What is culture? For someone who writes for an arts and culture publication, you’d think I’d have a quick and clean answer, but the more I ruminate, the more I realize it comes down to a sloppy assemblage of habits, ephemera, and minutiae: eating preferences, holiday attire, styles of sneezes, methods for counting on one’s fingers, variety of fruits to gift and an endless string of social norms. Pile enough of these choices together, and you end up with a distinct culture.

If one were to thus try and compile the many disparate points that comprise Vietnamese culture, one must make space for ngồi chồm hổm. As its oft-used English equivalent, “Asian squat,” attests to, the style of crouching low to the ground, perfectly balanced without a chair, is common across Asia broadly. Still, it is such a frequent sight in Vietnam, evidenced by the many social media posts foreigners make about it, that we should consider it an element of Vietnamese culture.

For illustrative purposes only and not guaranteed anatomical accuracy.

In these online discussions, westerners often admit to being wholly unable to chồm hổm. If you take a poll of your foreign friends and co-workers, you’ll likely find this to be true. But why? While there are plenty of theories as to why foreigners rarely can, it has less to do with the minor differences in body types and anatomies across ethnicities, and more to do with practice. To squat, one must have flexible ankles. Kids have these and thus are observed across cultures to be rather good at squatting. But unless one practices regularly, the body, like the mind, naturally becomes less flexible, and the ability is lost. This might explain why many Vietnamese of all ages can squat: they have plenty of practice when washing vegetables, fixing a motorbike, waiting for the bus or simply playing games on the floor when they don’t want to get the seat of their pants dirty.  

Squatting used to be a popular way to enjoy noodles in Vietnam (left). Photo via kevintruong.vn.

Sugarcane vendors are seen squatting on a street in Saigon in 1950 (right). Photo via LiveJournal user Foto-history.

Of course, not all Vietnamese can chồm hổm, because of habits or physical shape. And perhaps, as the nation continues to develop away from the actions typically associated with squatting, even fewer will be able to. This shift would coincide with some local perception that chồm hổm is an inherently uncouth or rural activity best left back in the nation’s poorer eras, despite its potential positive health effects. This view may be exacerbated by the pose's resemblance to the posture one takes to defecate when no western toilet is present.

Proof of my squatting prowess from an early age.

I would consider the disappearance of the squat to be a great cultural loss. But I am biased. For inexplicable reasons, growing up very much white in America, I would chồm hổm at all times: while playing videos games, while studying in my school desk, even seated at  the family dinner table. While this caused much consternation amongst my teachers and parents — “Knees off the able,” my Dad would repeat several times per meal — I never grew out of it. And now, at least until my Vietnamese advances beyond that of an uncoordinated middle-schooler, chồm hổm is what most allows me to feel like I can fit in within Vietnamese culture. Not to mention, it’s far more comfortable and convenient than any chair I’ve yet to find. 

In the last four to five years, ancient Vietnamese costumes have gained more visibility, becoming a welcome sight among young locals thanks to the efforts to reproduce and promote historic fashion from a number of designers, brands, and interest groups that appreciate the country’s history and traditions.

Great Vietnam is made up of such individuals. Founded in 2019 and officially going into operation in 2020, the group focuses on researching and reproducing clothing that was worn in Vietnam hundreds of years ago. A few costumes they produce have been featured in the art show “The Quintessence of Vietnam” at Grand World Phú Quốc (2021); the photo-video project “VIETNAMESE? REALLY?! – 1000 Years of Vietnamese Fashion” (2021) in collaboration with the Vietnam Centre; and the exhibition “The Resplendent Vestiges” in Sydney, Australia (2019).

The video project "Người Việt Xa Lạ" by Vietnam Centre featuring costumes made by Great Vietnam.

From individual struggles to a collective effort

Great Vietnam comprises young Vietnamese who love culture and creativity and aim to make their reproduction of ancient clothing as historically accurate as possible. The three core members are 28-year-old Vũ Đức and 33-year-old Trương Tuấn Anh, who are in charge of designing the costumes; and 36-year-old Đoàn Thành Lộc, a researcher of Sino-Vietnamese culture who provides expertise on the accuracy of the clothes and handles customer feedback.

Đức has a degree in political science and Tuấn Anh is a research fellow that focuses on space technology. Despite the seemingly irrelevant backgrounds, the two share a passion for cổ phục, or ancient Vietnamese clothing, which drew them together to found Great Vietnam in 2019.

Inside Great Vietnam's Hanoi showroom with their works on display. At the time of writing, the showroom has been closed.

That was after they both made personal attempts to research and promote what they knew about the clothes: Tuấn Anh learned, designed and sewed traditional patterns by himself and joined the Hoa Văn Đại Việt project; while Đức created cartoon characters wearing historic royal clothes and published them on a Facebook page named Anh Hoàng.

Vũ Đức tells Saigoneer: “On our individual journeys, when it came to ancient clothing, we all encountered challenges, and when we realized that even the official sources sometimes delivered incorrect information on this type of clothing, we decided to become the ones who make it right. That’s how Great Vietnam was born. Step by step, we reproduced the costumes, and at some point, it became something we do together.”

Áo phụng bào, based on the real version worn by Empress Dowager Từ Cung, the mother of Emperor Bảo Đại. Featured: headwear by Phượng Điển. Photo by Bạch Như.

They realized many Vietnamese love the country’s ancient costumes, but often mistake the majority of replica designs available in the market for the real thing. This shortcoming applies to áo dài (narrow-sleeved tunics, considered the national costume of Vietnam since the Nguyễn Dynasty), áo tấc (wide-sleeved tunics, used on important occasions), áo nhật bình (special vestments reserved for women of high status under the Nguyễn Dynasty), and áo bào (round-collared robes for feudal-era mandarins).

Young Vietnamese wear ancient costumes as part of the parade event Bách Hoa Bộ Hành. The walk was joined by many historical interest groups and individuals, including Đông Phong, Great Vietnam, Hoa Niên, Thủy Trung Nguyệt, Quê cực, and Đại Nam Chân Ảnh. Photo by Ann Anh with retouching by Bạch Như.

“It has not changed since the ancient costume 'movement' by young people started five years ago,” Đức says. “That’s the reason why we want to recreate the ancient costumes, to run Great Vietnam — as one of the key players in the process of changing awareness of ancient Vietnamese costumes.”

Lộc joined the team later, after he was approached by Đức. “I decided to collaborate because of the good vision Great Vietnam wanted to pursue, which is to create patterns and textures as historically accurate as possible,” Lộc says. A scholar with more than 10 years of studying and doing research abroad on Sino-Vietnamese culture, Lộc has access to source texts written in Chinese from China, South Korea and Japan.

Costumes of Nguyễn Dynasty court guards recreated by Great Vietnam. On the right is the reference image taken by W. Robert Moore in 1931.

“A lot of people say that what was written about Vietnam in Chinese texts is not accurate, which is a perspective I would really like to criticize,” he says. “Not everything China says about Vietnam is wrong and inaccurate, especially things that were written hundreds of years ago.”

He relies on documentation both in and out of the country to deduce what ancient clothing items should look like, Lộc says. “It has to be a two-way process, with exogenous and endogenous variables. We have information in our books, historical records, from statues in pagodas, temples, and communal houses, as well as in documentation of family trees or handwritten books from the older generation...That is one source. I then compare them with foreign sources. That is the scientific method we use. We never completely rely on only one source.”

A video featuring áo mãng lan, a tunic often worn by court guards or military mandarins of the Nguyễn court.

Promoting Vietnam through cultural products

Art producers and practitioners are the people Great Vietnam aims to collaborate with, since the group thinks art is a great way to reach out to a wider audience to promote Vietnamese culture through costumes.

A few examples of robes and costumes for female members of the court.

“Our target customers are those that are carrying out large-scale art and cultural projects such as stage performances, movies, or festivals because they have high demand for ceremonial clothing and have great potential for promoting an authentic traditional culture,” Đức explains. “Despite the scarcity of such customers in Việt Nam, through our activities, Great Vietnam hopes to gradually encourage people and organizations to think about and carry out such projects.”

The group also produces and supplies costumes to retail customers. They do everything themselves, from making designs and patterns to measuring and cutting the clothes.

A young couple in Vietnam wore ancient costumes for their engagement ceremony. Albeit not very common, historical costumes have increasingly been selected by culture-minded individuals in Vietnam for their betrothal. Photo by Jamex Production.

“In this field, it’s difficult to find experienced partners, so we have to actively research, think, and learn from scratch,” Đức says. “In terms of supplies, Great Vietnam looks for both modern and traditional sources. Apart from stages that need modern materials such as designing, printing, sewing, etc. For other techniques such as embroidering, carving, weaving, it’s compulsory for us to reach out to craft villages, especially when making silk costumes.”

Vạn Phúc, La Khê, Bưởi, Nha Xá, Nam Cao, Mã Châu, and Tân Châu are some traditional craft villages that the group often visits. The process of producing a set of ancient costumes is the same as any other type of clothes, Đức explains. He is responsible for designing the decorative patterns, while Tuấn Anh is mainly in charge of drafting the sewing patterns.

Áo nhật bình created by Great Vietnam, based on a real version worn by Princess Mỹ Lương, photographed in 1931.

“First we would sit down together and decide whether the costume will have patterns on them or not, and whether the patterns will be embroidered or printed,” Đức elucidates on the process. They will then create a sewing pattern and send it to manufacturers, who will cut fabrics and follow instructions on the pattern to produce the clothes.

Photos of their products and feedback from clients are often posted on the Great Vietnam 大越南 Facebook page. Included in each post are detailed descriptions of the costumes and references to the texts from which they learned about the meaning of each pattern and accessory. But behind this thoughtful presentation is a lot of hard work put into finding credible documentation and making sense of them.

Three other áo nhật bình prototypes created by Great Vietnam.

“The artifacts available in the country were either so poorly preserved or hard to access due to barriers in cultural management, so those available outside the country, albeit scarce and scattered, were the ones we placed our expectations on,” Đức shares. “Because of this, our work in the last three years is like sailing against the wind, with almost no support, or struggling to get support, the type of struggle that we thought we shouldn’t have to go through. But also because of it, we got used to finding solutions ourselves instead of relying on unreliable connections that might affect our eagerness to research and learn.”

Mãng lan tunic worn by court mandarins. "Mãng" is a four-claw dragon, a motif often seen on costumes for court officials. Mãng is lower than "Long," a five-claw dragon that's highest in level and is only used in costumes for the king.

Not undermining the authorities’ role in preserving cultures, Lộc and Tuấn Anh both think there should be a collaboration between the state government and private companies to better promote ancient clothing. Lộc tells me: “Both sides should find a common voice and agree to cooperate. The government has an advantage in terms of literature and law. Private units have strong teams and good knowledge. They really should collaborate.”

“Personally, I hope historical researchers and the government will pay more attention to preserving traditional costumes and culture. That is what we should really aim for at the moment.”

Costumes as a cultural trademark

Despite having only been in the business for a few years, Great Vietnam is serious about their work. Their goal is to keep reproducing ancient costumes — from simple to intricate, from the latest dynasty to earlier ones — and fill the gap in documentation and knowledge about them in the country. They also hope that historical clothing will be studied carefully, treated with respect, and that their honest reproductions will help the next generations appreciate the past culture more.

Mãng bào, often worn by court mandarins.

Đức shares: “In Vietnam, the process of reviving ancient costumes started slowly and did not receive enough attention, but that’s not how it’s done around the world, because traditional artworks such as drawings, carvings, and embroidery show the depth of local culture. If we continue to not pay attention, we don’t really know our culture.”

Lộc has a rather unusual vision for the revival of ancient clothing: "I hope people will wear them to bars, pubs, luxurious international events, and on planes. Let’s consider them, even though they are a bit loose, a bit baggy, a bit untidy. They’re called ‘ancient’ but they don’t belong to dead people. So don’t just wear them to go to temples, pagodas, or the Temple of Literature, or the Imperial City of Huế."

“Their name is ‘ancient clothes’ but they are not old. Let’s consider them as just a style, and take advantage of it. Only then can ancient clothing endure and exist in our daily life. If we only wear them to temples and pagodas and traditional ceremonies, they will just stay there, they will not evolve.”

Photos courtesy of Great Vietnam.

This article was originally published in 2022.

Despite its humble beginning as something worn just for convenience’s sake, đồ bộ has entered every minute of life in the Mekong Delta as a staple fashion choice that’s both flexible and colorful. Đồ bộ means “set outfit” in Vietnamese, a type of female casualwear made of soft, thin fabrics that often comes in a top and long bottom combo. They’re sometimes referred to as “Vietnamese pajamas,” but these comfortable sets can be worn at any time of the day and even outside, not just reserved for sleep like pajamas.

It’s Sunday morning in my hometown. The power is suddenly out. Our home is devoid of any usual sounds of the electric fan or water pump. The rooster’s lonesome cock-a-doodle-doo pierces through the dew-drenched garden. I carry the basin of laundry to our washing yard beneath the banana trees, where the giant pot sits, holding alum-free fresh water that my mom filtered a few days ago. This is my favorite washing spot, because it receives all the cooling breeze from our pond. The air is filled with a soothing aromatic mix of fabric softener, early morning sun, fresh hay, and new alluvium from the nearby river.

I carefully weave each clothing item onto a hanger and arrange them onto the clothesline, leaving them to dangle in the breeze. The line is right next to the veggie patches, so the scene always looks like something out of a picture book. The winged beans are flowering on the trellis; their lilac flowers pop out in between green leaves craning out into the sun; nearby, the gourd blossoms are bright yellow; beneath, the water morning glory shoots are still holding the night dewdrops. Amongst the emerald, lilac, yellow palette of nature, my mom’s navy đồ bộ stands out with its flowery pattern of red, yellow, and pink. Another features tiny floral motifs sprinkled all across the textile; one has neat rows of black polka dots on white; while the third set has stripes of sienna, purple yam, and teal.

I am enamoured with my mom’s outfits, even though I rarely muster enough courage to wear them in public. Only on a few home visits do I manage to try on the sets she finds pretty and saves for me in her wardrobe. Perhaps I’m not yet used to seeing myself in đồ bộ, and living in the city, I don’t have many chances to enjoy them. I guess I feel a little awkward in this vibrant fashion genre.

Nonetheless, one would only need to step into a local market to find an eclectic “universe” of dynamic đồ bộ. From U-30, U-40 sisters to older aunties, everybody wears them with ease. They wear đồ bộ with platform slides, crab claw clips, string bags, and, of course, the classic plastic market baskets. Outside market trips, đồ bộ can also be spotted in coffee shops, at the school gate during pickup time, or even during raucous livestreams and trendy TikTok dances filmed hastily in the front yard.

Everybody is embracing đồ bộ with open hearts today, thanks to a slew of modern modifications that have improved upon the designs compared to years ago. My mom says that about a decade ago, đồ bộ was only confined to loose clothing created and worn purely for ease of movement. Nowadays, đồ bộ retailers boast a smorgasbord of styles, from short to mid-length to no sleeves, from lacy trims to heart-shaped necklines. The level of craftsmanship and silhouette diversity have also been improved to be as flattering as possible to wearers of any age.

Perhaps the most welcome improvement was the advent of new materials such as cold spandex. During the peak of the hot season, this cooling fabric provides both lightness and coolness to the skin. Its minimal wrinkling and fast-drying properties are also beneficial for wearers who are busy doing heavy labor all day.

Attending a countryside wedding is a great opportunity for one to witness how the ladies break out their most treasured đồ bộ outfits. Their appeal doesn’t lie in the number of compliments they can solicit, but their ability to stay stylish and put-together even after a whole day cooking and prepping ingredients. Right from the moment the first light of the day arrives, everybody has gathered to help out with wedding preparations: some butcher the poultry, others peel veggies and pick herbs. A while later, those silhouettes move into their position next to the pot of porridge or broth, nimbly seasoning and stirring while sometimes wiping their hands on those very outfits. When the guests arrive, they will be greeted by those đồ bộ, and then the aunties will head back inside to clear the table and wash dishes. It’s probably because the wearers themselves are energetic, whatever they put on will take on the same energy — no frills, no fussiness, just pure countryside dynamism.

Đồ bộ are not confined to the kitchen or the market. They could be cooking up a storm in the morning, and in the afternoon, being cuffed up to wade through water channels and paddy fields. Sometimes you’ll even spot them climbing up towering coconut trees, each movement breezily supported by stretchy elasticity. By the river, they set up fishing nets; during low tide periods, they hunch down in sandy swamps to dredge for clams. Đồ bộ is as resilient as the people who wear them, enduring every kind of harsh weather without complaints.

One time, I was loitering in the kitchen while Mom was making canh chua. Its steam filled the air. I asked, quite randomly: “Mom, why is it called đồ bộ and not đồ bông [floral outfit]?” She was holding a ladle full of hot broth close to her mouth as she blew at it gently to cool it down enough to taste. “What đồ bộ? The one I’m wearing? Well, the top and bottom are cut from the same cloth, so people call it that.” That’s countryside vocabulary for you — everything all started with “that’s just what people say.”

Sometimes I see đồ bộ as miền Tây’s unofficial uniform. From the well-off to laborers in the field, their dressers are bound to feature a few sets. The southern region is too sweltering and humid for stiff formality in daily fashion, or sharp distinctions between clothes to “wear at home” versus “wear outside.” Every day, the same outfit can be worn to cook lunch and sweep the floor in the morning and then to visit a neighbor for some delicious gossip in the afternoon. Is that not yet another piece of evidence of that famous Mekong way of life? Laidback, flexible, and free-spirited.

I have always been curious about the origins of đồ bộ in history. Alas, internet searches and questions to my grandma and mom yielded nothing concrete. The only thing I know for sure is that, since I was little, I have already watched mom tailor her own đồ bộ. She often purchased floral fabrics from the local market and spread them across a spacious wooden plank. A triangle of tailor’s chalk in hand, she sketched the layout and then cut out shapes using a pair of sharp scissors. I was amazed just seeing everything take shape from the sideline. In the evening, after dinner, she would sit down at the table and continue cutting and sewing.

During a time when retailers were rare and making one’s own clothes was more convenient, each đồ bộ was a product of care. Back then, my grandma’s clothing used to be mostly thick cotton in dull colors, usually solid without patterns; living in a period of scarcity meant durability was prioritized over everything else. Bright colors, florals, and patterns only started showing up in my mom’s adulthood — a positive correlation with our society’s better financial situation. Once a set was finished, mom would meticulously fold it to save for grandma or my aunties. Each outfit was treasured like luxury goods.

Over the years, our rustic sewing machine was pushed into a corner of the house, enveloped by a layer of dust. Now, at the market, everything is available for instant purchase without any additional labor involved. Still, no matter how diverse the styles get and how instant shopping has gotten, the gist of đồ bộ remains intact like the early days — a symbol of a timeless sense of practicality and simplicity that has helped endear it to everybody, even in a new era.

Folklorist and anthropologist Nguyễn Đổng Chi dedicated decades to weaving a significant portion of Vietnam’s folklore tapestry. He collected, researched, and rewrote over 200 Vietnamese folktales from all corners of the country. His work, initially scattered across five volumes published individually and consecutively over 25 years, appeared as a complete anthology in 1982. Guided by a comprehensive treatise of Vietnamese folktale, Chi’s Kho tàng truyện cổ tích Việt Nam (Treasury of Vietnamese Folk Tales) might be daunting for readers drawn to Vietnamese folklore but disenchanted by rigorous academic discourse.

Major Books’ Treasury of Vietnamese Folk Tales: Volume 1, released in March 2026, offers a condensed and curated version of Chi’s seminal work in English. For the first time, international readers can indulge in his version of 11 classic Vietnamese tales. Readers might uncover a new appreciation for familiar tales, such as ‘The Battle Between Sơn Tinh and Thuỷ Tinh’ (Sơn Tinh Thủy Tinh), ‘The Tale of the Betel, Areca, and Slaked Lime’ (Sự Tích Trầu Cau), and the infamous ‘Tấm Cám,’ widely known as the Vietnamese equivalent of Cinderella; or discover new stories about ancient customs. This edition, focused on presenting the folktales to amuse and delight, is ornamented by Jeet ZDũng’s illustrations. Inspired by Vietnamese artisans, ZDũng’s visual interpretations are as playful, textured, and immersive as the tales they bring to life.

Fairy tales and the women in them

Treasury of Vietnamese Folk Tales: Volume 1 is an ambitious project. It promises multifaceted Vietnamese female characters, and to honor Vietnamese cultural heritage through Vietnamese storytelling traditions. Offering glimpses of our culture through short, punchy, and surprisingly funny tales, it appeals to readers with varying expectations. Love stories, rivalries, happy endings, tales of revenge, historical legends, animals, deities and Vietnamese customs: this compilation truly has something for everyone to enjoy. It fulfills its promises through whimsical visual elements, subtly thought-provoking stories, and skillfully translated folk rhymes that sound as catchy as the original Vietnamese versions of my childhood.

Inside front cover

Mother Liễu Hạnh watching corrupt male travelers from above

Initially, I struggled to reconcile the anthology’s bold claim to spotlight “the women of Vietnamese folklore—not damsels in distress, but as heroes, tricksters, warriors, and sometimes even villains,” with its opening title, ‘The Battle Between Sơn Tinh and Thuỷ Tinh.’ The tale is a classic: two men, in this case, the Mountain God (Sơn Tinh) and the Sea God (Thuỷ Tinh), battle for the hand of Mị Nương, the daughter of Hùng Vương. While the two gods wreak havoc on the villages, the princess disappears from the narrative. How can an absent female character be even remotely layered and complex? This contradiction perplexed me, but ultimately had a useful effect. Unable to find Mị Nương in her own love story, I diligently searched for women in subsequent tales and kept them at the forefront of my mind as I read. Perhaps this was the anthology’s goal all along: to make readers consider women in every story, making us focus on their presence or lack thereof.

Sơn Tinh and Thủy Tinh

As promised, the collection offers autonomous female characters with colorful personalities over its 10 remaining tales. ‘Mother Liễu Hạnh’ is a fun and empowering story that follows a woman who does what she wants — and gets away with it splendidly. The Jade Emperor banishes his unruly daughter Liễu Hạnh from Heaven. In the mortal realm, she becomes famous for her beauty and the merciless pranks she plays on corrupt male travelers. One such traveler, the Crown Prince, tempted by Liễu Hạnh’s mythical beauty, plans to visit the tavern and kidnap her. Acting mostly in self-defense and self-entertainment, Liễu Hạnh transforms into a peach tree. As he prepares to bite into the irresistibly “ripe, round peach sagged from a low branch,” she turns it into disgusting maggots before vanishing into thin air. I giggled at this seemingly random act of punishment all while acknowledging its creativity — turning oneself into a rotting peach sure is an unusual way of chasing away unwanted suitors. This supernatural fruit seasoned a tale of reversed gender and power dynamics with a healthy dose of whimsy.

Love stories, rivalries, happy endings, tales of revenge, historical legends, animals, deities and Vietnamese customs: this compilation truly has something for everyone to enjoy.

In ‘Tấm Cám,’ we follow Tấm through her death and subsequent reincarnations. Her final transformation into a magical golden fruit, quả thị, discreetly raises an interesting discussion on domesticity and female autonomy. One day, an elderly woman comes across the lonesome fruit; unaware of Tấm’s residence within it, she brings the fruit home. Every day, as soon as the woman leaves for work, a tiny Tấm emerges from the fruit, grows back to her default size, cooks, cleans, then climbs back into her refuge. But surely such mystical potential would inspire more adventurous quests than housework? The spilling of fantasy into daily domestic life is very characteristic of Vietnamese folk tales, as Nguyễn Đổng Chi observed. Though Tấm’s confinement to domestic duties can be read as an affirmation of traditional gender roles and gendered division of labor, I find that quả thị nonetheless symbolizes a renewal, or a new life for Tấm. She enters a domestic space that strictly excludes her abusive stepmother and sister.

Shimmering art direction

As readers navigate the multitude of worlds contained in Treasury of Vietnamese Folk Tales, Jeet ZDũng’s textured artworks transform each page into an immersive reading experience. Visually, the book opens into a universe of its own: shimmering gold fonts and deep, dark, jewel-toned illustrations in gold frames jumping out of crimson pages pull you into a regal world of ancient magic — flipping through the pages, I felt like a lost kid who had accidentally stumbled upon an old relic locked away and accumulating dust

Inspired by “Vietnamese sculpture, lacquerware, ceramics, and folk paintings,” Jeet ZDũng brings each folktale to life through diverse and textured illustrations. The illustrations are contained in geometrically irregular boxes and fun shapes that resemble fragments of crystal or puzzle pieces. For instance, his depictions of the Sea God and the Mountain God blend sharp and rounded shapes, as well as warm and cold colors, creating intense contrast that feels fitting for a mythical clash

Tấm and the giant, golden thị

ZDũng imagines many scenes in black and gold, occasionally adding muted colors. Such drawings add allure to tales that many already know, prompting readers to visualize old stories in new shapes and shades. In ‘Tấm Cám,’ the luminous quả thị glitters against a black background — the humble fruit looks more luxurious than I have ever imagined. This melancholic mood further mythologizes the fruit, corresponding nicely with the importance of this golden symbol.

Constrastingly, ZDũng’s illustrations can also be bright, bold, and colorful. His version of the betel leaf, areca nut and slaked lime stands out against the anthology’s generally somber visuals. The neon-green heart-shaped leaf against a bright red square with a gold frame is simple but effective in evoking that childish wonder so crucial to one’s enjoyment of fairy tales. 

The betel lead, areca nut and slaked lime

The fisherman in “The Water God’s Daughter Is In Love With The Fisherman”

Meanwhile, the drawing of tall turquoise scallions sprouting between and over two tiny dancing characters playfully introduces the tale ‘Who Will Buy My Scallions? Or The Magic Potion.’ A few pages later, one cannot help but smile at and let their attention linger on the sight of one tiny, compact man carrying these same giant scallions before two other tiny, compact characters.

Familiar stories, with a little something new

As a Vietnamese reader who primarily reads in English and is on a quest to refamiliarize herself with Vietnamese literature, I was delighted by this anthology’s ability to not only preserve, but add to, the wit and humor of the tales I grew up loving. An example is the humorously concise final sentences that condense entire legends in curiously straightforward terms in most of the tales. In ‘The Battle Between Sơn Tinh and Thuỷ Tinh,’ the final line casually unmasks the turbulent and tedious romantic rivalry as the origin of Vietnamese monsoon season: “This time of year, when the two gods clash, is known as the monsoon season.”

‘Who Will Buy My Scallions? Or The Magic Potion.’

This brief addition of crucial information abruptly de-dramatizes the genesis of monsoon season as common knowledge. ‘The Tale of the Betel, Areca, and Slaked Lime’ is summarized in a similar punchline that reads as an afterthought: “And that is why Vietnamese people have the custom of chewing betel.” In ‘Tale of the Sand Crab,’ readers are briefly told that the protagonist “turned into a sand crab which rolled sand into little balls to fill up the sea day in and day out” after his death. We are given only a brief second to make sense of this ending before the narrative concludes on oddly placed fun fact about an entirely different animal from the story — geese: 

“The lore goes that geese do not eat shrimp because they are grateful of the latter’s sacrifice on their ancestors’ behalf in the olden days. They also say that geese have a white crest on their heads as a sign of mourning for Dã Tràng and their gratitude for him having saved their lives.”

I was also amused by the straightforward translations of rhymes that make this edition’s ‘Tấm Cám’ particularly enjoyable. I expected lyrical verses that match the grandiose character of fairy tales, but the tea vendor’s sing-songy imploration, in simple monosyllabic English, is as catchy as I remembered it in Vietnamese. Tấm, reincarnated as various entities, delivers her fair share of rhymes to her stepsister who has replaced her as the Prince’s wife.

Catching Cám doing the Prince’s laundry, Tấm, as a golden bird, sings “You dry his dresses, dry with poles; don’t dry on hedges, you’ll rip holes.” This uncomplicated translation, which does not over-poeticize rhymes with which many Vietnamese children grew up, does a nice job at emulating the original Vietnamese verses. My favorite rhyme of the anthology must be Tấm’s final threat to Cám, which she utters as a loom: “Crock-a-crock-et, / You take my husband, / I’ll gouge your socket.’” The effective use of onomatopoeia sent shivers down my spine; it's as frightening in English as it was in Vietnamese when I heard my mom say it to me at bedtime over a decade ago. 

Unlike Nguyễn Đổng Chi’s original anthology, which meticulously records, analyzes and categorizes Vietnamese folklore as a genre, Major Books’ Treasury of Vietnamese Folk Tales: Volume 1 builds a whimsical and beautifully illustrated world that is accessible to various kinds of readers who, like me, might find their expectations met in surprising ways. These 11 short stories might not provide elaborate explanations of Vietnamese customs, or underscore the historical significance of certain legends and myths, but they make for a perfectly delightful introduction to the intricate tapestry of Vietnamese folklore. Subtly informative, this collection blends knowledge of Vietnamese culture into an entertaining mix of mundane and epic moments, whilst making sure that rhymes and essences are not lost in translation.

Illustrations by Jeet ZDũng, courtesy of Major Books.

The rich, bluesy ‘Tại vắng anh,’ written by Tuấn Khanh, was performed by Carol Kim this past November at Saigon Jazz Revival's inaugural concert in New Orleans. 

A heart-wrenching rumination on lost love as captured via birds that forget how to sing, the track benifits from Carol Kim's textured voice and aching saxophone solos by Amari Ansari. It was released by Saigon Jazz Revival, a project dedicated to reviving Vietnam's lost jazz era while fusing old Saigon style with contemporary New Orleans, connecting Vietnamese and diasporic music lovers through shared appreciation of sonic legacies.

At the November show in New Orleans when the video was filmed. Photos by by Kim Ha.

“A lot of recordings from before 1975 have disappeared or are hard to find. Coming across them is like a portal into history. The musical influences in Saigon at that time created these tracks that have this very unique multi-cultural energy that's so similar to what contemporary music in New Orleans feels like,” explains director and project-founder Marion Hoàng Ngọc Hill.

‘Tại vắng anh’ performed by Saigon Jazz Revival and Carol Kim. Video via Saigon Jazz Revival YouTube.

‘Tại vắng anh’ is the second track to be released from the Carol Kim concert after her rendition of Phạm Đình Chương's ‘Đón xuân.’ Of that work, Hill explains, “I heard Carol Kim’s song ‘Đón xuân’ for the first time, and I had this wild emotional reaction to it! This song was recorded in Saigon in 1971, which is in every way a traditional New Orleans jazz song and a Vietnamese tune about Tết and spring all in one song. With a whole Latin breakdown section in the middle. So cool!”

Saigon Jazz Revival founder Marion Hoàng Ngọc Hill.

Hill's discovery of that song while working on a film, surrounded by her jazz musician friends, eventually led to Saigon Jazz Revival and Carol Kim being brought to New Orleans for the show. Kim is also scheduled for an August 29 show in Chicago. Meanwhile, artists including đàn tranh musician Brian Bui and vocalist Đồng Lan will be coming to hold summer workshops. Further on the horizon, the group aims to release a full album of original music in 2028 with a variety of performances along the way.

Photos courtesy of Saigon Jazz Revival.

One may be surprised to learn that Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer-winning novel The Sympathizer was rejected by 13 out of 14 publishers before its eventual publication. He describes in an interview why he believes his novel was rejected by all but one publisher he submitted to: “I knew in writing the novel that I was deliberately not doing what I was supposed to do as an Asian American writer, which is [...that] you have to end on a note of Americanization. You have to end on an embrace of the American dream, explicitly or implicitly. And the novel does not do that.” He comments elsewhere along similar lines, “I refuse[d] to subscribe to dominant American narratives and mythologies that allow someone like me a very narrow space to speak.” 

Such a “narrow space” is precisely what Vietnamese-Australian writer Nam Le, known for his widely received short story collection The Boat, seeks to question and subvert in 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem. The book — witty and experimental, each poem numbered and themed, meant to be read as constitutive of a larger whole — engages with a question that he has long grappled with, namely, “what it means to write as a writer that will always be described as a Vietnamese writer, or a hyphenated-Vietnamese writer – whatever you want to call that.” Early on in the collection, he writes:

Whatever I write is
Vietnamese. I can never not —

The statement, at once a liberatory realization and a curse, neatly encapsulates the book’s premise. There is nothing that makes his poems “Vietnamese” other than the fact that he is himself Vietnamese — ultimately, “Vietnameseness” does not lie in some kind of essence. Yet at the same time, this does not prevent the fact that whatever he writes will inevitably be branded as “Vietnamese,” a label that carries with it certain expectations and baggage — that is, at least in English.

Nam Le. Photo via Simon & Schuster.

The collection’s first poem, titled [1. Diasporic], opens with the following lines. 

In English, mind You. 
You dink I writee Yiknamee?
Shame on You.
It was Your violence dumbed me.

In these opening lines, Le centers the disabling violence of the English language, accompanied by its racist caricature of a Vietnamese (or some Asian) accent. Such violence of English recurs throughout the book. In [10. Reclamatory: 1], we find similar racist language, 

Me chink but not so fast with
console or condemn, me chinked,
self-chinked in pidgyhole & niche,
notch cranny-hole creft crack —

And in the next poem, [11. Violence: Anglo-linguistic], Le more explicitly details the abhorrent nature of English.

Appetitive, omnivorous, expansionary.
Atonal, with smashed-together consonants,
It wants it all.

Empire and industry. Science, technology, narratology.
Transaction. One language to rule them all.
Billions strong.

Later, he juxtaposes the violence of English against the liberatory potential of Vietnamese.

[...]
English with its mind of closed grids
Demands

Answers — data, declension, denomination.
But Vietnamese answers: ‘I am all these things.
Or any.

‘I am openness, manyness at once, entelechy.
Your grammar is violence. Your way is narrow
Exaction.

English demands, while Vietnamese opens space for refusal, freedom. It is along such lines that Nirmala Devi titles her review in ArtReview of Le’s book as “Rage Against the English Language.” She writes, “this collection is driven by rage and violence. Anger against the violence of the English language with its rules that, in effect, force users to make categorisations.” 

Yet, if Devi’s characterization of Le’s collection is correct, why, then, in a different essay of his does Le write the following? “English is my second language, my better language. It’s the language better suited to my way of thinking — which was conditioned by it to think so. (It takes a mongrel, maybe, to know a mongrel…) I’ve never felt unwelcomed in it. Which is more than I can say for every place it’s spoken.” Safe to say that this does not sound like a man “raging against the English language.” What went amiss?

The problem is that to read 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem as a polemic against English is reductive, and overlooks the ways in which many of Le’s poems are not meant to be read at face value — though it is not at all clear, as we will see, which ones exactly. For me, it was only by the 20^th poem in the collection that I began to fully suspect this was the case. Titled [20. Titrative], the poem consists of three lines.

Unself-consciously?
Ha ha!
Too late.

And too late indeed. In raising the question of unself-consciousness, the poem forecloses its possibility. Clearly, the poem possesses a kind of self-consciousness both performative and playful. But if that is the case, might the same be true of other poems in the collection?

In this respect, poem [26. Evasive] is most interesting. The poem consists of two erasure poems (one of which only semi-blacks out the underlying text), accompanied by a subtitle in capital letters, “ERASURE RHYMES WITH ASIA.” With regards to the subtitle, Le makes a peculiar comment in The Guardian.

What I would hope readers would get from the ludicrous rhyme of ‘Asia rhymes with erasure’ as a subtitle for a poem is that there is a tongue firmly in cheek in these moments. [...] I wanted to be able to say: ‘Look at this, this is ridiculous! Look in the mirror!’ to both writer and reader and myself. And at the same time sort of recalibrate, retune that way of writing, that way of reading: to hopefully see it again, anew.

It is easy to see the “ludicrousity” of the line upon reading Le’s own thoughts about it. Of course, Asia does not rhyme with erasure! But at the same time, without his help, how are we supposed to tell? After all, if poetry consists of, well, poetic language, the reader might as well take “rhyme” to mean something non-literal — I, for one, certainly did. “ERASURE RHYMES WITH ASIA” is fascinating because to take the line seriously itself constitutes an enactment of the violence described in the very line itself. In other words, the conflation of Asia with erasure itself perpetrates a kind of orientalist discourse that renders “Asia” inaccessible, obscure, mystic. If Asia is indeed under erasure, for/to whom is it rendered invisible? Certainly not Asians living in Asia?

All of this, in an odd way, reminds me of a story the South African comedian Trevor Noah once told about a friend who was “accidentally racist.” As he tells it, while he was walking on the street with a group of white friends, a stranger yelled in their direction, “hey, you monkey!” Immediately, one of his friends turned to Trevor Noah and apologized. To commit the sin of over-explaining a joke — the crux of the story is of course that, in apologizing to Trevor Noah, his friend already assumed that the term “monkey” was directed at him. One might note that something similar is at play in “ERASURE RHYMES WITH ASIA,” in that the line invites “accidentally” orientalist readings. Such capacity to produce (mis-)readings is arguably one of the most distinctive features of Le’s poems.

In a much-circulated essay titled “Blunt-Force Ethnic Credibility” from Astra Magazine, Som-Mai Nguyen critiques a kind of linguistic fetishization commonly found amongst Vietnamese diasporic writers.

There’s a jazz-hands half-nelson device I dislike in diasporic literature and criticism. Writers extrapolate from orthographic coincidence and sprinkle in non-English words to assert unearned authority. I tire of variants on: in Vietnamese, a tonal language, ma can mean many things. The author rattles off ghost, mother, tomb, horse, code, accompanied by the suggestion that this phrenologically means something. These claims are in-group sleights of hand, smugly announcing, without real evidence, that the author has exotic cultural knowledge the outsider cannot fathom. If you know, you know.

Som-Mai Nguyen’s point is that diasporic writers’ invocations of Vietnamese tonality and diacritics often function as a mechanism for producing “blunt-force ethnic credibility,” a kind of automatic authority granted to ethnic authors on the basis of identity alone. Funnily enough, in [15. Dire critical], Le appears guilty of exactly the thing that Som-Mai Nguyen critiques above.

Here, we find Le too invoking the hackneyed example of the tonal variations of ma to imbue Vietnamese with a kind of mystic quality inaccessible to English. Though perhaps not. Is it that the poem is simply another instantiation of the object of Som-Mai Nguyen’s critique — or is it self-consciously parodying it? Earlier in the same poem, Le writes, 

All in the tone.
Give us each day our diacritics — our low and high, fall and rise, our horns and holds:
Flat we are without.
(You like that, no doubt.)

He continues:

Give us our dấu sắc, huyền, ngã, hỏi, nặng:
For ours is not your flat euphony
Your squeezed, frictioned speech
But full mouth music.

Here, again, assimilation to English is presented as a kind of violence that flattens, that which deadens the fullness of Vietnamese and its tonality. But what follows after prompts us to question such a reading, for in the “full mouth music” of Vietnamese we find: “Tripping of water over stone-carved lingas // Rising tang of early season mango in the mouth // Trill of moonlight and wind on silk curtains / or reflected sunlight, prismatic, on rice paddies along the Baie d’Along.” Mangoes, moonlight, silk curtains, and rice paddies. Are these objects not almost too clichéd, too perfectly oriental, to be read as “unself-conscious”?

Perhaps. But in [35. Reclamatory: 2], Le complicates our reading once more. 

As the poem points out, “moon and jade and silk” have been deployed millennia before the advent of French colonialism, and thus cannot be merely reduced to "orientalist" tropes. Perhaps, then, what was actually orientalist (accidentally so) was none other than to have read “Rising tang of early season mango in the mouth / Trill of moonlight and wind on silk curtains” as a parody of orientalism in the first place.

Though, yet again, perhaps not. After all, that the images now associated with orientalism have existed “millennia before” does not annul the fact that, well, those images have indeed been appropriated into orientalist imaginaries. In the end, it remains impossible to tell with full certainty what is meant to be taken as tongue-in-cheek and what is not — and that appears to be precisely the point. 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem is arguably best understood as a staging of the seeming inescapability of clichés, stereotypes, and tropes, in which parody and the parodied become indiscernible. As writer and translator Lina Mounzer writes of clichés that seem to ever-lurk “at the edge of one’s awareness”: “[Y]ou write towards them, or against them; you write to subvert them or mock them or indulge them or skirt around them altogether, but they are always there.”

Surprisingly, the collection contains 37, rather than 36 poems, contrary to what the title suggests. In the last stanza of the final poem of the book, titled [37. Post-racial / -glacial], Le writes. 

In this ecopoetic imagining of a post-racial world, words do not “need mean more than itself”: things just simply are — and there, perhaps, “Vietnamese” too need not signify anything more than “Vietnamese,” whatever that may mean. Yet, in utter contradiction with the poem, for me at least, Le’s use of the word “escape” already signifies more than it need mean: namely, Le’s own background of having come to Australia after having “escaped” Vietnam. Is it I who, in this last instance, collapsed the poem’s utopic vision for a post-racial world? Perhaps. But if the word “escape” has already escaped, it is also because the landscape of racist, orientalist, ethnic clichés and tropes has already escaped me — us — too, its edges always just in sight, just out of reach.

As part of the current crackdown on intellectual property infringement, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security recently took down a major network of websites providing illegal anime streaming.

As Tuổi Trẻ reports, on July 1, the Economic, Corruption and Smuggling Crime Investigation Police Force (C03) charged seven people for alleged copyright infringement, four of whom were arrested and also charged with money laundering.

The police investigation shows that, from 2020 until April 2026, five members of the group created over 100 websites hosting and providing streaming service on over 26,000 series and movie titles without permission from IP owners. Their operation had allegedly earned approximately US$12.85 million (VND308.4 trillion) in ad revenue before being shut down just a few months ago.

The streaming websites went through several name changes over the years, but the most current iteration was HiAnime, a well-known media archive with features similar to Netflix.

According to the police, members were paid by foreign advertising companies in cryptocurrency, which was laundered through intermediaries before being transferred to their personal accounts at local banks. They also purchased cars and real estate to hide the true origins of their earnings from authorities.

C03 carried out the crackdown based on intelligence from US organizations, local media reports, including the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Motion Picture Association (MPA) and Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).

Vietnam has been intensifying efforts to squash piracy and reinforce intellectual property rights in the past months in direct response to complaints from the United States Trade Representative (USTR), which applied the “Priority Foreign Country” status on Vietnam for the first time in 13 years in April 2026.

The designation Priority Foreign Country means that USTR has 30 days to determine whether a formal investigation is warranted. Ambassador Jamieson Greer moved forward with the decision in May, announcing: “While Vietnam has recently taken some steps toward addressing IP concerns that the United States has chronicled over many years in USTR’s Annual Special 301 Report, IP infringement in Vietnam continues to impair the competitive position of U.S. innovators and creators. We need to see Vietnam resolve these long-standing concerns, including on a range of IP enforcement issues, in a manner that is sustained and that deters future IP infringements.”

Japan is also another party with a vested interest in Vietnam’s anti-piracy efforts. In July, Kyodo News reports, the Japanese government presented plans to use official development assistance (ODA) to support 10 developing nations’ efforts to curtail piracy of Japanese anime, games, and manga. These include Southeast Asian infringement hot spots like Indonesia and Vietnam.

According to Kyodo, government data shows that last year, Japan suffered JPY10.4 trillion in losses from illicit media sharing and fake merchandise. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is in charge of ODA, will start determining local needs in August and supporting funds are expected to be available from April 2027.

Top image via Lao Động.

In recent years, CÚT LỘN has cemented themselves as one of the most recognizable hardcore punk bands to emerge from the Vietnamese underground scene.

Photo by Cá koi lang thang (@cakoilangthang)

Propelled by electrifying performances and an ability to constantly reinvent themselves, CÚT LỘN continues to develop an increasingly radical sound throughout a fairly long career, especially when considered in contrast to the relative youth of the scene. “Dzữa,” their latest album, is steeped in a noise-driven physicality infused with raw energy tinged with a poetic sensibility that marks a shift away from the trash-inspired experimentation that initially defined them. Breaking away from the spirit of their early days, when they embraced a messy aesthetic that didn’t take itself too seriously, they have refined a more direct sound that emphasizes sincerity and a sharp awareness of the world around them, rather than the aggressive, hyper-masculinity so often found in the genre’s canonical imagery. This approach reflects a generation of young people who are seeking emancipation not only through alternative forms of expression but also by creating imaginaries that break free from the stereotypical constraints that could stifle the underground scene itself. I met with the band ahead of their European tour to discuss, amongst other things, their artistic evolution, their perspective on the Saigon music scene, and how touring around the world has broadened their horizons

Quang Sọt (far right) and Sergey (in back). Photo by Martin Kong.

Quang Sọt and Sergey are the two founding members still active in the band they formed in Hanoi in 2018. Quang Sọt is the lead guitarist, while Sergey took up the drums out of necessity. “To be honest I just was very annoyed that I could not find a good drummer for my band,” he noted.

They were joined by Nguyên Lê on bass, who was then working as a sound engineer for concert venues in Hanoi. Nguyên Lê responded as a joke to an online ad from the band, which was looking for a bassist at the time, but ended up joining the band permanently and hasn't left since. In 2021, they moved to Saigon, but it wasn’t until 2024 that Vui Qá, the current lead singer, finally joined the band. He, who at the time had no experience as a frontman, caught the rest of the band’s attention by taking the stage, grabbing the mic, and performing ‘Graffiti Song’ in such a memorable way that there was no hesitation in making him a permanent member of the lineup. The band’s spontaneity is thus evident even in how they’ve integrated members as they’ve evolved, demonstrating their intuition even in recruitment. This approach seems to have paid off, as they now consider their lineup to be solid and unchanging.

Quang Sọt in action. Photo by @saxichuongduong.

In their beginning days, CÚT LỘN stood out for their performances and music videos, in which they wore Pikachu costumes. The group played up a silly, unserious image that quickly set them apart from other bands. As they matured, the group shifted direction, taking themselves more seriously and embracing complex emotions that could no longer be reflected through the symbol of the juvenile mask, which, moreover, gets unbearably hot during live performances.

“We had so much fun in the first like five years when we were playing crossover trash midi hardcore but then we felt like we reached a point that firstly the Pikachu costume doesn’t fit the band anymore,” Nguyên Lê explains.

This decision to abandon the disguise allowed them to grow out of a style they had come to find limiting and to explore new creative territories.

The Pikachu era. Photo courtesy of CÚT LỘN.

As they mature, their music grows increasingly dark, and the album concepts — always centered around the image of the egg — reflect this transformation. While the band’s name reflects the embryonic nature of the group at the time of its creation (cút lộn is a fertilized quail egg), the title of their second album, “Bắc Thảo” (century egg) reflects a sound that has darkened over time and gained a more intense flavor.

The allegory of the egg is carried forward in the title of their latest album, “Dzữa,” which is intended to reflect a shift stemming not only from their increased maturity but also from their perception of the world around them. The album’s sound aims to reflect an era of crisis, where culture, the economic system, and politics seem to be falling apart. Hence, the image of the trứng dzữa, an egg that is nearly rotten but still edible and whose interior is in a state of decay and parts of which are shattered, mirrors the universe poetically described through the lyrics written by Vui Qá.

The album, which is particularly refined, was nonetheless a painful process for the band members, who were heavily occupied with other commitments at the time. From this constraint emerged a creative process in which the members worked in layers. One of them would arrive with an initial demo, after which the rest would come together to add new touches one by one and reorient the song’s emotion as they went along. Thus, if the first draft was a block of raw aggression, the second musical layer would seek to bring more poetry to the song, and so on, adding complexity to music they were determined not to let become dull and monochromatic.

Once the instrumental part was finished, the musicians would get Vui Qá and take him to Bomb’s place — a key sound engineer and true pillar of the local hardcore scene — so he could start writing lyrics, and then they’d doze off while he began recording his vocals. This piecemeal modus operandi is also reflected in their visuals, the music video for the title ‘Cà Phê Sáng’ was created exclusively from concert footage filmed on a camcorder by videographer Vinatapes, who then glitched the footage to achieve a look that captures the spirit of decay they convey in their music.

Cà Phê Sáng (Official VHS Video). Video via CÚT LỘN's YouTube.

Although firmly rooted in the local scene, the band aspires to expand its reach internationally and has already toured East and Southeast Asia, including Thailand, South Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, China, etc. Countering anticipated cultural differences, these trips have instead allowed them to anchor themselves in the crossover nature of an international community whose values transcend borders, and the encounters made during these trips have comforted them in sharing common anti-establishment core values with their peers.

“For this kind of community, I think it is the same everywhere. Every tour feels like we met friends, because this spirit is international.” Vui Qá says.

While the tours entail significant expenses, the group is able to offset these sometimes substantial investments through the sale of merchandise, wherein they can expand their creative expression not only via clothing but also through unusual items like a hot sauce bearing the band’s image, which, incidentally, was delicious.

The band's hot sauce Cayvailon. Image courtesy of CÚT LỘN.

Experiencing major scenes abroad allows them a newfound perspective on the state of the Saigon punk scene, which they have observed evolve since its inception. They are pleased to see that in recent years, the number of bands has increased dramatically, accompanied by an ever-growing audience. This development is part of a broader trend of expanding subcultures in Saigon, which often interact with one another due to the still-small size of these circles — a permeability that is part of the charm of Saigon’s underground scene.

But young people’s growing interest in these alternative forms of expression is hampered by the economic difficulties and pressure faced by clubs and concert venues, which have been closing one by one in recent years, foreshadowing a period of struggle in the years ahead. While the DIY tradition fosters solidarity within the community — particularly through the sharing of equipment — CÚT LỘN laments the lack of access to quality venues and sound systems, revealing the significant strain on Saigon’s music venues.

CÚT LỘN at a live gig. Photo by Martin Kong.

At the time of writing, CÚT LỘN is getting ready to embark on a European tour. They are profoundly grateful for the opportunity to travel to so many countries and reach such a milestone, and the response to the tour announcement has been overwhelmingly positive, revealing a level of enthusiasm from an international audience that the band itself hadn’t anticipated. But, beyond the apparent glamor, a tour like this is extremely exhausting for an independent act, and Quang Sọt — the only driver with an international license — will be handling the tour van in addition to performing at every show, sometimes playing back-to-back dates in different countries for five days straight. He adds nuance to the positive reactions received following the tour announcement, clarifying that he doesn’t want to use it as a way to “show off,” and above all, doesn’t want CÚT LỘN to be reduced to being one of the few Vietnamese artists to have pulled off a large-scale tour in Europe. For him, this tour comes at a time when the entire band is fully convinced of their artistic prowess, and traveling represents an opportunity to connect with new audiences and share their musicianship around the world.

“We really know where we are. We know where our music is. We want to share it,” he summarizes.

CÚT LỘN's European tour poster.

“Remember to write that we’re nerds!” Vui Qá tells me as we’re concluding our interview. Indeed, CÚT LỘN’s approach to being hardcore resides in the attitude of not trying to act according to the tough tropes usually found in these genres, preferring to appear as true as they are. They want to walk in front in the audience with a genuine attitude, embracing their individual offstage personalities. It is this feature that sets their performances apart from the conventions of hardcore punk. While some bands focus on perfecting their attitude and stage presence, the members of CÚT LỘN are primarily concerned with having fun on stage and delivering a nerve-racking performance, increasingly blurring the line between themselves and their audience. Their style is noisy and distorted, and raw energy is their main focus, as that is what remains fundamental to them, far beyond the lyrics or even the compositions. Their motto is that they have nothing to prove on stage, no matter how nerdy they look, and that’s what gives them such a unique and poignant presence. I believe this is what it means to be a punk in the current era: embracing being cute while maintaining a sincere approach without trying to perform another persona. And this approach proves to be infectious and liberating in a context where opportunities for cathartic expression are becoming scarce.

“If you happen to pass by Huỳnh Mẫn Đạt Street in Hồ Chí Minh City
There’s a strange bar with a Mekong theme
Where cải lương is performed every Saturday, a piece of our hometown heritage
Beside the show, you’ll have a chat with Đờn Ca Đó Đây troupe
A Mekong corner in the middle of skyscrapers”

This intriguing invitation appeared on my social media, a whimsical suggestion in the middle of Saigon. As someone who grew up to the sounds of Mekong Delta folk melodies, I was immediately curious of the promise of a đờn ca tài tử experience inside a city bar. Upon doing more research, I learned that the venue was just one of many spontaneous stages of Đờn Ca Đó Đây, a collective of young Vietnamese who found one another in their quest to promote the beauty of southern đờn ca tài tử arts in the mid of Saigon.

From random encounters to a borderless space for đờn ca

As a performance art form, southern đờn ca tài tử has been around for over a hundred years. This genre of folk performance had its start in the ceremonial orchestral music from Huế — which originated from court music itself — but under the influence of folk music in the south. At first, it followed musicians and artists from the central region as they emigrated to the south, and then was adapted to the local culture. Đờn ca tài tử reflects the sentiments, spirits, and living circumstances of communities living in this new land of natural resources. The end of the 19th century was the apex of đờn ca tài tử, when melodies, compositions, and techniques were created and systematized in documentations, becoming a comprehensive wealth of folk art that has continued to exist alongside southern Vietnamese.

A đờn ca tài tử troupe in Saigon in 1911. Photo via Wikipedia.

I managed to arrange a phone call with Đỗ Thanh Phong, the leader of Đờn Ca Đó Đây, on an afternoon when I was visiting my hometown in the delta. I sat on the deck in the back of our homestead, with a placid river and thickets of swaying mangroves in front of my eyes, as I listened to Phong’s stories. Our conversation flowed in and out amid the rustling breeze and memories of a đờn ca lover living in Saigon. These contrasting settings somehow meet in the middle, where these melodies ring.

Members of Đờn Ca Đó Đây.

Although Phong is quite busy handling tasks at his own office job, he still channels as much effort as he can to sustain folk arts. Phong himself can play đàn tranh, or Vietnamese zither, on a novice level, and is tasked with connecting collective members, envisioning group directions, and helping to maintain cohesion without losing freedom.

True to its name, Đờn Ca Đó Đây was born of impromptu performances.

Phong reminisced about the early days at Lê Văn Tám Park in Saigon, where they first convened to play together: “Back in the days, we often met at the park. Right in between busy streets and crazy traffic, there was one corner where the mood turned contemplative thanks to the music and vocals. A few instruments and a few music lovers can carve out a very distinctive space for art.”

A practice session at a cafe.

From such rustic setups, Đờn Ca Đó Đây gradually took shape. Members come from different walks of life: a teacher, a worker, an engineer, a student, etc. Albeit not professionally trained, they all share a passion for đờn ca tài tử and cải lương. The collective found one another first via social media, and then started organizing offline meetings from the beginning of 2025 at the park. In March 2025, the group became more organized and began performing at casual venues like eateries, schools, exhibitions, and especially bars, bringing a novel experience to listeners.

A show by Đờn Ca Đó Đây at Hai Tô Bar.

Many key members of the group’s current roster were recruited from chance encounters. Phong recalls: “I got to know one of them when he was just in 11th grade in Đồng Tháp, via his practice videos on TikTok. We started chatting about instruments. When he moved to the city for college, he asked to meet me. When we met, I recognized his musical talent straight away, so I connected him with other members. Since then, he’s been in charge as our music expert, establishing the musical identity of the group, in addition to musical arrangement and editing our content.”

Another member who works as a teacher for his day job can make use of his pedagogy skills to facilitate the group’s school outreach programs. He is tasked with writing the script, planning the content, and executing it in a way that’s accessible and educational so the knowledge can reach the school children.

Promoting the art of đờn ca tài tử to the younger generation at their school.

Right from the name Đờn Ca Đó Đây, the collective is very clear about their operation philosophy. It can be loosely translated as “performing here and there,” reflecting the group’s “nomadic” nature. They can perform at a range of different venues and not just on stage, for anyone who is interested enough to listen and connect. Music then, can transcend the confines of a one-way performance to be a two-way interaction. The performers and the spectators are brought closer.

A contemporary language to chronicle an age-old art form

Đờn ca tài tử was not an intentional destination ifor many collective members, but it managed to find them again by evoking their childhood memories, such as the quiet evenings watching TV with their family members or festive gatherings at the village temple. Even without professional music training, these formative experiences have fostered a fondness for đờn ca tài tử within them. During the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, when everything came to a standstill, some found time to explore this connection deeper and transition from merely consuming to learning, practicing, and even creating.

Regarding đờn ca tài tử, they are aware that the art form’s biggest barrier is the public’s stigma. Đờn ca tài tử and cải lương are usually thought of as sentimental, obsolete, and inapproachable. Nonetheless, they believe that these are not inherent to the music, but could be the result of the execution and communication, so they try to present đờn ca using a language of the modern society. The performance content is adjusted to reflect more familiar social issues like career pressures, urban ailments, and the mental state of young people. The execution is also refreshed to fit each venue and its audience.

During interaction sessions, even audience members can join in.

The performances at local bars have been especially acclaimed for their high interactivity. Each night is written separately, so actors can improvise their script to fit the particular bar.

Besides, the group has been writing new lyrics based on traditional melodies like lý so they depict the contemporary state of southern provinces. These compositions showcase the cultural, geographical, and social shifts today while retaining the structure and spirit of the original version. Phong showed me a paragraph lionizing VĨnh Long after the national province merger, set to the tune of ‘Lý Đêm Trăng’:

In another video, Phong gives an example of how the group interacted with the audience, via these news lyrics sung in the tune of ‘Lý Chim Xanh”:

Connecting a community of đờn ca enthusiasts

Sustaining an independent folk music troupe is not a cakewalk. Phong explains: “Where to perform and interact with the audience is the biggest struggle. Official venues don’t prioritize grassroots performers, so our activities are often spontaneous and fully independent. Besides, the older generations are still quite wary of our new approach to this old art form.”

A performance at the “Thanh Kiều” exhibition.

Despite the hurdles, the positive reception from Saigoneers is a crucial factor motivating Đờn Ca Đó Đây. Phong proudly tells me about a woman in Đồng Tháp who messaged to gift them sets of brown áo bà ba to boost the authenticity of the performances.

After sharing the clips online, another fan sent over a pack of southern checkered scarves. Not long after, someone else donated more colorful áo ba ba so the group “don’t look so monotonous.” And just like that, clothing items like áo dài, khăn đóng started arriving from across the country to keep their morale high.

Phong also met a Việt Kiều visiting from years abroad at a performance, which moved him to tears, and invited them overseas to participate in cultural exchange programs. On the other hand, right at rustic venues like in public parks, many older uncles and aunties would stop by to listen to music and tear up seeing young people being in touch with folk music.

Through every time they perform, Đờn Ca Đó Đây has learned that the true value behind their music is not dependent on how it’s performed but whether it’s performed with sincerity and if it can bring people together. Đờn ca tài tử and cải lương will continue to exist in any space in the future if that spirit is treasured and sustained.

In the 2010s, my journey to study abroad took me to Singapore. Being a tiny person in an enormous city was a huge undertaking for a teenager, as I had to adapt to countless changes, from minute to major, at once: living in a different language, academic pressures, foreign customs and cuisines, and being away from my family. Gradually, things fell into place. The public transport worked well; the accent got more familiar; and I didn’t miss bánh mì and cơm tấm nearly as much as I thought I would; but there was one thing I never managed to entirely overcome — the bum gun-shaped void in my heart.

Singapore, like many other developed nations in the world, has a toilet paper culture. At the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic, I watched videos of American supermarkets being stampeded by the toilet paper horde in confusion. While I understand the rationale behind the phenomenon, toilet paper has always played such a trivial role in my growing up that it’s never occurred to me how important it could be elsewhere. I am an equal-opportunity hygienist, so I would never shame anyone or any culture for how they choose to service their tushy. You do you lah, Singapore.

Inside a bathroom at Jewel Changi Airport. Notice the miserable lack of bum guns.

However, I don’t need to go into too much detail about how undesirable toilet paper could be: clogging, chafing, fragile plies, abrasive surfaces, poopy finger tips, and not to mention the environmental cost of wood pulps. Bum guns rule with soft power instead of harsh deterrence. Bum guns care about the environment and your comfort. Bum guns will treat you — and your butt — right.

Back then, I would visit home once or twice a year, and, every time, that first spray after a long trip from the airport and months abroad would heal something in me. That water pressure. That laminar flow. That cooling sensation. There’s a certain comfort and privilege in spraying until you’re bored, knowing you have achieved peak cleanliness without checking.

I was not born into this accessible luxury. In the 1990s, most Vietnamese families, mine included, made do with a squat toilet, a water basin, and a big plastic mug. In the 2000s, when we managed to save enough money to renovate our childhood home, a seated toilet and accompanying bum gun became part of the picture for the first time.

A typical Vietnamese toilet in the 1990s.

The presence of bum guns became my personal hallmark to gauge Vietnam’s progress as I traveled across the country. To see if people’s lives got better, a comfortable toilet with a bum gun is usually the first sign. They started appearing at rest stops along highways to Đà Lạt and the Mekong Delta, and at public venues like malls and airports. From a luxury, the bum gun transitioned to a staple amenity at every home.

An assortment of bathrooms at Saigon coffee shops. Recognize any?

Imagine my disbelief when I landed in Changi, widely considered one of the best airports in the world, just to see nary a bum gun in sight. A total eclipse of the butt. I did an informal poll in my social circle. The US, UK, Australia, Canada, Ecuador, China, Taiwan: these are but a few nations existing sans bum guns. While you’re reading this, there are people going about their day in those countries alongside dingleberries.

A vintage bidet in France.

France is often credited with inventing the bidet, nozzles not included. Japan, of course, has built a global reputation for multifunctional smart toilets. Yet it is unclear who invented the bum gun. It might not have been Vietnam, but we have cultivated such a rich bum gun culture that I think it’s high time we take the lead to propagandize the beauty of bum guns to the world. I want bum guns to be a basic human right, the result of a social movement that Vietnam spearheaded. You, too, deserve a squeaky clean ass, comrade.

Summer School, 2001, directed by Czech-Vietnamese writer and director Dužan Duong, was first released last year and has received critical acclaim within the Czech Republic and Europe. Now, the film has come to Vietnam, where it is available in Galaxy, Cinestar, and Beta theaters across Saigon, Hanoi and Đà Nẵng.

Summer School, 2001 (Trường hè, 2001 / Letní škola, 2001) takes place in Cheb, a small town in the Czech Republic near the German border, where a family of Vietnamese immigrants sell cheap counterfeit goods at a local marketplace. It is the summer of 2001. After having spent the past ten years in Vietnam living with his grandparents, 17-year-old Kiên finally returns to unite with his family. He is no longer the child that his parents last saw, but now a grown young man with pierced ears and flashy red-dyed hair. That summer, Kiên and his ten-year-old younger brother Tài attend a local summer school to improve their Czech.

The movie poster.

What unfolds in the course of the film is a family drama, shaped by tensions and antagonisms between the male family members. Kiên despises his father for having sent him away to Vietnam alone, while his father feels increasingly self-conscious and ostracized within the Vietnamese community, not only due to rumors of his involvement in plans to demolish the marketplace, but also for his older son’s unapologetic and eccentric style and appearance — about whom he overhears friends making homophobic comments. The tensions between Kiên and his father also spill over to Kiên’s relationship with his brother, whose need for a hearing aid and its financial costs Kiên seems to blame for why he was sent to Vietnam.

From left to right: Dũng (Doãn Hoàng Anh), Kiên (Bùi Thế Dương), Tài (Tô Tiến Tài), and Lan (Lê Quỳnh Lan). 

The film is structured in three sequences, each told from the perspective of one of the main characters: Kiên’s father Dũng, Kiên’s brother Tài, and Kiên. The film’s structure is no doubt key to its capacity to startle and stagger readers, the ways in which it continuously builds and breaks tension. Each perspective builds upon the others, bringing to light what had previously been unseen, unsaid, unfelt. Indeed, much of the family’s conflicts are fueled by miscommunication, or rather, their aversion to communication. Yet at the same time, one wonders how that could at all have been avoided following a decade of separation.

Saigoneer had the opportunity to speak with Bùi Thế Dương, the actor who play Kiên, who recounted some fascinating aspects of the coming-to-be of the film. Funnily enough, when he was cast for the role of Kiên, the director had no idea that Dương’s own story had a lot in common with Kiên’s. “I was born in Vietnam, and I lived with my parents until I was around four years old. Then they moved to the Czech Republic to work. In my real-life story, they tried to bring me there when I was five or six, but they couldn’t because it was around 2008, and there was the financial crisis and everything, so I wasn’t able to go. Then, when I was 12, they finally brought me there,” he explained. “In that way, my story is kind of similar to the main character in the movie. Of course, it’s not exactly the same as what happens in the film, especially because I arrived later, around 2015, but summer school still exists in many forms. It’s not always literally a school. It can also be a group for people who want to learn Czech. I think my life story isn’t as dramatic as the main character’s, but it’s very similar.”

Having grown up in Vietnam, Kiên finds it hard to adjust to his new life in Europe.

Dương was first cast for a teaser film meant to raise funds for the actual movie, the production of which was not guaranteed at that point. Surprisingly, before Summer School 2001, he had no acting experience, nor did he think he would pursue a career in one. Indeed, he somewhat randomly signed up for auditions after stumbling upon a Facebook post advertising auditions.

Viewers may be surprised to learn that Dương is not the only one who is new to acting in the film. With the exception of two characters — the father and his boss — all of the characters are played by individuals with no prior acting experience; according to Dương, Dužan prefers to call them “naturals” as opposed to “non-professional actors.” This is remarkable, not least of all for the fact that, speaking for myself here, at no point in the film did I ever doubt the actors’ credentials nor feel the acting to be amateurish. This is perhaps most impressive in the performance of child actor Tô Tiến Tài as Kiên’s younger brother Tài, who undertook the seemingly oxymoronic task of performing innocence — and its capacity for both anguish and jubilation.

Tài is a breakout star.

Although the film is almost entirely in Vietnamese, the original script was written entirely in Czech. Given the director’s limited Vietnamese, actors were thus given the ability to improvise and create their own lines, based on the general shape of the plot. In Dương’s case, he did not even read the script: “I saw the script, and I was like, no way.” He elaborated, “Maybe I just love being in front of the camera. I could do it somehow, and it felt natural. I don’t know. Also, Dužan helped me a lot when we were filming.”

The movie also explores Kiên's romantic connection too.

The reception of the film in the Czech Republic has been overwhelmingly positive. The film received eight nominations at the 2025 Czech Lion Awards and was nominated this year for two Czech Film Critics’ Awards. The film’s director Dužan attributes the Czech support and enthusiasm for the film to the fact that it offered an avenue for the Czech public to get a glimpse into the inner life of the Czech-Viet community, who are relied upon for mini-markets that are open all the time, as well as for delicious Vietnamese food, which has become a staple in the Czech food landscape. The beginnings of the Vietnamese population in the Czech Republic roots back to when Vietnam began sending students and workers to what was formerly Czechoslovakia as part of a framework of workforce exchange programs between communist countries. Summer School, 2001 is notable in that it is the first Czech-Vietnamese film with meaningful Vietnamese representation to have been shown in mainstream cinemas in the Czech Republic. 

“When we brought the film to cinemas in the Czech Republic,” Dương remarked, “a lot of people told us, ‘This is the first time I’ve brought my parents to the cinema.’ Before, their parents didn’t speak Czech, so going to the cinema wasn’t really something they did.” And in fact, that was precisely the experience of Dương’s own family with the film. He recalled the experience: “Afterward, they were all crying. They came to me, hugged me, and I felt so grateful to have been part of the movie. Actually, I think maybe we broke through a thin wall between us. As I said, I didn’t live with them throughout my childhood, so for some periods we didn’t get along very well. The movie gave us a chance to sit down and really talk to each other.”

Childhood and family connection are two main themes of Summer School, 2001.

Of course, the film will inevitably carry different meanings for audiences in Vietnam and the Czech Republic. But for Dương, at its core, the message of the film remains the same. “The film is actually about a family struggling with a lack of communication and connection, and in the end, they find their way back to each other. That was something I also talked about in the Czech Republic, because a lot of parents there don’t have enough time for their kids. I think it’s similar in Vietnam, too. Usually, parents go out to work while the kids are at school or home alone. I wouldn’t say that breaks the relationship, but it can make it harder to build a strong connection… Their love language is often, ‘I’m taking care of you.’ But kids also need emotional connection and family bonding. I hope people can become closer to each other, or maybe talk more, after watching the movie. Yeah, that’s the whole point of the film.”

Images courtesy of Spring Auteurs.

While phasing in and out of sleep on a coach in the Mekong Delta, have you ever been jolted awake by the bouncing beats of a Vinahouse version of ‘Quê em mùa nước lũ’ (Flooding Season in My Hometown)? Or, a mindless TikTok scroll would bring up the catchy tune of ‘Lấy cây kim may đồ’ (Pass Me the Sewing Needle) that’s trending nationwide.

As an emerging genre, miền Tây remix has seeped everywhere in our daily life, from nhậu spots to wedding receptions, from street karaoke to social media charts. The thunderous bass is accompanied by a dulcet vocalist crooning about the colorful life along the Mekong Delta and making everyone curious about the southern way of life. How has miền Tây remix managed to charm even segments of the society that are usually indifferent to it?

Image via YouTube channel Miền Tây Remix.

Miền Tây, but not remixed, yet

Đờn ca tài tử is perhaps the most recognized art form to come out of the rich musical landscape of the Mekong Delta through history. The genre attracts listeners thanks to its layered instrumentation and distinctive singing style. Musical instruments like đàn kìm, đàn cò, đàn tranh and đàn bầu often accompany đờn ca tài tử performances using the pentatonic scale (hò xự xang xê cống).

It’s also important to note that, right from its early days, đờn ca tài tử has never been confined to stuffy amphitheaters, but was born right at drinking sessions and fields huts after fieldwork was done. The fundamentals of southern music have always been rooted in the community, its core principles forged on kinship and human connection. This festive spirit helps propel the traditional sounds of the south right into today’s entertainment sensibilities.

Đờn ca tài tử is a major part of music culture in the south. Photo via TTX Vietnam.

Remix never dies

Southern Vietnamese are notoriously convivial, and this conviviality means that they often do not care for the distinction between old and new. Music in the south is born for the party table, so when the time requires it to evolve to be more energetic, đờn ca and its traditional peers will rise to the occasion via different evolutions. The miền Tây remix trend stems from this need to electronify southern tunes.

Riding the wave of electronic music, countryside DJs started to reshape folk melodies into upbeat remixes that are familiar yet livelier to satisfy the need for club bangers. A melodramatic and tragic cải lương classic like Võ Đông Sơ - Bạch Thu Hà even got remixed three times.

Miền Tây remix is specifically created for festive, rambunctious occasions, especially wedding parties or Tết gatherings. In the Mekong region, weddings are major milestones that can stretch for two or three days of revelry, feasting, dancing, and singing by the newlyweds, their families and guests. Unsuspecting visitors during these periods might be easily swept up by the “tornado of hospitality” distinctive to miền Tây. Southerners are welcoming by nature, but with a little alcohol in their system, everybody becomes family in their eyes. Anyone who’s been to a Mekong wedding, be it Vietnamese from other regions or foreign travelers, would leave with perhaps some of the strangest memories of their life, ones that are filled with miền Tây remix earworms that are both folksy and high-energy.

Most remix songs are characterized by a fast-paced, repetitive beat and straightforward lyrics that are easy to learn, guess and follow along — especially engineered so the crowd can get into the mood and sing along as quickly as possible. The climax is the most anticipated moment, when everyone holds their breaths for a few seconds before exploding in cheer when the beat drops, despite not knowing how the music will transform. Critics are usually leery of miền Tây remix because of its formulaic recipe, which is not an unfair assessment, but that is by design.

Miền Tây remixes are often criticized as lacking creativity due to their repetitive beats, overused melodies, and cliched themes, but those attributes help the songs stay simple and easy to memorize so they can appeal to the narrow common denominator of the mass. If one can put aside the need for artistic merits, it might be easier to accept that these musical formulae are very effective tools to connect people, thereby helping the songs achieve their human-centered mission.

A musical identity rooted in marrying and drinking

Knowing the music taste of miền Tây listeners, songwriters often focus on the theme of relationships in the lyrics, such as weddings, watching an old flame marry a new lover, or pulling an all-nighter boozing with the squad. Regardless of the topic, the melody must be catchy, lest the remixer steal one’s thunder by attracting more attention with a banger makeover.’

Nhậu, romance, and weddings are the content pillars of miền Tây remix. Image via YouTube channel AC Media and G5R Remix.

Some examples of romance-forward narratives include ‘Muốn cua anh làm bồ’ (I want to woo you) by Dương Ái Vy: “Nè gật đầu cho suôn, sang năm mình làm đám cưới luôn / Hey just give me a nod upfront, next year we’ll wed at once.” In ‘Rồi tới luôn’ (Take the next step) by Nal, the courting is even bolder: “Em ơi em ở đâu anh mang trầu cau qua anh rước dâu luôn / Baby where are you, I’ll bring the trầu cau over to ask for your hand.” Phát Hồ is even more eager to get hitched in ‘Yêu là cưới’ (To love is to marry): “Yêu là cưới trên dưới hai là làm sui, rượu bia chơi láng chín tháng mười ngày có cục cưng nuôi / To love is to marry. Our parents will be in-laws. When the drinks flow freely, nine months are all it takes for a baby.”

In a different context, the genre shifts to fully celebrate booze and nhậu culture, like in ‘Hết sảy miền Tây’ (Miền Tây the GOAT) by Tracy Thảo My: “Anh cứ nhậu thoải mái, có xỉn em vào thay / Baby just drink to your heart’s content, once you’re down I’ll take your place.” This track’s bright spot is how it incorporates traditional cải lương tunes to accompany tongue-in-cheek lyrics that stay true to the youthful spirits of today. ‘Lại say nữa rồi’ (Drunk again) by Võ Lê Mi, on the other hand, playfully features “hic” sounds in the production to emulate the comical hiccups of drunkenness.

Each of the above-mentioned hits amasses anything from several to dozens of millions of views on YouTube, proof of their catchiness and virality. For sure, these impressive figures are impossible to achieve without the contributions of the constant streaming of barber shops, lunchtime meals beside a mug of sweet tea, boisterous feasts, and the playlist of children of the Mekong bringing their hometowns’ favorite tunes to Saigon.

Reinforcing the southern identity visually

Besides employing familiar southern folk music and lyrical narratives, miền Tây-style electronic also lionizes the region’s cultural identity via visual language, especially in the music videos accompanying the songs.

While the original video usually tells the story via a skit, such as ‘Lại say nữa rồi’ (Drunk Again), the remixed version will opt for a different direction.

In the remix, Võ Lê Mi decided to take her music as close as possible to its real-life application by re-enacting an entire Mekong-style wedding. The bride wears a festive gown and gold bracelets all across her arms while dancing her heart out on stage with a mug of beer. This would not be a foreign sight if you’ve been to any wedding party in miền Tây.

If a wedding scene is not the first choice, then it would definitely be a countryside landscape, complete with elements often seen in rural Mekong, such as straw mounds and bamboo thickets. In Tracy Thảo My’s music video, such tranquil scenes play background to her hip sways and hand gestures.

In conclusion, both the music and visual sides of miền Tây remix closely follow the people’s everyday culture, be it well-recognized landscapes or energetic wedding parties — with the added dance moves from clubs and discos.

From the southwest to the world

Miền Tây electronic doesn’t need a coat of glamorizing paint to exist today. The genre finds inspiration in the familiar sounds from the past and reshapes them into simple, straightforward remixes so accessible that anybody can vibe to them, even if it is their first listen. Over time, these tunes have transcended the boundaries of matrimonies or family feasts to infect streaming services and the general public.

When a female DJ known for her hip-hop work wants to fire up a set especially curated to spotlight Mekong wedding culture, she would proudly invest in a bà ba pajamas set, checkered scarves, and golden bracelets, just to complete the visuals often associated with a southern party.

The rising popularity of miền Tây remix is best demonstrated in TikTok’s trendy dance challenges, where new music can spread at the speed of sound. Once a 15-second chorus goes viral thanks to a famous creator’s video, countless others would join in. Thanks to its inherently catchy melodies, miền Tây remix is welcoming to everyone. From edgy rappers to showbiz darlings, I’ve seen many instances where social media users dance to songs that seemingly do not match their vibes.

‘Lấy cây kim may đồ’ is a miền Tây remix track that went viral on TikTok. Video via TikTok user @thuanzilo.

The most interesting phenomenon for me when it comes to the social impacts of miền Tây remix is how a friend once admitted to me that she really needs miền Tây electronic to… focus on her homework. “I can only focus with this upbeat kind of music. It hits hard but also is kind of monotonous, making me feel awake,” she said. Perhaps this could be an untapped potential for miền Tây music, a brand-new kind of white noise to help young Vietnamese focus?

Is there a meet-cute more characteristically Saigon than a motorbike breakdown and subsequent friendly assist from a stranger?

Such is the premise of how Mơ and Vicky, the romantic interests in the indie short film Saigon Kiss, encountered each other amidst this bustling city of 10 million souls. Saigon Kiss is the brainchild of writer and director Nguyễn Hồng Anh, and producers Nguyễn Thị Xuân Trang and Andrew Lee.

Director Nguyễn Hồng Anh (right) on set.

The film chronicles a chance encounter between martial arts instructor Mơ (Nguyễn Vũ Trúc Như) and dancer Vicky (Thương Lê) right on the street of Saigon — hawk-eyed Saigoneers would immediately recognize Thị Nghè Bridge as the venue for this budding romance to bloom. When Vicky’s scooter malfunctions, she is noticed by Mơ and receives the latter’s help to push the bike to a corner repair shop. While waiting for the fix, they get to talking and bonding over their life passions for martial arts and dance.

Nominating bridges as the most romantic venue in Saigon to meet new people.

Edited with a crisp, cozy palette that can pass for a Honda commercial, Saigon Kiss is a quintessential Saigon romance, from the setting, title, to how our queer leads meet. One could also argue that the fact that it’s a same-sex story is also very Saigon, the unofficial queer capital of Vietnam. A “Saigon kiss,” as the production team defines, is a small burn on the inner right calf, typically caused by accidentally bumping into the sizzling exhaust pipe of a motorbike.

Bonding over getting your bike fixed is way better than Tinder.

Saigon Kiss had its international premiere at the 46^th Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2024, where it clinched a Special Mention by the Queer Jury. The short was also screened at the BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival in the UK.

Nguyễn Vũ Trúc Như plays Mơ and Thương Lê plays Vicky.

“Saigon Kiss is an attempt to take a snapshot of a rapidly changing modern metropolis,” director Hồng Anh writes in the director’s statement. “Like the city, both protagonists, Mơ and Vicky, currently find themselves in a transitional period. Both struggle to find room for themselves to reflect. However, despite the ever-changing landscape and fast pace of this place, they find solace and tenderness in each other's company.”

Watch the short film's trailer below:

Photos courtesy of Saigon Kiss.

“Tenderly, fondly, Xuân Diệu held on to my wrist, caressing it up and down. Our eyes locked in affection…Xuân Diệu loved me.”

This emotive sentence is an excerpt from writer Tô Hoài’s memoir Cát Bụi Chân Ai, published in 1992. Most well-known for the children’s book Diary of a Cricket, Hoài is one of Vietnam’s most prolific writers, with over 100 literary works in a range of genres. During the First Indochina War, Tô Hoài and Xuân Diệu were stationed in the remote border areas, where they formed a close bond that might have blossomed into something more, according to Hoài’s recollection in the memoir.

Xuân Diệu.

Across modern history, there are accounts and written records that show Tô Hoài wasn’t Xuân Diệu’s only romantic interest. He also has a relationship with poet Hoàng Cát. Through his tender stanzas, Diệu has professed his love for a number of male contemporaries, despite homosexuality being deemed a deviant illness by much of society at the time. Perhaps that’s a major factor why his poetry is drenched in longing and a hopeless sense of loneliness.

It has been almost four decades since Xuân Diệu passed away, and we can only learn of his life and relationships via poems and anecdotes. A significant portion of Xuân Diệu’s oeuvre belongs to the love poetry genre, so it’s natural that the fragments we can now glean from his life might help soothe a new generation of Vietnamese experiencing love the same way Diệu once did.

The king of love poetry

Ngô Xuân Diệu was born in 1916 in Bình Định. His literary talent flourished early. When he was 21 years old, he became the youngest member of Tự Lực Văn Đoàn, or the Self-Reliant Literary Group in English, a collective of distinguished writers in the mid-20^th century. Diệu was introduced to the public by earlier member Thế Lữ as a “wunderkind” with “a radiant and ardent soul living in gentle yet sensual, passionate yet impulsive verses.”

Xuân Diệu is the only member of Tự Lực Văn Đoàn who was honored with a street in Vietnam. Photos by Linh Phạm.

And what did that “radiant soul” imbue in his poetry? According to Associate Professor Trần Văn Toàn of the Modern Vietnam Literature department at the Hanoi National University of Education, there is ample evidence of same-sex romance in Xuân Diệu’s poems.

Toàn explains: “For example, in the poem ‘Với bàn tay ấy’ [lit: With that hand] dedicated to Huy Cận, the couplet ‘with your hand holding mine / the pain of my days subsides’ has the sentiments of a lover’s sweet nothings. An intimate atmosphere permeates the poem.”

He also quotes a handful of other doting lines such as “On a dark night, full of clouds / a tree seeks a flower, bending down / the flower seeks the grass, while the grass / leans on the moss, night enshrouds” — as if the entire universe is in love, folding in within itself. The passion reaches a crescendo in the last two lines: “Beneath the joyous moon, my gaze still seeking / the trace of that hand within mine.”

It is widely believed that Xuân Diệu (left) and Huy Cận (right) shared something more than friendship. Later on, Huy Cận married Ngô Xuân Như (middle), Diệu's sister.

Professor Toàn shares another example of Xuân Diệu, in the poem ‘Tương tư, chiều…’ [lit: Afternoon longing…], there are lines like:

One might easily interpret this as the love profession of a heterosexual relationship, but in Xuân Diệu’s first poetry collection Thơ thơ (Poésies), this poem is positioned right before ‘Với bàn tay ấy.’ The last line of ‘Tương tư, chiều…’ seems to have a smooth connection with the first line of ‘Với bàn tay ấy’:

Toàn believes that there could be a thematic progression that reflects a same-sex subtext quite clearly. When Thơ thơ was published in 1938, Xuân Diệu was also writing Chàng với chàng, or Man and Man. Unfortunately, this collection was never published.

When Thơ thơ was published in 1938, Xuân Diệu was also writing Chàng với chàng, or Man and Man. Unfortunately, this collection was never published.

However, these traces of same-sex affection were not mentioned when Xuân Diệu was alive. They were only recognized later on after stories of the poet’s private relationships were publicized. According to Professor Toàn, this obfuscation could be explained by the societal context of the time, as for an extended period of time the mindset of Vietnamese readers was entrenched in the depths of heteronormative culture.

A view from education

Each reader can form their own interpretation when faced with literary texts, but in the context of Vietnam’s public institutions, a “standardized” viewpoint is often imposed on students. That perspective can alienate some students who might not belong to the norm.

Trần Nhật Quang, an officer in charge of the LGBTI rights program at the Institute for Studies of Society, Economics and Environment (iSEE), says of his own experience learning about Xuân Diệu in school: “When we were taught his poetry, I heard talk that Xuân Diệu might not be straight. So when my teacher went through the lesson and mentioned how Xuân Diệu was into some lady, I felt a little annoyed inside. Because I thought that it was an incorrect literary interpretation, especially rendered through the teacher’s lens of male-female heterosexuality. Everyone was taught that love is just something between a man and a woman, but to me, love is so much more than that.”

In 2018, Quang collaborated with Hà Nội Queer, a group of young people passionate about changing the public perception of the LGBTQ community in Vietnam. Quang created scripts for the project’s informative videos on Vietnam’s queer history. He explains that after he could hear more stories about his community through history including that of Xuân Diệu, that childhood frustration turns into contentment.

Xuân Diệu (right) and Huy Cận (left).

“I was very happy to learn about such episodes of history, knowing that in actuality, there are many figures in the literature syllabus or elsewhere that were not as heterosexual as the teachers were saying,” Quang recalls. “I could somehow see myself in those lessons in class because they have always referred to heterosexual love when teaching about love, so I never felt myself in those lectures, I didn’t feel that I belonged to whatever was being taught.”

Regarding the vague discussion of Xuân Diệu’s orientation in a pedagogical setting, Professor Toàn says that he could understand the teachers’ reservation in alluding to same-sex love because it still generates polarizing views in the community. But personally, Toàn actively encourages his students to research and discuss this aspect of Xuân Diệu’s life when teaching his poetry.

“When I teach, I myself do mention it [Xuân Diệu’s same-sex relationships],” he shares. “Because I think it’s a factor that will help us gain a deeper understanding into the realm of emotions encapsulated in Xuân Diệu’s poetry.”

“Moreover, this discussion will also help students learn how to behave in an environment with diversity. How we treat people who are different from us defines our culture.”

From forbidden to accepted

During Xuân Diệu’s era, homosexual relationships were marginalized, even demonized. Phạm Khánh Bình, Hà Nội Queer’s co-founder, explains: “Before, the word ‘same sex’ didn’t exist, they [homosexual people] were referred to as ái nam, ái nữ [lit: hermaphrodite]. And it’s in my understanding that people view it as something unscrupulous, deviant, debauched, or even perverted. So there’s no doubt that LGBT people back then would feel suffocated, especially when your own identity is seen as something sick, something sinful.”

In the memoir Cát Bụi Chân Ai, Tô Hoài writes that, for two nights in a row, Xuân Diệu was disciplined for fraternization. He was heavily chastised, and not a single soul, not even his friends or alleged lovers, stood up for him. Xuân Diệu didn’t deny the charges, just “said through his tears 'that’s my man love… my man love…!' At once, he couldn’t speak anymore, tears filled his eyes, but he resolutely did not make any promise to stop.”

The villa at 24 Cột Cờ (now Điện Biên Phủ street) in Hanoi where Xuân Diệu and Huy Cận used to stay.

Perhaps, living through those hardships, to Xuân Diệu, “to love, is to die a little bit inside.” But even then, he continued to love, and to spread that love in his poetry. Such self-honesty turns his story into priceless materials for people like Quang and Bình to share with their community. 

“When I learned that there are queer, non-conforming people in our books, in our history, I felt represented, and I realized that Vietnam is actually very diverse,” Quang says. “And when members of our community know that somewhere in our history, there are people who were like them, those who differed from the labels out there, people will feel that they belong — it’s a time-transcending connection.”

This article was originally published in 2023.

“Cooped up in my apartment-cage in Tân Định, I created, with scissors and glue, dummy after dummy of a cosmopolitan rag positively pumping with scandals and half-truths. I was having a lot of fun dreaming of a magazine that I would never be able to do. And buried somewhere in that detritus on the floor—advertising cutouts and newspaper clippings—was Yellow … Once I knew I had the name, the magazine more or less made itself, as though the name determined the rest, ie, form and content,” writes Minh Bui of the birth of Yellow, his “what-do-I-do-after-Mekong Review magazine.”

Mekong Review holds a special place in the hearts of many Saigoneers. Filled with insightful reportage, book reviews, photography, and a smattering of fiction and poetry, the full size newwprint magazine focused on the Mekong Region. Since its founding in 2015, it provided a platform to writers and topics that are otherwise overlooked, particularly in a large, delightfully tactical format. For a variety of reasons, it has been much harder to find new issues of the Mekong Review in Vietnam during the past few years, and Minh sold it in 2022, leaving avid supporters to wonder what he would do next. Yellow is the answer.

Minh Bui Jones opens the Mekong Review a month before the idea for Yellow. Photo by Vi Nguyen via Yellow's Substack.

Modelled on Granta and Freeman's, Yellow, which will be published twice a year, made its debut in early May. Each issue will feature fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from award-winning authors and emerging writers from Southeast Asia and beyond, centered around a theme as announced by each title. The first issue is “Parents.” 

In the first issue’s Letter from the editor, Minh shares a heartwarming experience of finding comfort on an impromptu visit to his mom’s favorite city, and concludes: “That’s one of my ‘parent stories.’ We all have one, or more. Not all of them are happy, as some of the stories in this collection attest. But, for better or worse, as Anjan Sundaram writes, they make us who we are. Welcome to Yellow. I hope the magazine speaks for itself. And I hope it speaks to you, dear reader.”

“Parents” contains 11 stories and one photo essay with a diversity of styles, voices, and topics, as is characteristic of the literary magazine format. Best absorbed slowly, piece by piece, some stories might not connect with you while others strike a deep chord; that hodgepodge nature is one of the particular joys of the genre. Inherent in that diversity is the sense that each entry on the table of contents shimmers with the unknown, and nothing in one piece will clue you in as to what follows. In this way, reading a literary magazine is a bit like opening packages. 

Saigoneer won’t spoil the experience by offering any greater detail about what awaits in stories about Indonesia’s last dugong hunters, a son who connects with his mother via old recordings of Vietnamese theatre plays, and one of the architects of Malaysia’s modern history education. Or, as Minh offered in typically self-deprecating fashion, on the journal’s Substack as “Sweet, sad and poignant stories about parents. Like I said, boring, predictable lit mag.”

More information about Yellow, including how to subscribe and find copies, is available on the journal’s website.

Having always been a little brother, I had to learn to be a big one when I was 10 years old. In the midst of the confusion of this new role, I found myself pressing my nose to this newborn’s head and inhaling as hard as I could. This “sniff kiss” was not an action I invented. Rather, it was an instinct forged through mimicry: I started noticing from this point that my father and grandmother both did the same thing to me.

As a kid from the diaspora, I lost myself in thoughts over one poem I could relate to within my deepest senses. It's written by renowned Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong, titled ‘Kissing in Vietnamese.’ I felt for the first time that there might be something bigger than me behind this peculiar habit that I thought was idiosyncratic. Vuong shares his experience with those sniff kisses, which he contrasts with western ones and their flashier display of affection. But this modesty makes the intimacy not less intense, as described in this part of the poem:

In researching my heritage to get to root of this habit, I have found that those kisses seem to be typical of Vietnamese people, anchored in the culture. Another aspect of the kiss that is shown here is that it’s usually done by family elders. There are similar customs in many Southeast Asia, according to a study that uses lexical semantic typology through “smell/kiss colexification” to demonstrate that the practice is unique to this region. It actually was a culture shock for European colonizers when they came to Southeast Asia, and many mentioned the quirk in their writings.

The entry for “hôn” (kissing) in the Annamite-French dictionary by Jean Bonet (1899). The description reads: “The olfactory kiss (by inhaling strongly through the nostrils as the Annamites do).”

For me it was never really about my cultural background; rather, it was a vital tool to feel and express affection in my own way. My feelings for it were straightforward: I liked the purity of inhaling the scent of my loved ones, as a way to sense them over and over. At the same time, as Vuong captures in his poem, the kiss could be fierce, born from an endless worry for those dearest to me that can only be soothed by this reassurance of life.

The sniff kiss had become so visceral for me that its cultural implication wasn't clear to me for a long time. It turned into a blurry concept in my mind, midway between an expression of love and a physical scent. The eccentricity of the quirk convinced me it was something my family and I made up, regardless of any country’s traditions. Even now, each time I tilt my head towards my grandmother, so she can sniff my forehead, I am reminded that in all of us there are dormant customs whose existence is beyond us.

Lê Phổ, ‘La Maternité,’ circa 1940s. 

It is up to us to uncover these hidden parts of our heritage by noticing that, be it over time or from a significant event, it is actually an inherited behavior. It might be hard, or even futile, but I find it beautiful that through an autoethnographic process, we can dig out an ancestral link from within each of us about how we love.

Tattoo Therapist, dr.99hz, cd.cadao, goc.viet, Solarist and Baby Nepotism: listing the artists that call Th.ink Room home feels like shouting out the members of a rap clique. Indeed, tattoo artists, more than any other visual artists, are akin to rappers in their use of pseudonyms, so to employ a common hip-hop refrain, Saigoneer became interested in Th.ink Room because “game recognize game.”

Like Saigoneer, the studio, or “art hub for art lovers from all over the world” as they describe it, is dedicated to gathering inspiration from Vietnamese architecture, design motifs, flora, fauna, and history; preserving traditional artwork; telling stories about and through niche passions and forefronting creative expression, united by, as Phi (@tattoo.therapist) puts it, “the ethos of an ever-curious observer, and an ever-diligent maker.”

For such a permanent end result, tattooing too frequently involves an impulsive or careless process and experience. Phi founded Th.ink Room in 2023 to actively work against both, emphasizing, “we care about the whole experience, starting from your connection to the tattoo you are getting and its origins to your artist to how you feel after you leave.”  

Phi (tattoo.therapist) and their designs.

I experienced the studio’s thoughtful approach first-hand last year after seeking out Phi’s detailed black line work. Having grown up in Russia, they were heavily influenced by Europe's golden age of illustration (circa 1880s–1930s). With that inspiration in mind, they developed their signature style while studying art in the UK, but upon graduation, they encountered a market that had little interest in it; clients had moved from print books to websites and wanted color and full images without backgrounds and/or animation. Fortuitously timed requests from friends for tattoo designs introduced the possibility of becoming a tattoo artist. 

Golden age of illustration examples: ‘Then There Came a Wind So Strong that it Blew Off Curdken's Hat’ by Jennie Harbour (left) and ‘Reigning Death’ by Robert Montenegro (right).

During that visit, Phi explained the carefully curated design of the District 1 space. Situated in a classic, low-slung residential block partially repurposed for commercial use, the lobby’s raw clay color calls to mind pottery and the shaping of inspiration into tactile ideas. Clients then proceed to the stark red interior room, where those ideas are metaphorically fired and become permanent. The back garden — where artists and clients hang out before, during, and after sessions — meanwhile, embodies the calm and welcoming vibe that transcends the space. Tattoo artists, with their impressive talent in an art form that, despite increasing mainstream acceptance, continues to carry a hint of rebellion or danger, can be intimidating, but everyone at Th.ink Room is a sweetheart, which contributes to an effortlessly relaxed vibe.

The Th.ink Room lobby and studio space.

So much work; that's Vietnam

A man catching a dragonfly in a tree, a physician checking for a pulse, a hand-pulled wedding procession, a rural notice-board demanding “commit no nuisance,” and 15 types of shoes: these are amongst the thousands of woodblock images produced by 19^th-century French ethnographer Henri Oger and his local team. Saigoneer had written about the work several years ago and recently noticed selected images appearing on Th.ink Room’s Instagram page as available tattoos. 

Original Henri Oger images (top) and Vũ's (@goc.viet) tattoo designs (bottom).

“This is what started it all. I really liked it and was like, who did this?” Phi noted while showing some Oger illustrations that they had come across in an artwork anthology. Inspired to find more, they sought out a tattered copy of his work at a local book shop. “Actually, I nerd it out so hard on this,” Phi said while flipping through illustrations. “Look at that guy, he's wonderful!” they continued while pointing to one of the images and explaining how the single slim volume contained hundreds of illustrations and thus inspiration “So much work; this is just Vietnam,” they concluded. 

Some of the books kept at Th.ink Room.

While online resources help the Th.ink Room team explore their interests and sources of inspiration that range far beyond Vietnam, when it comes to local topics, antique shops have been a part of their process since the beginning. “We used to drive Trần Nhân Tôn Street, which is an antique street, and they have books there as well. We'd look through things that we thought would make good tattoos, and it sort of became a tradition,” Phi explained of early field trips with Trung (@dr.99hz).

Designs and final work by Trung (@dr.99hz).

Those books now get handed over to Vũ (@goc.viet), a young artist whom Phi had mentored at the studio. “I have materials available from books, and I take designs out of them to make tattoos. I research the contexts: which time period they belong to and how the characters are drawn,” Vũ explained of the works he makes and shares on the Instagram account goc.viet, a name that he explained as “here ‘goc’ means both ‘perspective/corner’ and ‘roots/origin,’ so that people will know who we are — we are people born here and we are Vietnamese. And most of the designs I explore are from within Vietnam, even just a certain corner of Vietnam is fine.”

Vũ at work.

Works by Oger and his team, those collected by Nguyễn Thị Thu Hòa, various unfortunately uncredited drawings, such as ones in the margins of revolutionary South Vietnam: the Struggle newspapers from the 1960s and 1970s, or classic Đông Hồ prints — all require alterations to become suitable tattoo designs. Because of their age and printing methods, details are often lost, so Vũ needs to research the image’s purpose, background, and the conventions of the time it was produced to fill in details such as facial expressions and hand positions while making adjustments for line widths to suit the tattoo medium. Within the laborious examination of what to adjust and how, there is also room to include some personal touches. For example, I had requested a portion of the classic Thầy Đồ Cóc (toad teacher) đông hồ and Vũ adjusted its skin texture while Phi advocated for it to have a bigger butt and more impressive steam coming off the tea kettle. Comparing the original and the finished tattoo makes the final product feel like both a matter of preservation and a conversation between artists across time. 

Example of full Thầy Đồ Cóc đông hồ and Vũ's completed tattoo.

More than simply creating works that he hopes will attract customers, Vũ’s recycling of past artists is a matter of pride. “I am Vietnamese, so when I see those images, they remind me of the things my grandparents or parents told me — things I had only heard about before. But today, seeing them in these books, I find them very interesting, yet no one had [made tattoos from them] before. This style of imagery has also been around for a very long time, but no one has developed it further; people just let it be forgotten. Over time, I want to convey it and let everyone know more about the activities of Vietnamese people in the past; these are things that will remain and continue to exist.”

Vũ's designs based on collected đông hồ illustrations.

In addition to his goc.viet account, Vũ operates the vznary account where he posts original artwork that shares some resemblance to his archival pieces but also allows him to explore other impulses. Th.ink Room considers it important to differentiate between tattoo artists (nghệ sĩ xăm) who design original pieces and tattoo technicians (thợ xăm) who execute already existent designs, while emphasizing that one is not better or more valuable than the other, and they both require mastery of different, difficult skills. 

Sample issue of South Vietnam in Struggle newspaper (left) and Vũ's tattoo designs based on the periodical (right).

When using outside images, technicians must be extremely careful, though. Phi has noticed that many in Vietnam and abroad are eager to follow trends and fads and will thus steal ideas and exact designs from living artists who are still around and able to make a living from creations that are incontestably theirs. Not only is such behavior unethical, it's also unneeded. “Here lies an enormous, beautiful graveyard of past illustrators and printmakers whose work is brilliant but lost. Many of these can be reworked into tattoos as a humble nod to our past masters, giving them a second life in a world that is getting further and further away from print,” they conclude. In such instances, the Th.ink Room team makes every effort to provide citations, including source, date, and artist when possible, that they include on their Instagram and share with the clients along with assurance they will never repeat the design on anyone else. Of course, this material cannot be included in the tattoo itself, and thus it’s up to each individual to share the story behind their ink.

Finding inspiration for styles vast yet distinct 

Ngọc feeds goats, the team hangs out in the zoo, Vũ holds a flower, and Trang imitates a statue in Tao Đàn Park.

Fostering warm, memorable experiences, a core mission of Th.ink Room, requires members of the team to genuinely like and appreciate one another, a truth attested to by how frequently they gather outside of the studio. “We spend days together,” Phi said of their routine field trips. “We sit in the same space, but are drawn to different things in those spaces and the different textures.”

Examples of photos the team sends one another.

In addition to these trips to the park, the zoo, interesting buildings, and corners of the city with particular energies, they are frequently sending photos and links to one another, serving as “each other's eyes.” Animals, ducks, and dogs get sent to Trung; prints and illustrations on vases or ceramics go to Vũ; and Vietnamese architectural elements, patterns, and motifs go to Trang (@cd.cadao).

Trang at work.

“At first, [my style] stemmed from the fact that I just liked ethnic patterns because I spent some time going to the highlands and saw the people there embroidering very beautiful patterns on their clothing. Later on, as I worked and learned about the meaning of these patterns and about the different ethnic groups, I found it very interesting, and I could learn a lot more about the culture, and about the specific techniques,” explained Trang of her handpoke designs. Her method of engaging with past artwork is less one of ethnographic preservation and more a matter of finding inspiration. Ethnic minority embroideries and motifs mingle with organic elements, typography and architecture to become wholly original works. “I draw inspiration from everything — I could listen to a song, read a poem, or read a newspaper… Then it comes along with my memories, my emotions, my own thoughts, and inadvertently, it becomes relatable to everyone.” 

Able to offer explanations and academic sources for many of her influences, Trang creates work that is, according to Phi, “very well researched; she can speak about it in a lot of detail.” Of course, no one needs to know the context, details and story behind an image to appreciate it, let alone permanently put it on one’s body, but Th.ink Room believes there is intrinsic value in knowing more. It’s a matter of curiosity about the world. “I don't think there's anything wrong with not being curious, but I think it just makes things better; you just end up learning more,” Phi explained. 

Trang's (@cd.cadao) flash designs surrounded by finished pieces.

One of Saigoneer’s illustrators can surely speak on the story behind the tattoo she got from Trang, having selected one based on our logo, which was meticulously scouted before being selected several years ago. And while currently Saigoneer only boasts three tattoos from Th.ink Room artists, there is a trend amongst clients for more. As Vy (@babynepotism) explained, some regular guests have gotten work from each Th.ink Room artist and many that come for guest residencies. Members of the team have also begun experimenting with collaboration on single works. The first piece Vy had done, for example, involves Trang’s patterns and vegetation alongside Trung’s butterflies and bees. Meanwhile, Vũ and Ngọc have begun collaborating on ideas that combine his archival pieces with her coloring. 

Vy's collaborative tattoo from Trang and Trung (left) and a collaborative design from Vu and Ngọc (right).

This collaborative ethos extends to Th.ink Room’s lobby, where, alongside the collection of archival texts and various books and zines, are products from local creators for sale. Dyed fabrics, buttons, prints, and photos, as well as random items that members of Th.ink Room make, are available, as well as pro-Palestine fundraiser pieces. The eclectic shop space reflects Th.ink Room’s desire not to be seen as only a tattoo studio, which is underscored by its name. While it includes “ink” it doesn’t explicitly say “tattoo,” and the large Thinker statue at the entrance suggests a different way to interpret it. Such versatility coincides with the space hosting art, music, and community events. 

The Th.ink Room team.

Th.ink Room’s perspective on art, originality, and creativity seems particularly relevant today when AI is upending not just how artists make money, but society’s relationship with creativity in general. It seems to me that too many people are eager to outsource their creativity to computers that gobble up sources for commodification while individuals abandon the curiosity that compelled them to make or appreciate art in the first place. While Phi may have concerns about AI, they are not worried about creativity. “Our collective culture is unimaginably rich. I do not personally believe that creativity is dead or ever will be; you can see how vast yet distinct it has always been, by looking back.”

Written by Saturday Night Live alum Tina Fey and premiered in 2004, Mean Girls is often heralded as a sharp, self-aware comedy that was ahead of its time, yet still holds up surprisingly well today. Alas, its depiction of Asians has aged a little more poorly, even though at the time of its release, the Asian representation was shockingly accurate for its time, despite some haphazard characterizations.

In Mean Girls, a previously home-schooled Cady Heron was plopped back into an American high school after 12 years in Africa. The film follows her fish-out-of-water experiences as she learns how to navigate the complex politics and shenanigans of high school.

For Vietnamese kids with limited exposure to American culture like me, this premise was incredibly helpful because we were all Cadys ourselves: all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed to explore American school culture.

During lunch, Cady is introduced to the geopolitical map of the school canteen, where cliques are divided into different tables like world sovereigns. Amongst the Plastics, Unfriendly Black Hotties, and Sexually Active Band Geeks is the Cool Asians, spearheaded by its leader Trang Pak and deputy Sun Jin Dinh.

Trang Pak (Ky Pham) in red tank top and Sun Jin Dinh (Danielle Nguyen) in black shirt with pink letters.

This is where Mean Girls first failed its Asians: while both characters are Vietnamese, their names are a hodgepodge of Vietnamese and Korean names. I have to give the casting credits for hiring actual Vietnamese to play them, however: Ky Pham plays Trang Pak and Danielle Nguyen plays Sun Jin Dinh.

Trang Pak caught making out with Coach Carr.

Later in the film, we discover that the rumor that Trang made out with Coach Carr is, in fact, true and he was grooming her. I have mixed feelings. Nonetheless, the film’s top Vietnamese representation comes later, during a group therapy session in the gym where the girls are encouraged to have a heart-to-heart to make peace.

This obviously failed the Bechdel Test, but I found it delightful that the lines were delivered in Vietnamese, and fairly decipherable Vietnamese at that. I suspect the actresses improvised the lines themselves, because Tina Fey cannot be trusted with writing for non-white characters.

However, this is where Mean Girls failed its Asian the second time: Trang’s second line was mistranslated in the subtitle as “N****, please,” making her look like a racist for no reason.

“Let’s go to Vietnam!” declared Sabrina Baracetti, president of the Far East Film Festival (FEFF) in Udine, Italy, as she wrapped up her introduction for Leon Lê's Quán Kỳ Nam (Kỳ Nam Inn). Sitting in the Teatro Nuovo, watching Quán Kỳ Nam unfold for the first time, I felt an overwhelming surge of pride.

Quán Kỳ Nam does exactly what Baracetti promised: it does not showcase the hyper-modern, rapidly developing Vietnam of today; rather, it captures a deeply tactile Vietnamese essence, distilled down to the flicker of a single oil lamp or the hum of a rusty electric fan. Sharing this experience with an international audience, I felt a profound connection to how our people were portrayed with kindness, sensitivity, and a resilient sense of community, bonding to rebuild a post-war nation. Crucially, Leon allows his characters to be beautifully flawed. They are petty, guarded, and endearingly humane. These are people tentatively navigating the unfamiliar terrain of peacetime, having spent years bracing for the worst. All these quiet, lingering conflicts are gently woven through a forbidden romance between a young, rising intellectual and a widow tied to the former regime.

Quán Kỳ Nam actress Ngô Hồng Ngọc (second from left), director Leon Lê (second from right) and Far East Film Festival's Vietnamese programmer, Nguyên Lê (far right).

Nguyên Lê, the Vietnamese programmer for FEFF, notes that he seeks films “where the essence is local but the expression is global.” As he rightly pointed out, Quán Kỳ Nam “does precisely this.” It takes the universally understood geometry of a love triangle and embeds it within the highly specific context of 1970s Vietnam. It makes the mundane, quiet moments of human existence feel entirely refreshing, captivating international audiences without ever resorting to tired, exoticised tropes.

But the fervor surrounding Quán Kỳ Nam in Udine did not stem solely from its narrative heart. Much of the heat generated by the film was a triumph of pure craft: it marks the first Vietnamese feature in two decades to be shot entirely on 35mm analogue celluloid.

The struggles of pioneering

As the 35mm celluloid process constantly evolves, it is no longer the fragile art form of decades past. While it remains a revered staple in major industries in Hollywood and Europe, prized for its unique texture and grain, the reality in Vietnam is starkly different. For feature-length cinema, it has been 20 years since a production was shot entirely on 35mm. In television, the gap is even wider. The local industry migrated to digital over three decades ago, leaving analogue equipment either hopelessly outdated, broken down, or entirely unusable. This infrastructural void posed a monumental challenge for Leon Lê and his team.

Recalling the genesis of the project, Leon acknowledges the sheer luck of securing unwavering support from his financial backers right from the start. “I knew that with the budget I had, I was going to shoot on film,” he explains. “The reason the investors agreed to support the project was mostly that they loved my first film, Song Lang. They fully understood that a project like Quán Kỳ Nam is extremely risky commercially.”

However, securing the generous funding to shoot on analogue film only solved half the battle. While financially possible, it was practically impossible logistically. The infrastructure simply did not exist. At least, not until director of photography Bob Nguyễn (Quán Kỳ Nam, Song Lang) proved it could be done. This required working from the ground up.

“The DOP had to train the rest of the crew,” Leon remembers. “Young filmmakers haven't worked with film, haven't practiced with it, don't know how to load film, and don't know how to attach the magazine to the camera. The DOP had to put them through a training process.”

The education extended far beyond the film set. “Then we had to collaborate with a film developing lab and teach them,” Leon adds. “They were used to developing 35-exposure photo rolls, so how do you develop a five-minute reel? But I was very confident in my team.”

So, driven by the uncompromising dedication of Leon and his crew, Vietnam finally has a new 35mm feature, offering a deeply textured, organic cinematic experience that cuts through years of crisp, sterile digital imagery.

A still from Quán Kỳ Nam.

A celluloid renaissance or a lone exception?

Leon remains resolute in his commitment to the medium and expresses unwavering faith in his team for future 35mm projects. “For all my upcoming projects, I still plan to shoot on film and continue to develop and scan in Vietnam,” he reveals. His confidence lies in local ingenuity: “Generally speaking, Vietnamese people are very smart. They tinker with things out of curiosity and eventually figure it out. It's just that they are hesitant, so they haven't done it yet. But if they want to, they can.”

Yet, Leon harbors no illusions that his personal obsession as an auteur will revolutionize the wider Vietnamese film industry. “There will be crazy people like me who want to do it, but to call it a recovery or renaissance of celluloid — probably not,” he admits. He believes a problem also lies in the current state of mainstream Vietnamese cinema: “Looking at the Vietnamese film market right now, it's still struggling. The timeframe of a production from concept to scripts, casting, shooting, post-production, release... they do it so quickly and carelessly. How could they invest in [analogue filmmaking]? It's both risky and costly. You have to love the outcome and love the process to be able to endure it.”

Nguyên Lê echoes these concerns regarding the state of the industry, noting the friction between analogue filmmaking and modern Vietnamese sensibilities. “It is unfortunate the format is more costly and time-consuming in a society more careful with our spending and our timing, and in a culture that has a tendency to treat the latest as being the greatest,” he observes.

However, the programmer remains hopeful about the ripple effect of Leon Le's uncompromising ethos. He predicts these formats will “live on” in the short film arena, citing Chín (Ripe) as a recent example, or that the rigorous storytelling methods of Leon and his crew will be “studied and carried over,” ultimately “paving the way for higher quality, more internationally competitive productions.”

Listening to their reflections leaves me with a lingering sense of unease. The stark divide between independent and commercial filmmaking in Vietnam is undeniable. They are funded differently, crafted differently, and targeted at entirely different demographics. To succeed domestically, mainstream commercial products often rely heavily on familiar character tropes and highly specific cultural shorthand, what Nguyên terms “doubly-local expression.”

This approach stands in direct opposition to Nguyên's “local essence, global expression” attribute that makes Quán Kỳ Nam so universally translatable. Until the wider industry learns to bridge this gap by placing artistic rigor over rushed, hyper-localized commercialism, Vietnamese cinema will, unfortunately, continue to struggle to secure its rightful place on the international stage.

The looming threat: AI, VFX vs. The soul of cinema

In Quán Kỳ Nam, eagle-eyed viewers might occasionally spot modern architecture lurking in the corners of street scenes or looming in the distance during rooftop shots. When asked about this, Leon is refreshingly blunt. “I really hate VFX,” he admits. “Because there are special effects done practically that look absolutely amazing compared to VFX. Especially with those action and martial arts movies in Hollywood right now, they abuse VFX so much, and it looks very fake. So, not everything new is good; it has to be appropriate.”

And his philosophy works entirely for the world of Quán Kỳ Nam. For an international audience, these modern anomalies easily go unnoticed. More importantly, attempting to digitally patch these details to perfect the “vintage” illusion would be disastrous. A rough, modern VFX job would glaringly stand out against the rich, organic grain of the 35mm film, completely ruining the meticulously crafted, authentic 1970s Vietnam they worked so hard to build.

To my mind, VFX should be a tool used to enhance a filmmaker’s vision, not a synthetic bandage used to cover mistakes or cut corners in production. But the creeping reliance on Artificial Intelligence is far more insidious; it is an unacceptable intrusion into the creative process that is already pushing genuine artists out of work. We are currently witnessing a dangerous era where AI is being hastily embraced for cheap commercial gain, all while legislation painfully struggles to catch up with the harm being done to genuine artists.

Yet, when asked about the threat of AI replacing filmmakers, Leon remains resolutely confident. “They can never do my job,” he declares. For him, the creative process is intrinsically human. Only he possesses the vivid, visceral memories of his mother and aunts visiting his grandfather at a post-war re-education camp, the exact memories that served as the primary, direct inspiration for the character Kỳ Nam. There is no technology in the world, present or future, capable of synthetically recreating that level of lived trauma, personal emotion, and artistic vision.

Ngô Hồng Ngọc (left), director Leon Lê (right) at the Far East Film Festival.

However, programmer Nguyên offers a sobering reality check regarding the wider Vietnamese industry. “I don’t believe other filmmakers share Leon’s sentiments, but I do hope to be proven wrong,” he notes. “As I noted in my essay and industry report for this year’s FEFF, many stages of the cinematic creative process in Vietnam right now feature AI, with some finding it a gift from above and others deeming it a hasty shortcut.”

The human resistance

Leon's observation on the mainstream Vietnamese machine is entirely valid, yet there is a sliver of hope he might be overlooking. We are currently witnessing an infiltration: a new wave of independent filmmakers successfully making their commercial debuts. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ recent regulation changes, strictly mandating human authorship for any Oscar submission, serve as a monumental, institutional pushback against generative AI.

Ultimately, cinema is a medium built entirely on human vulnerability. I wholeheartedly echo programmer Nguyên’s resounding final sentiment: “Give me imperfect films with soul — and I like quite a few! — any day.”

Photos courtesy of Far East Film Festival.

Most people who have flown with VietJet are probably familiar with the song ‘Hello Vietnam’ or its Vietnamese version ‘Xin chào Việt Nam.’ As it's often played during landing, tourists might mistake the song for a cute jingle of the company, but the meaning behind the song lyrics is much more nostalgic. It’s about a person of Vietnamese descent longing for their ancestor’s homeland, a place they’ve never been — a story that can certainly strike a chord with many Vietnamese people. Few know, however, that this song was originally a French-language song, one that was almost never released.

‘Hello Vietnam’ achieves the rare feat of being widely recognizable among Vietnamese today, even though it originally emerged from the diasporic community.

The song cover.

Perhaps this accomplishment should not be surprising, as the song seems specifically crafted to appeal to Vietnamese sensibilities: nostalgic lyrics on a melancholic melody were the framework of many other widely acclaimed songs in Vietnam. Even though the lyrics describe the feelings of a person who’s never been to Vietnam, the longing can resonate even with Vietnamese people who never left the country, whether towards their hometown or a version of Vietnam from another decade.

“Want to see your house, your streets. Show me all I do not know.
Wooden sampans, floating markets, light of gold.”

The sheer love and curiosity for Vietnam, along with descriptions of its wonders make the song an easy choice for anyone who wants to convey patriotic pride. This may explain why it sounds familiar even to people who have never heard of it. The exposure to the music is huge: it's featured in travel companies’ commercials, videos on social media, and background music in cafes.

The story behind the creation of ‘Hello Vietnam’ actually began in Belgium, where its original singer, Phạm Quỳnh Anh, was born. Her parents are Vietnamese immigrants. Her father went to Belgium to study and her mother was a political refugee. Always a talented singer, at 13, she participated in the Belgian singing competition TV show Pour la Gloire and won with a terrific cover of Celine Dion’s ‘The reason.’ This achievement convinced her that a career in music might really be a possibility: “Pour la Gloire all started with a bet between my father and me. He was like, ‘Yes, you’ll make it,’ while I was thinking, ‘I won't even get past the first auditions.’ And that's just how it happened; I didn't really realize what was going on at the time,” Quỳnh Anh recounts in French.

Phạm Quỳnh Anh.

In 2005, her career took off, as she became Marc Lavoine’s protégée. Marc Lavoine, a famous French singer most known for his karaoke classic ‘Elle a les yeux revolver…’, was looking for a voice to feature in ‘J’espère,’ a new duet. He was convinced by Quỳnh Anh's performance: three takes during the audition was enough. Following this duet’s success, Quỳnh Anh went along with Lavoine on his tour to many countries.

Being close to Marc Lavoine provided a pivotal boost to Quỳnh Anh, even more so as Lavoine wrote her some songs, which were never released — one of which was called ‘Bonjour Vietnam.’ When learning that the song was written by a white French man, one can feel weirded out at first by the lyrics, notably the description of the character’s physical traits. It was however written at the request and supervised by Quỳnh Anh.

While working on a potential album, she felt the need to sing about her roots, and as such, asked the lyricist Yvan Coriat to write about Vietnam. The text was allegedly too long, which is why she later reached out to the seasoned Lavoine to transform the text into a song, with music by him. The Vietnamese-Belgian singer was immediately charmed: “I tried it, and it worked instantly. It’s amazing because they’re European, yet they recreated an Asian atmosphere so well. I feel very lucky to be surrounded by talented people who help me express myself.” She says in a French interview in Vietnam.

Marc Lavoine.

How ‘Bonjour Vietnam’ reached stardom was its own story: a demo leaked on the internet, and quickly spread throughout the diaspora. By Tết 2006, the song had already blown up all over the world, usually paired with a fan-made video montage of Vietnam. This unexpected instant hit made Quỳnh Anh famous around the globe among Vietnamese diasporic communities. The song never had an official release, and yet she started receiving offers to perform live in many countries like Canada, the US and Australia. Spurred by the global attention, it behooved her to release an English version, translated by Guy Balbaert, called ‘Hello Vietnam.’ This version gained a wider audience in Vietnam, while solidifying her fame among the English-speaking diaspora.

In 2008, she performed ‘Hello Vietnam’ on Paris by Night, which cemented the ubiquity of the song in the diaspora. At the end of the same year, she was able to set foot in the forever longed-for Vietnam in the lyrics, thanks to the popularity of the song, via a short tour in the country.

The original version in French performed by Phạm Quỳnh Anh.

There is a some undeniable poetry in the fact that everything seems to have led Quỳnh Anh to the country of her roots. Starting with her meeting with Marc Lavoine, which resulted in the creation of a song where she sings about how much she would like to go to Vietnam. Then the fact that the song got a self-made fame of its own. And finally, the English translation reached Vietnam, bringing her there as she wished for in the lyrics.

“One day I’ll touch your soil.
One day I’ll finally know your soul.
One day I’ll come to you.
To say hello… Vietnam.”

Nowadays Quỳnh Anh’s musical career has gotten much more quiet, she kept her studies a priority throughout this success, and now it seems to be a historical period, as she has begun new chapters of her life. But the popularity of ‘Hello Vietnam’ is as strong as it has ever been: many translations to Vietnamese helped the song gain a new audience. The budget airline VietJet decided to play a mix of the English and Vietnamese versions as landing songs and a welcoming gesture. This has increased the song’s popularity even more, though it has also inspired a sense of overexposure for frequent domestic travelers. The history of ‘Hello Vietnam’ is usually forgotten, obscured by its reputation as a mere commercial jingle, but it was once a heartfelt wish to reconnect with a homeland one hears about so much but has never encountered.