Vietnam Welcomes 21m Tourists in 2025, Highest-Ever Figure in History
Last year marked an impressive year for tourism in Vietnam. A record number of 21.17 million international tourists visite...
Viet Thanh Nguyen's New Essay Collection Is Both Theoretically Sharp and Intimately Tender
Last year, acclaimed Vietnamese American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen published To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other, a collection of six essays adapted from the prestigious Norton Lectures that he delivered at Harvard in 2023–2024.
Hanoi's Proposal to Stop Train Service Might Spell the End of 'Train Street'
Hanoi’s infamous train street might be going away if a new municipal plan becomes a reality.
In Sa Pa, Learning How to Indigo Dye, One Plant, Vat, and Beeswax Pen at a Time
My first meal in Sa Pa was accidentally earned. After a few hours of uneven rest in a sleeper bus and a short ride from Sa Pa city center to the village, I finally arrived, along with two other indigo enthusiasts, at a small hill in bản Cát Cát. A few modest houses framed a quiet courtyard where indigo vats rested, and long strips of dyed fabric hung on bamboo poles, drying in the morning air.
Khôi Phạm in Quãng 8
Hanoi Indie Duo Limebócx Brings Tried-and-Trù Traditions to Young Ears
A grazing buffalo, frolicking water puppets, mystifying tam cúc cards, an insolent maiden in áo tứ thân, a rustic meal around cái mâm. These are just a few standout visuals that will haunt your brain upon feasting your eyes on Limebócx’ debut music video ‘Yêu Nhau (Qua Cầu Gió Bay).’
In His Research-Driven Artistic Practice, Quang deLam Maps History, Knowledge Together
What if art functions as a visual form for transmitting knowledge and entangled histories, and the artist is a messenger between them and the audience?
Khôi Phạm in Culture
In the Era of AI Slop, I've Learned to Embrace Saigon's Ugly Urban Clutters
To live in Saigon is to coexist with clutter. Chaos is perhaps to be expected, when one’s habitat is a gargantuan crowded compressed narrow concretized megalopolis of over 10 million people, but few cities I’ve been to are as cluttered as Saigon.
Pete Walls in Travel
At Kon Tum's Đăk Đrinh Lake, Life Slows to a Therapeutic Pace
Đăk Đrinh Lake lies in the northern reaches of Kon Tum, where the hills rise in slow, deliberate waves and the pace of life is set by the land. The Ca Dong ethnic communities remain here, maintaining their language, stilt houses, and routines that have shaped this corner of the highlands for generations.
Vietnam’s Design Talents on Display at Gallery Medium’s Three Weeks of Design
When does a piece of functional design become art and vice versa? Gazing long enough at a hook on the wall, noticing its graceful curves, bright colors, and simple flourishes in shape, will have you u...
Review: Watch a Family's Trauma Unravel in Real Time in 'No Crying at the Dinner Table'
I had little to no expectation when I started watching No Crying at the Dinner Table, especially since the topic of generational distance in Vietnam has been discussed time and time again by many othe...
Destruction, Rebirth Enmeshed in Ngô Đình Bảo Châu’s Exhibition 'Projecting a Thought'
Darkness fills the space and a flame fiercely burns on the large screen, while dim lights and floating fabric linger behind. Ngô Đình Bảo Châu transforms domestic and bodily forms into works that expl...
Uyên Đỗ in Arts & Culture
Strangevisuals Is an Archive of Daily Life on Postcards of Rice and Dó Papers
What are our memories made of?
Paul Christiansen in Loạt Soạt
Within the Shocking Brutality of Queer Novel 'Parallels' Rests Poignant Poetry
Parallels by Vũ Đình Giang shocked me. While I refrain from spoiling its plot, allow me to share my experience when reading this novel, as translated by Khải Q. Nguyễn, to better explain how the ...
‘129BPM’ Carries the Contemporary Hip-Hop Heartbeat From Vietnam to Malaysia
Under the shared heartbeat of “129BPM,” the dancers channeled their emotions through movement, navigating between individuality and collectivity both on and off stage. Extending beyond Vietnamese audi...
Trần Dần, the Literary Maverick Teaching Us How We Should and Can Be an Artist
In the mind of many Vietnamese readers, the name of writer Trần Dần has been inextricably linked with artistic experimentation and innovation. His poetic voice feels nothing like those of writers I le...
In 1920s–1940s Paris, Vietnamese Artists Painted Through the Interwar Period as the 'Others'
How did Vietnamese artists navigate the complex tides of social and political changes, and mark their own position in the art world as the “Others” during interwar Paris — which was celebrated as the ...
Vietnam's Colonial Histories Reimagined as Fictional Adventure Tale in ‘The Year Is XXXX’
We often encounter adventure tales in books and through adaptations of films or television. But what if a newly imagined adventure tale can also be written as an exhibition — one that maps strange-yet...
Contemporary Hip-Hop Dance '129BPM' to Perform at Art Festival in Malaysia in August
After two successful nights in Saigon last year, a mesmerizing contemporary hip-hop dance performance is bringing its raw energy abroad.
Khôi Phạm in Film & TV
The Surprising Japanese Origin Behind the Vietnamese Term 'Ô Sin'
It’s not uncommon to come across words in everyday conversations that have roots in the French language. Albeit less frequently, a handful of Russian and English loan words have also made their way in...
Khôi Phạm in Film & TV
Remembering Thuy Trang, the First Vietnamese Power Ranger
It was the late 1990s, and I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror of our childhood home, holding my dad’s solid-metal belt buckle up with a pseudo-serious expression on my baby face. Fortunate...
In 'Vietnam Retropunk,' a Young Illustrator Dreams of a Cyberpunk Hanoi
To Đặng Thái Tuấn, the talent behind illustration project “Vietnam Retropunk,” whimsical depictions of robots and animatronics sprouting out from everyday objects and activities embody the space in be...
A Story of Personal, Political Reckoning in a Singaporean Writer's Fictional Wartime Vietnam
The Immolation first came to me as a bewildering surprise: at a now-relocated bookshop in Singapore, the book caught the eyes of the 17-year-old me. It was not so much the cover’s pale blue background...
Xuân Phương in Culture
Under the Sky, Above the Water: Into the Heat at Ninh Thuận's Salt Fields
A 3,000-kilometer coastline is one of nature’s best gifts to Vietnam, bringing about not just ample seafood, but also a motherlode of sea salt.
Paul Christiansen in Music & Arts
Enter the Dreamy Tales Told by the Works of Young Illustrator Thố Đầu • Hổ Vĩ
Being born at the cusp of the Year of the Rabbit (cat) and the Year of the Tiger offers the literal meaning for Hoàng Phúc's artist name, thố đầu • hổ vĩ, but he hopes it carries a metaphorical one, a...
Summer Nostalgia by the Sea: La Veranda Resort – MGallery Unveils a Golden Escape
Summer travelers are invited to step into barefoot elegance on Phú Quốc’s storied shores.
More Than Just Prosperity, Ông Địa Is My Personal Patron Saint of Misplaced Things
I was maybe seven when I first clasped my hands and whispered a plea to Ông Địa.
The Charming 1990s Nostalgia in the Phim Mì Ăn Liền Cinematic Universe
If you lurk around online discussions of Vietnamese cinema, you probably have stumbled upon the term phim mì ăn liền, or “instant noodles films.” This popular Vietnamese expression describes local mot...
Khôi Phạm in Culture
An Homage to the Sounds of Saigon Past That Are Going Extinct
After someone or something reaches the end of their days, which aspects of their existence in the minds of those who remain would be the first to succumb to the erosive brush of time? Is it sight, sme...
