the Biên Hòa Citadel. Photo via Thanh Niên.

The citadel would have retained its original scale if not for the infamous French capture of Biên Hòa, a battle that was part of the Cochinchina Campaign which brought French colonialism to the country. In December 1861, allied French and Spanish troops led by Louis-Adolphe Bonard and Diego Domenech captured Bien Hoa and seized the citadel. The French destroyed most of the structure, and only an eighth of it remained. The east side of the fort was re-purposed for new residential areas, military camps, hospitals and mansions preserved for high-level French officials and military personnel.

Biên Hòa being captured by the French and the Spanish. Painting via Flickr user manhhai.

The only remnants of the Biên Hòa Citadel today are part of the wall made of laterite, two French colonial buildings and several blockhouses located inside the area at 129 Phan Chu Trinh, Quang Vinh Ward. The wall is up to three meter in height. Lê Văn Lương notes that before 1940, two cannons were buried under the main gate. However, when the Japanese captured the area, they were dug up and relocated. 

In 2014, the citadel's remnants were renovated by the Biên Hòa Central Fine Arts Company.

Bình Phước’s Round “Citadels”

While most of the fortresses and citadels in southern Vietnam were constructed during the Nguyễn Dynasty, following Vaubanesque military architecture, the mysterious thành tròn in Bình Phước are a different story. 

Also known as circular earthworks in archaeology papers, each citadel typically has a diameter of about 200 meters, while larger ones can reach 330 meters. Many of these earthworks have been discovered by archaeologists in Bình Phước and Tây Ninh provinces in Vietnam, and Kampong Cham in Cambodia. 

The existence of these round citadels was first mentioned in writing in 1930 in a volume of the Bulletin de l'Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient. The text mentions the discovery of two earthworks that the author called forteresses moï, or mọi fortress (mọi is a derogatory term to refer to people living in the highlands and Khmer people), in two areas of Quản Lợi and Lộc Ninh, which housed two huge rubber plantations in Bình Phước at the time. According to Nguyễn Khải Quỳnh, by 1959, another 11 sites were discovered by Louis Malleret, a French archaeologist at the French School of The Far East. More sites were discovered and studied by Vietnamese archaeologists after 1975, while the ones in Cambodia also received attention in the country.

A typical thành tròn has two walls with the same center, separated by a ditch. However, others only have either one outer wall or inner wall. Underneath the inner platform of these sites, stone tools, weapons and ceramics were found.

A 3D image of the Hourn Khim circular earthwork in Cambodia. Photo via Memot Center for Archeology.

Archaeologists have yet to reach a conclusion on the function of these circular earthworks. The existence of artifacts in the inner platform indicates they might have been a habitation area of an ancient community. However, no artifacts have been found in the ditches of these thành tròn. Some have argued that the ditches were used as a water reservoir, but this theory doesn't make sense to some, as red soil is very permeable. Some argue that besides habitation, the sites could have also provided protection against enemies and wild animals, although some of the ditches are not deep enough to serve as a moat. Another theory is that the ditches served as a place to keep animals.

The outline of some identified circular earthwork sites in Bình Phước can be spotted via Google Maps below:   

Long Hà Circular Earthwork 3.

Lộc Ninh Circular Earthwork.

Read the second part of Unearthed, our series on Vietnam's past citadels here.

What’s your typical Sunday routine? If your answer includes grabbing some noodles on the street, getting your earwax removed and mustache shaved, and maybe smoking some opium to take the edge off, congratulations, you might be living in 1923 Tonkin.

This collection of 10 colored sketches, whose author remains unknown, is titled “10 peintures annamites représentant les métiers au Tonkin, don 1923” (10 Annam paintings representing trades in Tonkin, donated in 1923). Digitized in 2019 by Gallica, the digital archive of the National Library of France, the illustrations depict a range of activities and careers of northern Vietnamese living in the early 20th century under French colonization.

From a jeweler, a barber to two female cobblers hard at work, it seems that grooming and fashion remain a timeless concern for Vietnamese in any century. Scenes of carpenters and farmers also showcase a number of traditional working methods that predate today’s mechanized work conditions — just people hard at work, not a smartphone in sight! Curiously, the author decided to include two opium smokers in languid poses as a demonstration of a “traditional trade.”

Have a closer look at the illustrations below:

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Two jewelers hammering away.

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Earwax removal was popular even 100 years ago.

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Ploughing the field.

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Irrigating the rice field.

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A servant milling rice.

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Cobblers making shoe soles.

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Smoking opium.

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Carpentry.

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Tirailleurs (lính tập) having lunch. They are local militants organized by the colonial government.

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Facial hair shaving.

[Images via RedsVN/Gallica]

When filming the movie adaptation of Marguerite Duras’ 1984 autobiographical novel The Lover, French director Jean-Jacques Annaud made extensive use of Saigon locations. Here’s a run-down of the local landmarks to watch out for when you view the movie.

Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1992 film of Marguerite Duras’ Prix Goncourt-winning novel L’Amant (The Lover) was one of the first western films to be shot in Vietnam after reunification.

Based on Duras’ own experiences as a teenager in French Cochinchina, it depicted a forbidden interracial romance between a 15-year-old French girl (played by British actress Jane March) and a 32-year-old Chinese businessman (played by Hong Kong actor Tony Leung). Neither main character is named, and is only known as “The Young Girl” and “The Man.” The film featured narration by Jeanne Moreau and a haunting César Award-winning score by Gabriel Yared, but, despite its impressive performance at the box office, it garnered mixed reviews from the critics.

The Lover film poster.

Unlike Régis Wargnier’s 1992 film Indochine, which used Butterworth in Malaysia as a substitute for Saigon, The Lover made extensive use of historic locations in and around Hồ Chí Minh City, Sa Đéc and Vĩnh Long. A Paris studio was used to film most of the interior shots.

The Mekong Delta's bustling riverine life.

The Mekong Delta sequences all used locations which, at the time of filming, had changed little since the colonial era. These include the opening scene in which the girl meets the man on a ferry, the École de Sa Đéc and “the horror of the Sa Đéc house” where she lives with her dysfunctional family.

Those sequences filmed in Saigon also made extensive use of its then still relatively abundant colonial heritage, affording fascinating glimpses of parts of the city which have since been completely redeveloped.

Most of these bridges have been demolished.

One early sequence follows the man’s car as it makes its way toward Saigon, passing rows of old colonial shophouses near the Xóm Chỉ Bridge over the Arroyo Chinois (Tàu Hủ-Bến Nghé Creek) in Chợ Lớn. The bridge and most of the shophouses in this area have long since disappeared.

The bandstand installed at the Tôn Đức Thắng-Nguyễn Huệ junction.

As the car enters Saigon, we’re treated to several views of the river port, where the filmmakers even went to the trouble of installing a bandstand in the middle of the junction where Nguyễn Huệ Boulevard meets the waterfront.

To represent the exterior of the Pensionnat Lyautey, the boarding house where the girl stays while studying in Saigon, Annaud chose the former St. Paul’s Convent building on the corner of Tôn Đức Thắng and Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh Streets.

This particular building was taken over by the government after 1975 and has functioned ever since as the Nursery School Teacher Training Faculty of Saigon University. The film also treats us to several shots of a leafy and peaceful Tôn Đức Thắng Street outside the Pensionnat, then still lined with colonial buildings and a world away from the busy traffic artery of today.

The former St. Paul’s Convent building on the corner of Tôn Đức Thắng and Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh streets was used as the Pensionnat Lyautey.

Marguerite Duras herself studied at the Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat (now the Lê Quý Đôn Secondary School at 110 Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai in District 1), and on several occasions the film shows the girl entering and leaving a colonial school compound marked Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat.

However, if you look closely you’ll see that the compound filmed by Annaud was not the Lê Quý Đôn Secondary School, but rather the former Lycée Pétrus Ký, the only work in the city by urbanist Ernest Hébrard and now the Lê Hồng Phong High School for the Gifted at 235 Nguyễn Văn Cừ in District 5.

The former Lycée Pétrus Ký was used instead of the former Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat.

For a subsequent shot in which the car heads out to Chợ Lớn, Annaud set up a cafe next to the great banyan tree in Lý Tự Trọng Park, opposite the former Lieutenant Governor’s Palace (now the HCMC Museum).

This sets the scene as the car passes — traveling the wrong way along a one-way street!

A café was set up in Bách Tùng Diệp Park, opposite the former Lieutenant Governor’s Palace.

On the way to Chợ Lớn, the car takes something of a detour, crossing one of the six bridges which once spanned the former Canal Bonard before depositing the couple at the Chinaman’s garçonnière (bachelor pad).

The exterior of the garçonnière itself was represented in the film by 7 Phú Định in District 5 while, needless to say, the X-rated interior shots were all filmed in France.

Annaud also filmed his restaurant exteriors in Chợ Lớn, selecting the two blocks between Phạm Đôn and Phan Phú Tiên Streets which Joseph L. Mankiewicz had used 34 years earlier for crowd sequences in his much-maligned 1958 version of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American.

The man later goes to see his father in an unsuccessful attempt to be released from his arranged marriage to a Chinese heiress, so that he can be with the girl.

The Dương family residence in Cần Thơ stood in for the real family home of Duras’ “North China Lover” in Sa Đéc. Photo via Thanh Niên.

At the time of filming, the former family house of Duras’ real “North China Lover” Léo Huỳnh Thủy Lê, located at 255A Nguyễn Huệ in Sa Đéc, had been transformed into a government office and could not be used for filming. After scouring the area for a suitable location, Annaud chose instead the old Dương family house at 26/1A Bùi Hữu Nghĩa in Cần Thơ.

The 1920 ocean liner called the Alexandre Dumas.

Toward the end of the film, we see the departure by ship of the girl’s troubled elder brother and subsequently of the girl herself. Annaud arranged for a 1920 ocean liner called the Alexandre Dumas to be brought from Cyprus to film these two key sequences, which both feature panoramic views of the old Messageries Maritimes port area.

A rare panoramic view of the Bạch Đằng Wharf.

Like the 1958 version of The Quiet American, Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1992 film of The Lover affords us a fascinating glimpse of Saigon before its transformation in the 1990s.

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.

Way before colored photography appeared, generations of our ancestors had to rely on the finesse of painters to create visuals records of their everyday routines. This collection of watercolor paintings from the 1890s is a particularly vivid example of that, depicting lively scenes of Vietnam two centuries ago that are full of humor and personality.

The illustrations below are part of a set of 21 watercolor paintings on paper listed by British art broker Sotheby’s. Little is known about the album’s origins and author, save for the number “1890” which can be found on the back side of one painting. Some of the artworks belong to different museums and private collectors.

Each of the artwork portrays a daily scene in late 19th-century Nam Định, shortly after the French started colonizing Vietnam. The use of color is playful, especially in details like the patterns on the back of lion dancers or ceremonial flags. While the author is unknown, viewers can see their tongue-in-cheek humor in sketching out the scenes, like how one fisherman is shown with a fallen loincloth and has to cover his private parts.

Have a closer look at the illustrations below:

A procession accompanying a mandarin, who's being carried in the palanquin.

A ceremonial procession during a festive parade.

A group of lion dance performers on the way to perform.

A local monk leads a family through important rituals.

A groom (under the umbrella shade) and his family on the way to his bride-to-be's homestead for the dạm ngõ ritual.

Young men and women catch fish using different traditional tools.

Village men catch fish using dậm, a traditional crescent-shaped basket. One of them lost his loincloth and is trying desperately to cover himself.

A rudimentary tea stand at the village entrance.

A busy morning market in session.

A rickshaw driver relieves himself after gettting a noblewoman to her destination.

At a lumber mill.

[Images via RedsVN/Sotheby’s]

What do you miss most about the 1990s?

Just barely a decade after opening its market to the world, Vietnam in the 1990s was still riddled with hardships and scarcity, but there was much hope from everyone about a brighter future. Vietnam joined the ASEAN block in 1995; the first KFC in the country opened in Saigon in 1997; and South Korean TV series brought in the first inklings of Hallyu in the same decade as well.

French photographer Michel Troncy captured some glimpses of Vietnam during his 1990s visit, from north to south, presenting a collage of multifaceted local cultures. Nature and ethnic minority members, urban street styles, and wildlife captures — these handfuls of shots showcase a diverse Vietnam full of life and intrigue.

Have a look below:

Mê Linh Square in Saigon from across the Saigon River.

A H'Mông family in Hà Giang.

Plucking silver hair on the sidewalk.

Freshly baked bánh mì in Chợ Lớn.

Traveling by xích lô in Hanoi.

Captive wild animals in a market in Phụng Hiệp, Cần Thơ.

Jars of snake wine in Cần Thơ.

Young Mekong men at a neighborhood cock fight.

Saigon high school students going to school by bike.

After a full harvest day.

A traditional junk in Hạ Long Bay.

A Dao woman weaves dividers out of bamboo strips.

Selling nón lá in Điện Biên, Lai Châu Province.

A woman from the Dao ethnic minority.

[Photos by Michel Troncy via Reds VN/Getty Images]

By the 1920s, the old Bình Tây Market and much of the surrounding land had belonged to Quách Đàm, so he proposed to the colonial authorities the demolition of the existing building and the construction, “on an area of not less than 9,000 square metres,” of a new and much larger Bình Tây Market, to serve as the new central market of Chợ Lớn.

This is Part 2 of our miniseries on the origin story behind Chợ Lớn. Read Part 1 here.

The Colonial Council gave its approval and, in 1925, Quách Đàm donated the land to the city and also contributed 58,000 francs towards the construction costs of the new market.

The new Bình Tây Market was Quách Đàm’s crowning achievement and garnered much praise and admiration in both local and colonial circles. Over the next two years, Quách Đàm, already a naturalized French citizen, received a succession of awards, including the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, the Chevalier de l'Étoilè Noire and the Chevalier de l'Ordre royal du Cambodge, as well as the Order of the Precious Brilliant Golden Grain (Order of Chia-Ho) from the Republic of China.

Bình Tây Market pictured in the 1950s.

Construction of the new Bình Tây Market began in February 1926 and was completed in September 1928. Built in reinforced concrete using western techniques, it was noteworthy for its bold Chinese architectural features. However, Quách Đàm never saw the finished building. He died on 14 May 1927, aged 65.

The Echo Annamite newspaper carried a long article describing Quách Đàm’s funeral on Sunday, 29 May, 1927. Special trams and trains were laid on to convey the great and the good to Chợ Lớn to join the funeral procession from 45 boulevard Gaudot to the family plot at Phú Thọ Cemetery.

A Chinese funeral procession in Chợ Lớn.

Those in attendance included: the Mayors of Chợ Lớn and Saigon and their senior staff; the heads of the Chinese congregations and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce; and the Directors of (amongst others) the Banque de l’Indochine, Banque Franco-Chinoise, Distilleries de Binh-Tay, Société Commerciale française d'Indochine, Maison Courtinat, Maison Denis-Frères, Usines de la Compagnie des Eaux et Electricité, the Services du Port, the Hôpital Drouhet, the Lycée Franco-Chinois and the Ecoles de filles de Cholon.

Two large huts had been built on the boulevard immediately outside the Thông Hiệp headquarters, one to accommodate the guests and the other to house the coffin and more than 1,500 commemorative banners and wreaths, which had been sent from all parts of Cochinchina, Tonkin, Cambodia and even China.

A camera crew from Indochine Films was on hand as the procession set off, led by family mourners, to the accompaniment of Chopin’s 'Funeral March' performed by “several Annamite and Chinese orchestras.” Behind the hearse, family members held aloft a dais which displayed all of Quách Đàm’s honors on a large gold and blue silk cushion. They were followed by a guard of honor comprising riflemen from the Compagnie de Cholon du 1er Tirailleurs.

A tram car of the Saigon–Chợ Lớn line traveling on Đồng Khánh Street (Trần Hưng Đạo B)

In order that as many people as possible could offer their respects, the procession did a complete circuit of the city, starting with eastern Chợ Lớn: rue Lareynière (Lương Nhữ Học today), rue des Marins (Trần Hưng Đạo B), rue Jaccaréo (Tản Đà), quai Mytho (Võ Văn Kiệt) and back to boulevard Gaudot (Hải Thượng Lãn Ông), and then returning to quai Mytho and heading along the Arroyo Chinois (Bến Nghé Creek) into the west of the city. There it turned up rue de Paris (Phùng Hưng) and made its way north along rue Boulevard Tong-Doc-Phuong (Châu Văn Liêm) and rue Thuan-Kieu (Thuận Kiều) towards the cemetery at Phú Thọ. “As they processed,” added the Echo Annamite reporter reverently, “the banners shimmered and the usually noisy city descended into respectful silence.”

Fourteen months later, the Annales coloniales reported that on 28 September, 1928, the new market was inaugurated in the presence of the Governor of Cochinchina, amidst a host of festivities which included a cavalcade and a fireworks display.

After Quách Đàm’s death, his eldest son Quách Khôi took over as director of the Thông Hiệp company, but in May 1929 tragedy struck when Quách Khôi himself died suddenly and Chợ Lớn was treated to another grand public funeral.

Later that year, with the authorisation of Chợ Lớn Municipality, Quách Đàm’s family commissioned an elaborate marble fountain in the central courtyard of the Bình Tây Market, surrounded by bronze lions and dragons and topped with a bronze statue of Quách Đàm by celebrated French sculptor Dueuing.

The Dueuing statue of Quách Đàm is now kept in the rear courtyard of the Hồ Chí Minh City Fine Arts Museum.

Inaugurated on 14 March, 1930, it depicts the man French newspapers dubbed the “king of commerce,” holding in his left hand the act by which he had donated to the city of Chợ Lớn the land on which the market was built. In his right hand is a scroll which lists the philanthropic works for which he was known — Écoles, marchés, oeuvres, assistance (schools, markets, works, assistance). The opening ceremony for the fountain “was presided over by M. Eutrope representing the Governor of Cochinchina (absent from Saigon), M Renault, resident-mayor of Cholon and a large audience of European, Annamite and Chinese personalities.” A friend of the family delivered “a remarkable speech recalling the beautiful life of the deceased.”

After 1975, the Dueuing statue was removed from its plinth and placed in store. However, in 1992, it was returned to public view in the rear courtyard of the Hồ Chí Minh City Fine Arts Museum, where it can still be seen to this day.

In recent years, a bust of Quách Đàm has been installed in front of the statueless plinth. Behind it, the Chinese inscription of 1930 reads: “Mr Guō Yǎn was from Longkeng, Chao'an, Chaozhou, Guangdong province and came to Việt Nam when he was young to build a family while working in the rice business; he became very wealthy and generous, and as a good and righteous person, he resolved to build a new market for Dī Àn [Tai Ngon]. Through great effort, he finally realised this and the government awarded him with this bronze statue to remember him. Guō Yǎn was born in 1863 and died in 1927.” (translation by Damian Harper)

Following the death of Quách Khôi, his younger brother Quách Tiên took over the reins of power at Thông Hiệp, but according to historian Vương Hồng Sển, his willingness to act as guarantor for the debts of insolvent traders during the years of economic crisis eventually also dragged Thông Hiệp into debt.

After 1933, the Thông Hiệp company name disappears from the records, though in 1937 and 1939, Quách Tiên reappears as proprietor of the “Plantation Quach-Dam,” a rubber plantation in Biên Hoà Province, with its registered office still at 45 boulevard Gaudot in Chợ Lớn.

45 Hải Thượng Lãn Ông (the former 45 quai Gaudot) in Chợ Lớn was once Quách Đàm's Thông Hiệp company headquarters.

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.

Hải Thượng Lãn Ông Boulevard (the former quai Gaudot) in central Chợ Lớn preserves several elegant old colonial shophouse buildings, but perhaps the most interesting of all is the one at No. 45, once the modest headquarters of Cantonese millionaire and philanthropist Quách Đàm.

This is Part 1 of our miniseries on the origin story behind Chợ Lớn. Read Part 2 here.

The bust of Quách Đàm, located in front of the fountain at Chợ Lớn's Bình Tây Market.

Born in 1863 in Longkeng Village, Chao'an District, Chaozhou Prefecture of Guangdong province, Quách Đàm (郭琰 Guō Yǎn) left home in the mid-1880s to make his fortune in French Cochinchina. Starting out by buying and selling bottles, he later progressed to the trading of buffalo skins and fish bladders. By the 1890s, having ploughed the money he made from these early ventures back into business, he had acquired his own steamship and set himself up in Cần Thơ as a prosperous rice merchant.

In around 1906–1907, Quách Đàm relocated to Chợ Lớn, founding a new company known as Thông Hiệp, its name a quốc ngữ romanization of two auspicious characters from a Chinese poem.

A paddy depot on the quayside.

The company initially rented a magasin de dépôt at 55 quai Gaudot, a two-storey shophouse directly overlooking the Chợ Lớn Creek which then ran right through the centre of the town. However, a geomancer is said to have convinced Quách Đàm that the most auspicious shophouse on the wharf was in fact a few doors east at No. 45, a three-storey building which at that time was the offices of soap makers Nam-Thái and Trường-Thành. Beneath that building was said to be the head of a dragon whose body stretched out to sea, promising to whoever worked there that the money would keep flowing in.

By 1910, Quách Đàm had relocated his headquarters to 45 quai Gaudot. However, despite his repeated attempts to purchase the building, the owner refused to sell. Quách Đàm was thus obliged to continue renting this modest shophouse as his company headquarters. Over a century later, it still bears the “TH” (Thông Hiệp) logo which Quách Đàm had inscribed on its parapet.

45 Hải Thượng Lãn Ông (the former 45 quai Gaudot) in Chợ Lớn was once Quách Đàm's Thông Hiệp company headquarters.

In subsequent years, in addition to his factory in Cần Thơ, Quách Đàm built two large rice husking mills at Chánh Hưng (now District 8) and Lò Gốm (now District 6). He also registered the Quach-Dam et Cie shipping company in Phnom Penh to manage his burgeoning fleet of four steamships.

One of the numerous rice mills in colonial Chợ Lớn.

However, the business venture which really cemented his fortune was the acquisition, in around 1915, of the Yi-Cheong Rice Factory, the largest and most profitable rice mill in Chợ Lớn. By 1923, statistics published by the Revue de la Pacifique showed that every 24 hours, the amount of paddy processed in Quách Đàm’s mills amounted to 230 tons at Chánh Hưng, 250 tons at Lò Gốm and a massive 1,000 tons at Yi-Cheong, confirming his status as the most successful rice merchant in Cochinchina.

With money came prestige and power. As early as 1908, Quách Đàm was one of the few Chinese businessmen to become a member of the Chợ Lớn Municipal Council, and in this capacity he served for many years as 3^rd Deputy Mayor of Chợ Lớn, taking an active role in city affairs. He built a spacious family residence at 114 quai Gaudot, on the north bank of the creek, and is said to have enjoyed being chauffeured around town in what the French newspapers called his “beautiful automobile.”

It was during this period that Quách Đàm began to make a name for himself as a prominent philanthropist, “royally subsidising many hospitals, schools and workers’ associations and never remaining indifferent to poverty.” (obituary in the Echo Annamite, 1927). He was particularly active in funding local nurseries and schools for the blind.

For much of the last decade of his life, despite being beset by ill health and also suffering partial paralysis, Quách Đàm continued to play an active role in Chợ Lớn’s business and community affairs. Today he remains best known for the crucial role he played in the establishment of the Bình Tây Market.

This 19^th-century map shows the Phố Xếp Canal (marked in red) which connected the Chợ Lớn Creek with the original Tai Ngon Market (Chợ Sài Gòn).

Before the arrival of the French, the main market in the Chinese settlement went by the name of Dī Àn (堤岸) or Tai Ngon, literally meaning “embankment,” a name which is believed to reference the extensive reconstruction which followed the destruction of the Tây Sơn attack of 1782. In the 19^th century, that market appears on several maps, not as Tai Ngon but as “Sài Gòn,” the name the French appropriated after 1859 to rechristen the former Bến Nghé as their new colonial capital, Saigon.

The original Bình Tây Market, pictured in the early 1900s.

Located in the vicinity of the modern Chợ Rẫy Hospital, the old Tai Ngon market was originally connected to the Chợ Lớn Creek by a waterway known as the Phố Xếp Canal (now Châu Văn Liêm Street). However, after the conquest, the French established a new main market right in the centre of Chợ Lớn, on the site occupied today by the city post office, leading eventually to the abandonment of the old market and the gradual disappearance of the Phố Xếp Canal.

By the early 20^th century, as Chợ Lớn grew in economic importance, French newspapers complained frequently that the Marché central de Cholon “had become too small for the ever-increasing number of its users.” However, what really sealed its fate was the 1925 scheme to fill the Chợ Lớn Creek and its connecting waterways and replace them with roads. After that project was completed, merchants could no longer access the central market by boat.

The new Bình Tây Market, pictured in the 1930s.

In fact, for several decades before the filling of the Chợ Lớn creek, an ever-increasing number of merchants had relocated their business to the Bình Tây Market, which opened in the late 1870s and became even busier after 1891, following the completion of the canal Bonard, known in Vietnamese as the Bãi Sậy Canal), an alternative waterway dug to connect central Chợ Lớn with the lower reaches of the Lò Gốm Creek. The canal Bonard ran straight past the Bình Tây Market and its wharf was always busy with merchant shipping.

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.

As a special municipality of Vietnam, Đà Nẵng is considered by many as one of the most livable cities in the country, with lower costs, delicious local cuisine, and a languid, wholesome pace of life. This, in conjunction with readily available modern services, has turned the coastal metropolis into a magnet luring young professionals away from the chaos of Saigon and Hanoi, and attracting snowbird tourists from Russia, China and South Korea seeking tropical warmth.

Hans-Peter Grumpe, a German academic and photography enthusiast, was one of the earliest international tourists to visit Đà Nẵng, as part of his many trips traversing the length of Vietnam in the early 1990s, starting from 1991. Through his lens, Grumpe captured a version of Đà Nẵng that was nearly devoid of signs of its contemporary development, though the peaceful atmosphere was fully intact.

A view from the hotel.

“Besides Indonesia, Vietnam is the country I've traveled to most extensively. I visited the country during a time of upheaval, when tourism was just beginning,” Grumpe writes on his personal website. “Thus, I experienced a Vietnam that was still quite 'original,' and not yet 'spoiled' by tourism. I documented these travels on 151 pages and with approximately 1,600 photos.”

In his images, some motorbikes exist here and there on the streets, and fairly modern buses are operational to take citizens across the country, but local arts and crafts are on display during visits to local silkworm workshops and carpet weaving collectives.

Thanks to the assistance of a tour guide who previously studied in East Germany, Grumpe was able to travel the country with relative ease. See more of his photos taken in Đà Nẵng below:

Most houses were constructed in the modernist or countryside styles.

A street corner with xích lô, Honda Super Cubs, and bikes.

A quaint neighborhood view.

Terra-cotta roofs were common.

Fixing a bike on the train track.

Workers treating silkworm cocoons.

Most of the work was still done by hand.

Inside a weaving collective. Grumpe was initially denied entry, but the tour guide told the manager that he was a famous textile expert, so he could see the interior.

Most employees were women.

The colorful design of the carpets.

Inter-locality coaches. Air-conditioned travel was unheard of.

Ngũ Hành Sơn.

View from Ngũ Hành Sơn.

An old tank became a very badass chicken coop.

The sparseness of Đà Nẵng from above.

Mỹ Khê Beach.

A stone carver at work.

Local kids sold joss stick bundles on the mountain.

An empty beech without resorts or foreign tourists.

A rudimentary setting to make firecrackers.

Old books were dyed to be repurposed as casing of firecrackers.

Mat sellers.

Only daredevils sat on top.

The sleepy coastal town from the plane.

My father-in-law has spent decades visiting Hồ Tây (West Lake). His personal story both contrasts and reflects Vietnam's history as a whole and, as a result, offers a profound insight into the importance of Hanoi's largest lake. 

In northwest Hanoi rests the city’s most expansive freshwater lake. Offering relative quietude in a frantic metropolis, Hồ Tây’s unique allure has drawn locals to its shores for centuries. The lake covers an area of around 530 hectares and is one of the few places in the city where one can still easily see the skyline. Lovers, friends, and loners alike all come here in search of privacy. The constant yield of bloated fish carcasses along the shore highlights the deteriorating water quality in recent years, yet it doesn’t stop people from casting rods or handlines trying to catch the tilapia and tench that are still alive.  

Hồ Tây is many things to many people. For me, it’s the ideal place for riding my bike around on the weekends. For my wife, it’s served as a place to find solace from heartbreaks, arguments or depression. For her family, along with hundreds of others who have lived beside the body of water for generations, the lake has helped sustain them through times of great hardship. As my father-in-law, Nguyễn Văn Quân, puts it: “Thanks to West Lake, many families can continue to live until this day.”

A woman sits on the steps of Quán Thánh Temple, once known as Trấn Vũ Temple, with West Lake reaching into the distance behind her. 

Up until the mid-20^th century, the lake was home to a rich ecosystem. Seaweed and hyacinth freely propagated the lake, which made it the ideal breeding ground for all kinds of fish, plants and snails. Carp once grew to be 30-40 kilograms, and there were so many snails that one could scrape up hundreds of kilos of the creatures in a day. Consequently, flocks of birds such as mallards, swamphen and coots were all drawn to the water’s edge. “In the foggy season, huge flocks blackened a whole corner of the lake,” Quân says. 

For locals, the lake became a haven for fishing, and methods of exploitation were plentiful. In his book Ký Sự Ven Hồ (Lakeside Chronicles), author Hoàng Quốc Hải writes about the plethora of techniques fishermen used on the lake, and said they ranged from “angling, fly-fishing, bait fishing, and trawling to using various types of nets…The means of fishing were not modern, yet they were intricate. They were capable of catching eggs or fish as small as a pinhead, as well as huge fish weighing tens of kilos…”

Myths abound in Vietnam over how the lake itself was formed. It's believed that over 1,000 years ago, the Red River shifted course, creating an oxbow lake that slowly grew into the capital’s largest body of water. According to folklore, however, the lake's formation is linked to Vietnamese Buddhist monk Minh Không, who had been working as a medical practitioner in China. After treating a Chinese emperor, he asked for payment in bronze, which he brought back with him to Hanoi. Upon returning, he melted down the metal, poured it into a mold and formed a giant bronze bell.

The Myth of the Golden Buffalo. Illustration by Hannah Hoàng. 

When struck, its song was so powerful it awoke a golden buffalo in the emperor’s house. Mistaking the sound for its mother’s call, the animal plodded south and stomped around searching for her. His heavy footfalls gradually formed a hollow that filled with water. Eventually, the resultant lake consumed the Golden Buffalo.

For millennia, people fished freely at West Lake, perhaps with these myths fresh in their minds. Yet when Hanoi hunched under French colonial rule, the right to manage the lake was put up for bidding. The highest bidder had to pay half a million Indochinese piastre into the city’s coffers each year, but they could sell tickets to fishermen, with prices varying depending on the method of fishing used. Thus, the lake was divided into many different zones that were rented out to individuals or groups of people.

In 1954, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam took back control of the city, and the government allowed people to fish tax-free for three years. Then, in 1958, the city’s socialist labor force cleared all the hyacinth in the lake, and the management rights were given to the state-owned West Lake Fish Farming Company. From this point on, all unsanctioned fishing was deemed to be “illegal appropriation of socialist property.”    

An aerial view of Trúc Bạch Lake and West Lake in the 1930s. Image via Flickr user manhhai. 

Quân, my father-in-law, was born the same year it became illegal to fish in the lake. Still, he learned how to fish from his father at a young age. As a teenager, Quân would go fishing and take naps when he was bored. Yet when he was 19, he received a call to join the military. He didn’t see his village or the lake again until 1981, when he returned home. During this time, Vietnam went through bao cấp (the subsidy period), when the government controlled all aspects of the economy.

Ask any Vietnamese who lived through bao cấp and they’ll tell you this was a time of hunger and suffering. “One of my friends was a skilled worker at Yen Phu power plant,” Quân recalls. “He and his wife have five children, and the whole family had to share one pot of cháo.” Like many people living around the lake, Quân had to go kéo trộm (illegal fishing) in order to provide for his family.

Under the cover of darkness, Quân would wade into the cold, murky water with his fishing net. Wary of the lake guards, he had to walk with his head tilted back, so his face barely broke the water, in order to avoid detection. “Sometimes, when it got really dangerous, I had to bring a towel to cover my face so light didn’t reflect off it,” he says. The lake guards used to patrol the lake on a motorized boat, but their system had a weakness. “When underwater, the boat sounds much louder than in the air,” he explains, “so even if they turn the gas very low, you can still hear the ‘oooooooo’ sound.”

After those clandestine night raids, he sometimes brought home between five and seven kilograms of fish. Then came the arduous process of disentangling the bounty from the net so he could sell them the next morning. “Alone, with just a gas lamp, I spent hours untangling the fish. Once done, when I stood up…my back was all crooked,” Quân says.

A family relaxes together by the lake in 2016. Photo by Chris Humphrey. 

Many families depended on the lake during this time. “One year, when it got so bad there wasn’t even enough rice to sell to people, clams started to appear in Hồ Tây,” Quân says. “You only needed to reach down to the bottom and bring up a fistful of clams. There were so many of them. Just bring them home with a handful of rice to make congee and the whole family can survive.” Weirdly, the clams only appeared during that one period. The next year, he says, they were gone. “They appeared like they do in legends, where God or Buddha provides food for people.”

The bao cấp era is long gone now. Since 1986, economic and political reforms have propelled Vietnam’s GDP to among the world’s fastest-growing. While my father-in-law no longer has to go kéo trộm, the experience of doing so left a mark on him. “My health deteriorated a lot because of it,” he shares. There were times he spent the whole night drenched in chilly water trying to catch fish. “Nights like that, now that I think about it, I was only harming myself. Firstly, nights like that were too cold for the fish to go up to find food. Secondly, it was extremely bad for my body. But, I was young and didn’t know any better back then.”  

He still goes to the lake now, but only to exercise or take his grandchildren out to play. Where there was once a lotus swamp, there now stands a playground. It serves as a gathering spot for not just kids, but also for parents and grandparents in the village. There are shops offering ice-cold drinks and pop-up, street-side karaoke that goes on late into the night. The lake still nourishes Hanoians, but now, instead of food, it offers a sense of belonging.

This article was originally published in 2020.

Once a fashionable rendezvous for the elite of colonial society, the Labour Culture Palace (Cung Văn hoá Lao động) at 55B Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai is today one of Hồ Chí Minh City’s most popular sports and recreation facilities.

Early colonial newspapers frequently encouraged French settlers to take regular exercise, and by the 1870s, in the absence of formal sports facilities, the northern corner of the Jardin de la ville (now Tao Đàn Park) had become an unofficial sports ground for athletics, horse racing, shooting and other sporting pursuits. In the 1880s, the Cercle cycliste Cochinchinois opened a vélodrome here, but by the end of the century this had fallen into disuse.

This 1890 map shows the location of the velodrome which occupied the northeast corner of the Jardin de Ville from the 1880s.

A sports center for the colonial elite

The Cercle Sportif Saïgonnais was set up by a group of amateur fencers on 10 May, 1902, to “encourage and develop the taste for and the practice of sports.” However, at the outset, it was based not in the Jardin de la ville, but in a modest villa on the corner of rue Catinat and rue de La Grandière — the site currently occupied by the Catinat Building at 26 Lý Tự Trọng.

Described in a 1904 account as “a school which gives lessons in fencing, shooting, riding and a number of other sports,” this early Cercle Sportif enrolled its members by subscription, and its rather basic facilities included a fencing room, a shooting gallery and a gymnasium. Because of its educational status (its sports coaches included teachers from the nearby Collège Chasseloup-Laubat), it qualified for an annual subvention of 500 piastres from the Colonial Council.

In 1905, because “the original location could no longer meet its needs,” the Cercle Sportif was relocated to the Jardin de ville, where the municipality of Saigon placed it in charge of sports activities there. However, the facilities inherited by the Cercle in the city park “amounted to little more than a 30-metre square pavilion and an abandoned cycling track.” This was a difficult time for the Cercle; its membership dropped to under 40 and its finances were in a poor state.

Luckily, in 1906, the municipality stepped in, funding the construction of an athletics track on the site of the old vélodrome. Two tennis courts and a football pitch followed, along with a set of roller skates which could be rented on an hourly basis by Cercle members! In 1910, a sailing section was opened at the Sài Gòn Botanical and Zoological Gardens, next to the arroyo de l’Avalanche (now the Thị Nghè Creek). In subsequent years, the Cercle’s membership grew rapidly, providing it with the funds to enlarge its facilities in 1909, 1913 and again in 1920.

The current buildings date from a major reconstruction carried out in 1925. The rebuilt Cercle Sportif Saïgonnais at 55 rue Chasseloup-Laubat was inaugurated on 5 December, 1925 at “a brilliant reception attended by the Governor of Cochinchina and key notables of the colony.”

The Cercle Sportif building pictured before its reconstruction of 1925.

The Cercle Sportif building pictured after its reconstruction of 1925.

According to a press release issued on 31 January, 1926 by the Agence économique de l'Indochine, the Cercle’s upgraded facilities included “10 tennis courts, a football field with spectator stands (which may rarely be found in France) and comfortable buildings with rooms for fencing, billiards, games and reading, a dance hall, and vast changing rooms.” It concluded: “Saigon now has a club worthy of the colony, which can easily be compared with those in Shanghai, Hong Kong or Singapore.”

The country club's tennis court in 1948. Photo by Jack Birns.

Grabbing a drink by the pool in 1948. Photo by Jack Birns.

From that date onwards, in reflection of the Cercle’s ambition to be a “gathering point for the elite of Saigon society,” its Board of Directors selected their Honorary Presidents exclusively “from the ranks of notables, politicians, scholars and industrialists who want to give their moral support to the Cercle.”

However, what really cemented the Cercle’s reputation as the retreat of the city’s rich and famous was the opening in September 1933 of its “splendid outdoor swimming pool.”

Saigon's first swimming pool

The Cercle's "splendid outdoor swimming pool" pictured soon after its opening in September 1933.

According to the 1934 edition of Le Génie civil: revue générale des industries françaises et étrangères (Civil engineering: general review of French and foreign industries), the construction of an open-air pool had been planned as part of the 1926 reconstruction, but at that time “its realisation was impossible due to the lack of clean water.” The pool proved so popular that by 1934, “a poolside apertif at the famous Cercle Sportif” had become an integral component of the itinerary for Vergoz travel agency tour groups arriving on the cruise ship Compiègne!

Le Génie civil writing about Le Cercle Sportif.

In the late 1930s, a new vélodrome was opened a few blocks to the west near the Collège de jeunes filles indigènes (now Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai Secondary School), on the site currently occupied by the Xá Lợi Pagoda.

To cater for more athletically challenged colons who nonetheless wanted to spend time here mixing with the hoi polloi, the Cercle reading room always held the latest newspapers and magazines sent from France, along with an impressive collection of over 5,000 books and journals. The Cercle also issued the bi-monthly bulletin Revue du Cercle, which was circulated widely around the city to promote its ongoing programme of activities.

Aside from the lavish receptions organized to mark the visit of foreign athletic teams, the Cercle Sportif also became famous for its annual Spring Ball, one of the highlights of the Saigon social calendar. By the late 1930s, tickets were in such demand that Le Nouvelliste d'Indochine commented sarcastically in 1938 that the ball, held that year in the Continental Hotel, had become “more of a spectacle than the manifestation of elegance it once was.”

The annual Cercle Sportif Spring Ball was one of the highlights of the Saigon social calendar in the 1930s.

After the departure of the French in 1954, the Cercle Sportif continued to function as an upmarket sports club where the elite, local and foreign, gathered to drink, dine, swim or play tennis. Famous visitors of the 1960s included US Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and South Vietnamese politicians Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and Dương Văn Minh, the latter fêted as a skilled tennis player.

After Reunification in 1975, the Cercle Sportif was transferred to the management of the Hồ Chí Minh United Trades Union. In 1985, it was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City Labour Culture House (Nhà Văn hóa Lao động Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh) and, in 1998, Hồ Chí Minh City Labour Culture Palace (Cung Văn hoá Lao động Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh), the name by which it is known today.

The ppol proved popular on hot days in 1969.

The pool in 1950.

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.

Any place is a great learning opportunity if you know where to look. A brisk walk in Saigon can be amazing fodder for history aficionados to exercise their brain muscles — just look at street titles and the amazing people they were named after.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, we want to take this chance to delve into the storied past of some local female historical figures. Compared to their male counterparts, female names appear less frequently in the city grid, but many are major urban arteries that pass through Saigon’s most recognizable landmarks and neighborhoods.

Some female folk heroines — like Trưng Trắc-Trưng Nhị, Bà Triệu and Hồ Xuân Hương — are so well-known that they even crossed our national border to become playable characters in foreign video games, but few might be able to list the accomplishments and retell the life stories of less famous figures like Út Tịch or Nguyễn Thị Định. For this feature, Saigoneer presents to you six lesser-known female heroes whose names grace the streets of Saigon.

1. Cô Giang-Cô Bắc

Cô Giang and Cô Bắc were sisters in a family of seven siblings. Their parents named them after the family’s home province, Bắc Giang. The sisters joined the Vietnamese Nationalist Party straight out of high school to fight against French occupation in northern Vietnam. During this time, Giang met, fell in love with, and married Nguyễn Thái Học, one of the party leaders. Cô Giang and Cô Bắc were responsible for communication and the transportation of army resources between party hideouts across northern provinces.

In 1930, the party carried out the Yên Bái mutiny against French garrisons across the region, but it failed. Học and Bắc were arrested, along with many others. Despite Giang’s efforts to break them out, Học was executed, and Bắc was jailed until her release in 1936. After witnessing her fiancé’s death, Giang returned to Học’s hometown to bid farewell to his family and then shot herself in the head on the street, using the pistol he had given her on their engagement.

Today in Saigon, Cô Giang and Cô Bắc are two parallel streets in District 1’s Cô Giang Ward. Both these short, quaint streets cut through Nguyễn Thái Học Street, as if mirroring their namesakes' fateful encounter in 1927.

Read more about the badass sister duo from Bắc Giang here.

2. Út Tịch

Út Tịch is perhaps best known by her moniker người mẹ cầm súng (Mother with a Gun). She was born in Trà Vinh Province in 1931 and grew up in poverty under the reign of a cruel landlord. After Việt Minh forces emancipated her, she decided to join them, even as a teenager, to help gather intelligence against the French.

After the 1954 Geneva Accords, she and her husband remained in the South, continuing their fight against US-backed forces. Despite her battlefield role, she was also a devoted mother, giving birth to eight children before being killed in an American bombardment in Châu Đốc in 1968, just weeks after her last child was born.

Today in Saigon, Út Tịch Street connects the Nhiêu Lộc Canal with Cộng Hòa Street in Tân Bình District.

Read more about Út Tịch here.

3. Nguyễn Thị Định

Nguyễn Thị Định was born in 1920 into an agrarian family in Bến Tre. She was homeschooled by her older brother until he was caught by the French for his involvement in the Indochinese Communist Party. As the youngest and smallest sibling, she was tasked with rowing a boat to bring him food in prison every day, evading the guards' watchful eyes. During these trips, she saw firsthand scenes of torture committed by the enemy, solidifying her desire to join the revolution and wipe out the French.

For the petite, asthmatic Định, joining the revolution seemed like a natural path, but her first enemy was societal gender norms — she was told she should focus on finding a husband. At 19, she relented and decided to marry one of her brother’s comrades, believing the only way to put this behind her was to choose someone who shared the same cause. They were both arrested in 1940 shortly after their son was born. Her husband died in Côn Đảo, while she was jailed in Bà Rá until her heart disease worsened, leading to her release in 1943.

She reconnected with the revolution soon after and spearheaded the 1945 uprising against the French in Bến Tre. In 1960, she commanded an all-female guerrilla force called đội quân tóc dài (The Long-Haired Army), reclaiming land from landlords — an event that catalyzed the Vietnam War. In December 1960, Định became a founding member of the National Liberation Front and rose through the ranks, becoming Vietnam’s first female Major General in 1974.

Nguyễn Thị Định Street in Saigon today is in Thủ Đức City, linking the Cát Lái Ferry with the An Phú Intersection.

Read more about Nguyễn Thị Định in our long-form piece here

4. Sương Nguyệt Anh

Nguyệt Anh was the pen name of Nguyễn Ngọc Khuê, the fifth daughter of legendary poet Nguyễn Đình Chiểu. Born in 1864 in Bến Tre, she became well-versed in both Hán and Nôm scripts from a young age due to her family’s literary traditions. She married in Mỹ Tho, but after her husband passed away when their daughter was two, she adopted the pen name Sương Nguyệt Anh (Widowed Nguyệt Anh) and opened a small classroom to teach local children how to read.

In 1917, she accepted the position of editor-in-chief of Nữ Giới Chung (Women’s Bell Jingle), a progressive newspaper promoting education, economic development, and gender equality. It was the first media source in Vietnam at the time that taught home economics, discussed ethics, and spoke out against the mistreatment of women. However, it gained too much influence and was suspended by French authorities in 1918.

During this time, Nguyệt Anh’s only daughter passed away after giving birth. She contracted an eye disease that led to gradual blindness, prompting her return to her hometown with her grandchild. She eventually lost her sight completely but continued writing poetry, teaching, and practicing medicine until her death in 1922 at the age of 58 — leaving behind a legacy as a pioneer for gender equality and intellectual progress in Vietnam.

For decades, the Saigon street bearing her name was misspelled as Sương Nguyệt Ánh. Though street signs have since been corrected, the typo remains ingrained in the city's collective memory.

5. Lê Chân

Lê Chân (20–43 CE) was a celebrated female general who supported the Trưng Sisters in their battles against Chinese invaders. Born in Yên Biên (now Quảng Ninh Province) to a physician father and a silk weaver mother. Local legends said that her birth was foretold in a dream her father had — that a fairy in heaven was punished to reincarnate as a human for 40 years and this daughter would grow up to bring glory to the family.

Lê Chân grew up to be exceptionally beautiful, intelligent, and skilled in martial arts. She later moved to what is now Hải Phòng, where she established a commune, developing agriculture, silk production, and fishing while secretly recruiting and training an army. In 40 CE, when the Trưng Sisters were calling for locals to join their rebellion, Lê Chân and her soldiers quickly answered. With the help of Lê Chân, the sisters successfully defeated Chinese governor Tô Định. Trưng Trắc declared herself queen, and bestowed the title of Thánh Chân Công Chúa (Thánh Chân Princess) to Lê Chân, putting her in charge of military training and governance.

In 43 CE, the Han Empire retaliated with overwhelming power. The sisters’ army was ultimately defeated, leading to their suicides to protect their honor. Lê Chân retreated to Lạt Sơn (Hà Nam today) to regroup but was closely pursued by the enemies. To evade capture, she scaled the Giát Dâu Mountain and jumped to her death, picking honor over subjugation.

Lê Chân is often known by her honorific Bà Lê Chân in modern-day Vietnam and is credited with founding Hải Phòng. Her namesake street in Saigon today intersects with Hai Bà Trưng Street, a nod to the trio’s historical friendship back in the day.

In the hyper-commercialized world we now live in, it might be impossible to associate anything but overpriced flower bouquets and corporate sponsorships with International Women’s Day (IWD), but the widely celebrated occasion actually has a rich history of over 100 years of the women’s rights movement.

March 8, known as Ngày Quốc Tế Phụ Nữ in Vietnamese, was officially codified by the United Nations as IWD in 1975, but the idea for a day for women started brewing way before in 1910 during the International Socialist Women's Conference in Copenhagen, when German journalist Clara Zetkin and other delegates put forth the idea for a yearly “Women’s Day,” though no specific date was mentioned.

On March 18, 1911 — the 40^th anniversary of the Paris Commune — the first widely recognized IWD event took place in Europe, where over a million Austrian, German, Swiss, Polish, Dutch, and Danish women took part in marches and meetings.

In Petrograd, Russia, on March 8, 1917, women textile workers took to the street to demand the end to WWI, food shortages, and Tsarism, igniting the start of the February Revolution (due to a previous calendar system in Europe, March 8 was February 23). March 8 continued to be celebrated by Bolsheviks as IWD to remember the beginning of the revolution.

The march in 1917 that sparked the February Revolution. Photo via Bảo tàng Hồ Chí Minh.

In 1922, the then-communist Zetkin worked with Vladimir Lenin to formally establish International Women’s Day on March 8 as a communist holiday of the Soviet Union. From then, IWD started to be widely adopted by other communist nations and the communist movement worldwide, including in Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, and, of course, Vietnam.

Due to IWD’s roots in socialism and official link to communism, the US and many members of the Western Bloc remain icy to the day for most of the 20^th century, though in recent decades, following the UN’s recognition, it is starting to appear on the festive calendar of more countries.

In Vietnam, the earliest evidence showing IWD observation points to a letter from Hồ Chí Minh, published in Nhân Dân newspaper on March 8, 1952, to commemorate Hai Bà Trưng’s death anniversary and International Women’s Day. In the address, he showed his respect for the female soldiers who sacrificed themselves for the revolution, as well as those whose children and husbands were fighting in the war.

[Top image via Euro Maidan Press]

A rare glimpse into colonial Saigon after sunset.

While there is no shortage of photos that depict the lives and experiences of people from all walks of life in Vietnam during the last 100 years, very few present the country's nocturnal happenings. Simply, the technology of the past made it a much more difficult process compared to the digital and flash-abundant means today. One would need to set up a tripod and let the camera take a long-exposure shot to capture a city with few streetlights: a much more involved undertaking than a simple point and click. That is the reason why collections like this one by French photographer Eli Lotar are so striking.

The iconic facade of the Majestic Hotel.

Electricity, and thus streetlights, first arrived in Saigon in the 1880s, and by 1938 they illuminated the wealthier sections of the city. In these photos, an upscale clothing shop is bathed in the warm glow, beer advertisements beam above bars, and the marquee in front of a theater sparkles above the street. While most of the people that can be seen are from the suit-wearing, custard-eating upper crust of society, a few commoners can be seen strolling the clean avenues or huddled around a newspaper stand. 

The photos may not reveal what happened in Saigon's shadows, but they give a unique perspective on the city's refulgent regions once the Earth has turned its back to the sun.

A glitzy cineplex used to rub shoulders with the Majestic Hotel on what is now Dong Khoi Street.

A canal dotted with the embers of oil lamps.

A bar used to accompany the Signal Mast (Cột cờ Thủ Ngữ) along the banks of the Saigon River.

Ton Duc Thang Street at night.

A fashion display outside Courtinat, a boutique whose location now is part of the Sheraton Hotel at the corner of Dong Du and Dong Khoi streets.

The Dong Khoi-Le Loi intersection.

A cinema at the Passage Eden department store.

A streetside restaurant outside the cinema.

A glimpse inside the Passage Eden department store.

An evening newsstand.

The best-sellers of the day on display.

Outside a jewelry shop.

Chợ Cũ at the Ham Nghi-Ho Tung Mau corner.

Marveling at a lit-up map of central Saigon.

[Images via Flickr user manhhai/Top photo: The corner of Dong Khoi and Nguyen Thiep, where a Brodard bakery sits now]

Vietnam residents are rightfully celebrating recent advances in public transit.

With Saigon's first metro opening just a few months ago, and Hanoi's second metro line inaugurated in the middle of last year, crowds are embracing the novel thrills of railway public transportation. But traversing a metropolis via public rail is nothing new. At the dawn of last century, the colonial authorities implemented a then state-of-the-art electric tramway in the capital.  

Artistic re-imagining of life during the tram's heyday. Image by Behance user Tung Le.

The tramway's first line was inaugurated in 1901 and, by 1943, an extension of the fifth line brought the network's total length to 30 kilometers. At its peak, the tramway was a dreamy symbol of modernity and class which improved the daily lives of those who could afford to use it. Following the war with France, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam took over and continued operations for another 30 years. Unfortunately, by the 1980s, it had largely deteriorated to the point of disuse.

The tram passes a street market.

Jennifer Lynas, an Australian, traveled to Vietnam in 1990 with her husband as part of one of the first independent tour groups to visit the nation following reunification. While she reportedly didn't realize the significance of it at the time, she was witness to some of the last days of the tram system which was fully abandoned soon after her trip.

Looking at the photos collected and uploaded by her husband, Ian N. Lynas, may not conjure romantic nostalgia for the tramway, but it does serve as a good reminder of the nation's enduring hunger for innovative public transportation. 

Check out the photos below:

The train at a transfer point on Thụy Khuê Street.

Happy passengers riding their train as part of their daily affairs.

While operational, car number 16's age was showing.

A tram continues on into the distance on a road without a single other motorized vehicle in sight.

Ian N. Lynas poses at the back of a stationary tram.

The tram en-route on Thụy Khuê Street.

Jennifer Lynas' camera attracts the attention of local children.

[Photos via Flickr account Ian N. Lynas]

For nearly a century, lottery tickets and their strings of lucky numbers have occupied a special role in Vietnamese society: both as a lifeline for dreams of better fortune and as a mirror reflecting the socio-economic realities of the times.

“Ma’am, sir, please buy a ticket to support me” — from bustling cities to quiet countryside, from narrow alleyways to modest market stalls, this simple plea has long been woven into the fabric of Vietnam’s street culture. It’s common to see workers savoring their morning coffee while carefully selecting a few lottery tickets, tucking them away as part of their daily ritual. Equally common is the sight of commuters crowding around lottery kiosks at dusk, eagerly awaiting the results to see if their luck has turned.

Photo via Tuổi Trẻ Thủ Đô.

While the odds of winning the lottery jackpot are slim, state-run lotteries maintain an irresistible allure for a significant portion of the population. Every day, ticket sales generate hundreds of billions of đồng for the national economy, outpacing even luxury industries. Perhaps this enduring appeal lies in the lottery’s promise of a level playing field — a game where “all are equal,” regardless of wealth or status. Coupled with the tantalizing hope of a life-changing windfall, this has inspired snappy phrases like, “No need for skill, just luck to fulfill” or “Hit the jackpot by five, rich for life by night.”

As the Lunar New Year approaches, I find myself holding a freshly bought lottery ticket, a small token of hope. It is with this sense of anticipation that I reflect on the history of the lottery in Vietnam and its decades-long, love-hate relationship with the Vietnamese people.

The history of the lottery in Vietnam

The concept of the modern lottery first emerged in Vietnam in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. At the time, schools and churches would seek permission from local authorities to issue small-scale lottery tickets to raise funds for their operations.

An advertisement for a lottery issued by the University of Indochina in local newspaper Hà thành Ngọ báo (1933). Photo via National Library of Vietnam.

For instance, during the renovation of the St. Joseph's Cathedral in Hanoi, which involved replacing its walls with bricks, the Archbishop petitioned the French colonial government for approval to organize a lottery to fund the project. It took two rejections before the request was finally granted, allowing two lottery events to take place in 1883 and 1886, raising a total of around 30,000 French francs.

In 1902, during the Hanoi Exposition held at the Exhibition Palace, organizers experimented with a recreational lottery for the first time. This marked the beginning of a tradition, as lotteries became a regular feature in subsequent expositions, with proceeds directed toward social initiatives.

Indochina Lottery advertisement in Hanoi. Photo via France Indochine Facebook page.

By 1935, lotteries were formalized on a much larger scale with the establishment of Loterie Indochinoise (the Indochina Lottery), issued by the French colonial administration across Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Hanoi, the capital of French Indochina, was designated as the central location for the lottery draws. Initially held only once a year, tickets were sold for 1 Indochina piastre, with the grand prize reaching as high as 10,000 piastres — a substantial sum at the time — alongside smaller consolation prizes for other winners.

Indochina Lottery tickets. Photos via France Indochine Facebook page.

Being a cross-border initiative, the lottery tickets featured multilingual text in French, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Khmer. The designs often included iconic architectural landmarks or cultural symbols from the colonies. As demand grew, the frequency of lottery draws increased to four times a year. However, the Indochina Lottery came to an end in 1944, a casualty of the political instability brought on by Japanese occupation during World War II.

Reverse Side of an Indochina Lottery ticket. Photo via Tuổi Trẻ Thủ Đô.

After 1945, Vietnam was divided into two regions, each with distinct political systems, yet the lottery remained a curious point of intersection. Despite differences in prize structures and organizational approaches, both North and South Vietnam used lotteries as tools to address their respective socio-economic needs. It was during this period that the concept of xổ số kiến thiết — lotteries designed to serve community benefits — was born.

Stamped letters promoting lottery purchases under Chief-of-State Bảo Đại. Photo via Society of Indo-China Philatelists.

In the South, lotteries re-emerged in 1951 under the reign of former emperor and then Chief-of-State Bảo Đại. Initially tailored for the elite, tickets were issued quarterly at a price of 10 đồng, with a grand prize of 1 million đồng. However, by the time of President Ngô Đình Diệm’s tenure, lotteries became more accessible, expanding their reach across various social strata.

Southern lottery during Ngô Đình Diệm’s era. Photos via chuyenxua.net.

To encourage participation, the southern government implemented creative strategies, from composing promotional songs to allowing lottery tickets to substitute for administrative fines. Weekly draws were grand events held at the Norodom Theater, complete with live music performances and appearances by popular singers.

‘National lottery song’ by Trần Văn Trạch.

Initially, the lottery faced stiff competition from underground betting games like số đề, which appealed to lower-income groups with minimal stakes of 1 or 2 đồng and quicker turnarounds.

However, the closure of major gambling hubs like the Kim Chung and Đại Thế Giới casinos in 1955 left lotteries as the sole outlet for those seeking fortune. This surge in demand led to speculation and black-market trading. Official tickets priced at 10 đồng were sold for as much as 13 đồng during shortages, such as in 1963. Meanwhile, Tombola lotteries — organized by schools, religious groups, and private entities — also gained popularity, offering practical prizes like bicycles, sewing machines, and household essentials.

Tombola lottery tickets. Photos via Lớp Học Vui Vẻ Facebook page.

In contrast to the South’s mix of entertainment and gambling, the North's lottery, launched in 1962, had a clear mission set by the central government: fund infrastructure development in the North and provide support for the southern battlefield. Tickets were priced at 2 hào, and top prizes included items like Simson motorcycles and Phượng Hoàng bicycles, practically “treasures” in the era of rationing.

Northern lottery ticket design influenced by the Soviet Union. Photo via Tiền Phong.

Northern lotteries operated under a centralized distribution model. Tickets were sold at authorized kiosks and directly allocated to government offices and factories for employees to purchase. Prize draws were conducted at the Đoàn Kết Club under the strict supervision of government officials.

A veteran recalled the lottery frenzy in Hanoi at the time: “People were picking up lottery tickets every afternoon. The drawing was held near the Hanoi Opera House. As for the jackpot, we never saw it — just losing tickets scattered across the sidewalk like tamarind leaves in the rain. We’d all scramble to collect them. Each day, we’d gather a few hundred. By the time the pile weighed a few kilos, Lunar New Year was already around the corner [...].” People became so obsessed with the lottery that even those who couldn’t afford a ticket would go out and pick up discarded ones, caught up in the fear of missing out long before the term became common.

The film Người Cầu May satirizes the lottery craze in the North at the time.

Despite its stringent implementation, the lottery system in the North also gave rise to negative consequences similar to those seen in the South. In a stagnant economy where goods were strictly rationed, the lottery stood out as one of the few forms of free consumption. This freedom led many to view it as a ticket out of poverty, inadvertently turning some into gamblers.

The film Người Cầu May satirizes this reality through the character Khiển, a retired official obsessed with winning the jackpot. The deeper he delves into the lottery, the more he loses, yet he cannot shake his fixation with the numbers. In one poignant scene, Khiển chases after a funeral procession, convinced that the right numbers are hidden there by divine intervention.

A marker of Vietnam's history

After reunification, Vietnam’s national lottery system merged into one, represented by three main entities for the North, Central, and South regions. Over time, this system evolved to align with the country’s shifting social and economic landscapes.

Take the 1980s, for instance, when the impact of trade embargoes made imported goods prohibitively expensive luxuries. To entice buyers, lottery organizers introduced “special privileges” for jackpot winners, allowing them to purchase imported items such as cassette TVs, refrigerators, and more at discounted rates. A highly coveted prize of the time was the Honda Super Cub 90, nicknamed the Honda Độc Đắc (Jackpot Honda), then valued at 10 gold bars — equivalent to a 24 m² apartment in post-subsidy-era Hanoi.

Lotteries with imported goods as prizes (1987). Photos via Báo Giao Thông.

It’s hard to imagine such a prize structure in today’s commercial landscape, where even the most premium motorcycles pale in comparison to the value of urban real estate. Modern lotteries now offer more frequent draws, cash-only prizes, and results easily accessible via smartphones — thus there's no need to sit by the radio or television anymore.

Yet, through all this change, one constant remains: the complex relationship between Vietnamese people and the lottery. Across generations, those small tickets have proven to be a double-edged sword. Stories abound of individuals squandering life savings on tickets, only to spiral into debt and ruin their families. Yet, those same tickets also carry enormous economic aspiration — hope for a brighter future, not just for the buyers but also for the sellers.

A special lottery ticket printed just days before Vietnam's reunification.
This draw was never held. Photo via Tuổi Trẻ.

But beyond its role in individual lives, the lottery has taken on a broader significance: an unassuming chronicler of Vietnam’s societal evolution. Each ticket captures the dreams, struggles, and transformations of a nation — folded discreetly into pockets, yet carrying the weight of history itself.

While editing a retrospective of my recent work from Vietnam in the summer of 2019, I discovered 50 yellow boxes of Kodachrome slides in my basement that were shot in 1995. The images were from my first trip to Vietnam.

Back then, I was curious about the country because I grew up during the war, and despite being of draft age, I was exempt from serving. In 1995, there weren’t many foreign tourists in the country. It was a year after the United States normalized relations with Hanoi and lifted sanctions. Most of the passengers on the flight to Hồ Chí Minh City were Việt kiều, visiting their country for the first time since they left. The tension they felt as they cleared customs was obvious.

In many of the towns and cities I visited during my three weeks in Vietnam, the same scene repeated itself. Young men congregated outside in teahouses to watch American-made action movies, many of them depicting warfare taking place in the jungle. This was before digital flat-screen monitors but the audio/video was still impressive. From down the street, I would hear the soundtrack of American soldiers shouting orders at each other, with gunfire in the background.

I stayed for close to a month and mainly traveled overland by train on the Reunification Express from Saigon to Hanoi. I stopped over for a few days each in Nha Trang, Đà Nẵng, Huế and Hanoi, and made overland trips to Đà Lạt and Hội An. Passing through the rice fields of Central Vietnam as the sun was rising felt like a dream; the landscape out the window had so many variations of the color green. 

What initially struck me about Hanoi and Vietnam in general was the beauty, the color, and the charm of the people. However, when I looked through the lens and zoomed in closer, the picture wasn’t pretty. This city was digging itself out of war and poverty. This photograph taught me that from a distance all may look well, but up close there is a lot more than meets the eye.

There were also more sober moments, like having a meal with a psychiatrist in Huế who recounted how, as the pressure of modern-day life increased, more people would be in need of his services.

This photo was taken at a rest stop on the road between Nha Trang and Đà Lạt. We were in a minivan and the state of the road made it a truly frightening journey. 

In Hanoi, I met a widow whose husband was killed during the American War. She actually invited me up to her apartment and cried as she recounted the story.

1995 was a few years before digital cameras and technology were introduced and the web was in its infancy with ever-so-slow dial-up modems. After editing my work, I had scans made of about 30 images for what would become my very first website, called Vietnam Journal. It went live in the winter of 1996, one of the internet's early photography sites. It would be two years before the web was introduced in a very limited way in Vietnam.  

While traveling in Huế, I ate most of my meals at Luc Than Family Restaurant. The proprietor, Luc, was a deaf-mute whom I was able to reunite with in the winter of 2016.

For almost twenty years, I had done editorial and travel photography for magazines, some of which I later sold as stock to agencies in various countries, mostly in Europe. In Vietnam then, there weren’t many stock opportunities. Just the mausoleum where Hồ Chí Minh was preserved, people riding around on bicycles and women with conical-shaped hats. In 1995, the photography business model was on the verge of changing. Digital technology was still in its infancy; 35mm DSLR cameras cost over US$20,000 and weighed several pounds. A few years later, with the advent of royalty-free photos, the market for stock sales disappeared. The combination of these circumstances allowed me to simply explore and photograph what interested me. 

I fell in love with Vietnam shortly after arriving and returned several times between 2015 and 2019, including teaching photography via the Fulbright program in 2015. 

When I returned to Nha Trang in 2019 I was unable to find this bridge, not having taken note of its name. 

I have made countless photographs like this, but what sets this one apart are the memories I have of the time and place. Unlike most travelers in Nha Trang, I was drawn to the older, industrial part of town, not the beach which was just beginning to be developed. Now 25 years later, I still remember crouching on the ground photographing this group of boys who were about half my age. The light was fading quickly and I was concerned about holding my camera steady, with such a low film speed, about five stops fewer than what I'm able to shoot digitally today.

These children outside of the Đà Lạt bus station were dressed up for a family event. 

This couple with their bamboo mat, coffee and cigarettes had cordoned off their personal space at Hoàn Kiếm Lake in the heart of the city. It was a very hot day in June and it seemed as though nothing existed outside of their own little world. They didn’t seem to be aware of my presence although I was pretty close. It’s curious how both of the younger men in the background noticed them, perhaps because of my presence. The three elements make a curious little triangle.

A food vendor in Hanoi serves meals with a colorful mural depicting patriotic workers on the wall behind her. 

Elements in this image bring back sharp memories. The woman facing the camera is at least 55 or 60 years old and must have witnessed and experienced untold horrific events during the American War. While traveling in Vietnam on this first trip, I became haunted by these women. I tried to imagine what they had gone through, their direct suffering and loss.

The scene I captured of young people exercising around Hoàn Kiếm Lake in 1995 seems not much different from what I witnessed when I returned in 2019. 

On my first day in Nha Trang while I was drinking coffee, this Amerasian man, Linh, approached me. His English was much better than most of the locals so we hung out together for part of the afternoon. He thought I might have connections to help him to relocate to America.

More locals exercising around Hoàn Kiếm Lake. When I took the photo, I couldn't help but wonder if the man in the foreground had lost his arm during the war. 

This image almost looks like a scene from the war in Vietnam. A group of laborers were transporting stacks of coal. Each wooden crate attached to their bicycles weighed over 100 pounds.

In 1995, bicycles and cyclos were far more common and impacted the rhythms of traffic in the capital city.

The 50 rolls of processed Kodachrome film from my first trip to Vietnam in June 1995 that I discovered in the basement of my home in the summer 2019.

See more of Geoffrey Hiller's photos here. 

[Top image: On my second day in Saigon, I went to a park downtown and saw a group of students exercising. They approached me and asked where I was from, and who I was traveling with, interested by the unfamiliar concept of traveling alone. So I showed them photos of my wife and two young daughters in the US.]

Woven into the fabric of modern-day streets, the aging electrical substations of Saigon stand as quiet witnesses to a historical era shaped by the complex legacy of French colonialism.

When discussions turn to French colonial influence on Saigon’s infrastructure, familiar icons like railway lines, bridges, and grand colonial buildings often take center stage.

Yet, beneath this grandeur lies a less celebrated but equally pivotal legacy: the establishment of a robust electrical grid that fueled the city's metamorphosis into the “Pearl of the Far East.” Central to this transformation was the Compagnie des Eaux et Électricité (CEE), a French company responsible for building the substations that helped establish a stable and far-reaching electrical grid across Saigon and its neighboring districts.

At the crossroads of Võ Thị Sáu and Hai Bà Trưng stands one of the CEE’s electrical substations, a relic from the French colonial era.

Electricity first appeared in Indochina in the 1870s when the telegraph network was established. At this time, the French colonial government had successfully occupied Saigon, but the city still lacked modern infrastructure, and its streets remained dark at night, relying on hundreds of coconut oil- and kerosene-lit street lamps for illumination.

Proposals to modernize street lighting faced steep challenges, from technical difficulties posed by the region’s humid climate to debates over the exorbitant costs of an innovation that even many colonial officials considered a luxury.

It wasn’t until 1889, after much debate, that Saigon’s municipal council approved a trial of electric streetlights. Shortly after, the Société d’Électricité de Saigon (SEVS) was established, managing the city’s first power plant on Paul Blanchy Street — today’s Hai Bà Trưng. 

Saigon's first electric plant. Photo via historicvietnam.

In the first two decades, only administrative areas and main boulevards like Norodom (Lê Duẩn), Blancsubé (Phạm Ngọc Thạch), and Mac-Mahon (Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa) were prioritized, as the power supply remained scarce. However, with the city’s growing population and the expanding tram network, the demand for a more comprehensive and modern public electricity system became undeniable.

By the early 20^th century, a new company, Compagnie des Eaux et Électricité (CEE), was established. Based in Paris with an initial investment of 2.5 million francs, CEE was tasked with providing water and electricity to Saigon, Chợ Lớn, and Phnom Penh to advance the colonial goal of “civilizing” the Indochinese territories. By 1906, revenues from utility services had allowed CEE to strengthen its financial standing and expand its influence by acquiring competitors like SEVS, taking control of Saigon’s electrical grid.

CEE's headquarter at 72 Hai Bà Trưng in the 1950s. Photo via historicvietnam.

This period was marked by rapid urbanization, necessitating infrastructure upgrades to meet both residential and industrial electricity demands. To meet this need, Governor-General Albert Sarraut introduced legal frameworks to standardize power distribution and management. CEE then began providing electricity to private customers, expanding its network. January 1912 marked a major milestone with the inauguration of the Chợ Quán Power Plant, marking the beginning of an integrated power system linking Saigon, Chợ Lớn, and surrounding areas.

By the mid-1920s, a major upgrade project was underway, focusing on the construction of a high-voltage power grid in Chợ Lớn. High-voltage electricity would be distributed to key locations through substations to power significant sites like the Governor's Palace, Opera House, and City Hall, as well as essential infrastructure such as water pumping stations in Phú Thọ and Tân Sơn Nhứt.

Some substations still bear the CEE logo and the year of construction, like this one on Hai Bà Trưng Street, next to the Saigon Opera House.

Cách Mạng Tháng 8 Street.

Nguyễn Du Street.

Lý Chính Thắng Street.

Nguyễn Cư Trinh Street.

Trần Hưng Đạo Street.

Through these substations, electricity could be distributed more efficiently, ensuring a reliable power supply to areas with high demand. Indeed, this centralized system allowed CEE to replace outdated infrastructure and significantly reduce costs. By the time the new plants and substations were operational, the electricity supply had increased by up to 50%.

The spread of electricity throughout the city was highly regarded by both the French and the Vietnamese for improving quality of life, from street lighting to air circulation and cooling buildings. “Electricity brought countless valuable conveniences to the white population... it was highly appreciated in the cities by locals, and even more so by the Chinese,” one CEE report noted. Author Nguyễn Liên Phong also praised the electric lights on Catinat Street with one of his poems in Vietnamese: “Elegant, refined, unmatched in grace. Smooth roads, bright lights, a shining embrace.”

After the French withdrawal from Vietnam in 1955, CEE continued to operate in South Vietnam under an agreement with the local government until 1967. From that point, all infrastructure and operations were transferred to Sở Điện Lực (Department of Electricity).

Surpassing the expectations of those who laid the groundwork, many of CEE’s old substations are still in operation today. Albeit hidden behind graffiti, peeling paint, or obscured by trees, these relics continue to fuel Saigon’s social and economic growth, and they will likely keep powering the city for decades to come.

Explore more of these historical landmarks scattered throughout the city in the following photo series:

Cống Quỳnh Street.

Lý Tự Trọng Street.

Phan Liêm Sreet.

Pasteur Street.

Trần Hưng Đạo Street.

Nguyễn Huệ Street.

Trần Hưng Đạo Sreet.

Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa Street.

Hồ Hảo Hớn Street.

Trần Hưng Đạo Street.

Nguyễn Văn Trỗi Street.

Substations built after 1968 are marked with the initials SĐL, short for Sở Điện Lực (Department of Electricity). This one is on Nguyễn Trãi Street.