Saigoneer | Heritage
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Tàu Cánh Ngầm: The Curious Case of Saigon’s Lost Soviet Hydrofoils
Not long ago, hulking “creatures” glided atop the waters between Saigon and Vũng Tàu. Like the dinosaurs that came before them, they slowly disappeared, until all that was left were their skeletons.
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[Photos] Lycée Marie Curie: The High School That Has Stood the Test of Time
Marie Curie High School, also called Lycée Marie Curie in French or Truong Trung Hoc Pho Thong Marie Curie in Vietnamese, is a public high school located in Saigon’s District 3.
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[Photos] 1972 Saigon, a City of Style
Based on this collection of black-and-white snapshots, there’s no doubt that Saigon was – and still is – a city of style.
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[Photos] Gia Long High School and 100 Years of Female Education
Before becoming the prestigious Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School of today, this District 1 institution used to be home to Gia Long, once Saigon’s most well-known school for girls.
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[Photos] Hanoi That Once Was Through the Eyes of Le Vuong
When he was 18 years old, Le Vuong bought his first camera.
The year was 1936 and one could easily purchase land in Hanoi for the same price as the camera. But Vuong wasn’t interested in real estate; he was, and still is, in love with art.
In an interview with Nguoi Ha Noi, Vuong shared that growing up he was very close to his uncle, renowned painter Le Pho. Vuong used to hang out in his uncle’s room to watch him paint and note his masterful composition skills. Like his uncle, Vuong also want to create art, but instead of ink and silk, his medium was film and light.
With his newly purchased camera, Vuong spent the rest of the 1930s walking the streets of Hanoi and capturing its idyllic beauty. Back then, there were more kids than tourists around Hoan Kiem Lake, the air was foggy instead of smoggy, and the term tắc đường (traffic jam) was yet enter most people’s phraseology.
Vuong went on to become an award winning professional photographer. In 2016, he received the Bui Xuan Phai - Love for Hanoi Award. Now at 101 years old, he has produced a massive collection of photographs depicting the landscape, people, and culture of Vietnam and other countries. Vuong told Nguoi Ha Noi he is like a worker bee, diligently in search of the nectar that is the beauty of life.
The series of photos below, collated by Redsvn, reveal how Vuong saw Hanoi in the 1930s. Take a look below to see a time that once was.
