Watching Snowfall in 'Home Alone' Is My Saigon Christmas Tradition . Christmas is so globally celebrated that even in Saigon, as the coldest time of the year approaches, you can hear Christmas hymms echoing from homes in the alley, and spot houses adorned with Christmas trees, Santas, snowmen, regardless of their cultural relevance to Vietnamese culture.
Requiem for a Bàng Tree That Was Cut Down in Front of My Home. Curiosity drove me downstairs into the downpour. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the municipal workers — clad in orange-and-green uniforms, their clothes soaked — gathering around a crane.
The Vintage Charm of 1995 Vietnam on Kodachrome Film Slides. While editing a retrospective of my recent work from Vietnam in the summer of 2019, I discovered 50 yellow boxes of Kodachrome slides in my basement that were shot in 1995.
The Cultural Depths in Contemporary Hip-Hop Dance ‘129BPM: Động Phách Tách Kén’ Have you ever witnessed a live performance so powerful that it still lives in your mind weeks later? “129BPM: Động Phách Tách Kén” is not your usual hip-hop breakdance battle, but a contemporary dance performance combining live music with Vietnamese folk elements.
A Brief History of Cung Văn Hóa Lao Động and Saigon's First Swimming Pool. Once a fashionable rendezvous for the elite of colonial society, the Labour Culture Palace (Cung Văn hoá Lao động) at 55B Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai is today one of Hồ Chí Minh City’s most popular spor...
A Merry Memory of a Mid-2000s Middle-Class Christmas in Saigon. As my palm felt the glossy wrapping paper for my Secret Santa gift, I was transported to my early childhood Christmases — filled with warmth, wonder, and the bubbling discomfort of class insecurities....
Watching Snowfall in 'Home Alone' Is My Saigon Christmas Tradition . Christmas is so globally celebrated that even in Saigon, as the coldest time of the year approaches, you can hear Christmas hymms echoing from homes in the alley, and spot houses adorned with Christmas trees, Santas, snowmen, regardless of their cultural relevance to Vietnamese culture.
Saigon Extends Notre-Dame Cathedral Renovation by 4 Years to 2027. Originally scheduled for completion in 2020 and then delayed once to 2023, repairs to the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon's roof, windows, flooring, exterior and core wooden structure are...
When it comes to the city’s moniker, the people here prefer ‘Saigon’ to ‘Ho Chi Minh City’ since ‘Saigon’ evokes greater emotion and connection to the city’s history. As an introduction, may I take the liberty of quoting researcher and Professor Nguyen Dinh Dau’s statement that if there were no Saigon, the innovative and integrated Vietnam we know today wouldn’t exist. ...