25jan26
BANGKOK, THAILAND 🇹🇭 STREET ART: LITTLE INDIA
25jan26
SAIGON, VIETNAM: STREET COFFEE STANDS & SPECIALTY COFFEES, WEEK 1, DAY 1 ~ SMILING EYES & Cà Phê Sữa Đá
Sixteen years. That’s how long it had been since my last cà phê sữa đá in Vietnam. And somehow, the first cup back didn’t happen in a trendy café or a polished coffee shop — it happened exactly where it should have: on a plastic stool at a street coffee stand in Saigon. This is the beginning of a weekly series documenting street coffee stands across the city — the small, everyday spaces where Vietnam’s coffee culture actually lives.
Day 1 brought me to a stand set up on the sidewalk in front of Nhà thờ Huyện Sỹ, one of the quiet historic churches tucked into the rhythm of District 1. The kind of place where traffic hums past, locals move in and out without ceremony, and life unfolds in slow, familiar patterns. The stand itself was simple — metal coffee filters, small glasses, red plastic stools, condensed milk, and the steady drip of Vietnamese coffee falling into a glass. But what made it special wasn’t the coffee. It was the feeling.
There was a mama-san figure running the space — the quiet authority behind the operation. She watched everything. Directed everything. Made sure everyone was taken care of. At one point, she gestured to the younger server and insisted I be given a small glass of tea on the side, the way locals often receive it.
No shared language.
No translation apps.
No long conversation. Just smiling eyes, hand gestures, and a kind of unspoken hospitality that needed no explanation. Sit. Drink. You are welcome here.
That’s the thing about Saigon’s street coffee stands — they are less about caffeine and more about community. People gather without planning to gather. Strangers sit shoulder to shoulder. Someone pours tea for you because that’s what you do. Someone watches over the space like it’s an extension of their home. And for a moment, you are part of it. The first cà phê sữa đá in Vietnam in sixteen years tasted strong, sweet, and familiar — but more than that, it tasted like return. Not just to a country, but to a rhythm of life that exists at street level: slow drips of coffee, red plastic stools, tea, and kindness communicated through nothing more than a smile.
21march26
SAIGON, VIETNAM: ME CULCAT SAIGON
Sixteen years ago, the walls in Saigon were clean. Not because nobody had anything to say. Because saying it on a wall in a one-party communist state was not something you did if you wanted to keep your life uncomplicated. The government controlled the visual landscape. Propaganda murals, yes. Political slogans, yes. Uncle Ho’s face on every corner, yes. But unsanctioned paint on a shutter? That was a risk nobody was taking.
Now the city is covered. Tags on every block. Throw-ups on metal gates. Full-color pieces in alleys. Names repeated across districts like someone is trying to claim the whole city one wall at a time. And nobody is scrubbing it off.
That is not a small thing. In a country where the state still monitors social media, still arrests bloggers, still controls the press, the walls are somehow free. Kids are spraying their names on government-adjacent streets in a country where their parents would not have dared to hang the wrong poster in their living room.
What changed? A few things at once, probably. The economy opened and the internet arrived and a generation grew up watching global street culture on their phones. Hip-hop landed here. Streetwear landed here. The visual language of graffiti came in through YouTube and Instagram the same way it arrived everywhere else. And Vietnam’s youth, the 70% of the population born after the war, have a fundamentally different relationship with authority than their parents do. They are not afraid in the same way. They are not grateful in the same way. They did not survive anything that required silence as a survival strategy.
But I think there is something else happening, too. The government seems to pick its battles. Vietnam in 2026 cares about economic growth, foreign investment, and looking modern on the world stage. A kid tagging a shutter on Bui Thi Xuan Street is not a political threat. He is not organizing. He is not publishing. He is decorating a metal gate that will roll up at 7am and nobody will see his work until the shop closes again. The state tolerates it the way it tolerates a lot of the contradictions in modern Vietnam: by looking the other way, because the cost of enforcement is higher than the cost of the paint.
And yet. The graffiti is still an act of defiance, even if the writers do not think of it that way. Every tag on a wall in this city is someone saying I was here, I exist, this surface belongs to me for the thirty seconds it took to write my name. In a country that spent decades telling individuals they existed only as part of the collective, that is not nothing.
March 2026
BANGKOK, THAILAND 🇹🇭 STREET ART: MUEBON
25jan26
SAIGON, VIETNAM: HO CHI MINH THOUGHT
Vietnam is a one-party socialist republic ruled by the Communist Party of Vietnam (Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam). It has been since reunification in 1975.
The official ideology is Marxism-Leninism combined with Ho Chi Minh Thought, which is Vietnam’s own adaptation. Ho Chi Minh Thought blends communist economics with Vietnamese nationalism, Confucian values of social harmony, and pragmatism. It’s less rigidly ideological than Maoism was in China or Stalinism was in the USSR.
In practice, Vietnam operates what it calls a “socialist-oriented market economy” (kinh tế thị trường định hướng xã hội chủ nghĩa). This means the Communist Party maintains total political control while allowing a largely capitalist economy to function. Private business, foreign investment, property ownership, stock markets, billionaires, Starbucks, Louis Vuitton, all of it exists and thrives. The state controls strategic industries like energy, telecom, and banking through state-owned enterprises, but the street-level economy is almost entirely private.
I’ve been blown away by the existence of 7-Elevens here. It’s such a Japanese “thing” and no one does it quite like Japan. Not even Thailand. Fight me. But, here’s what’s wild:
I read that the first 7-Eleven in Vietnam opened on June 15, 2017, at the Saigon Trade Center on Ton Duc Thang Street in District 1. The one pictured is on Bui Vien in Pham Ngu Lao. Apparently, Vietnamese kids lined up at 6am to take selfies with a convenience store. Think about that. In a country with a street food vendor on every corner selling pho for a dollar, people queued to get into a place that sells microwave sandwiches.
But the real story is how badly it has underperformed. They planned 1,000 stores in the first decade. After nearly nine years, they only have about 120! All in Ho Chi Minh City. They just opened their first Hanoi store in 2025. Meanwhile Circle K, which arrived a decade earlier, has 464 stores and controls 48% of the convenience store market. Go Circle K.
The problem is Vietnam itself. The head of 7-Eleven Vietnam said it plainly: “We are experiencing a transition from mom-and-pop stores to modern trade. This is what Japan went through 40 years ago.” But Vietnam isn’t transitioning as fast as they expected. Why would it? The woman on the corner selling banh mi from a cart at 3am is already a 24-hour convenience store. She just doesn’t have air conditioning or a Slurpee machine. But, my God, does she have the most delicious sandwiches!
And here’s the thing that ties it all together: 7-Eleven is American in name but Japanese-owned. It’s operated in Vietnam by a local franchise company. It sells Slurpees alongside xoi sticky rice, che dessert puddings, and bo la lot. The most American brand on earth had to become Vietnamese to survive here. And it’s still barely surviving.
A communist country with a capitalist economy where a Japanese-owned American convenience store sells Vietnamese street food next to a Korean beauty counter while a local grandma outside does more business from a plastic stool. That’s Vietnam in 2026.
There is no way that graffiti was on walls like this 16, 20 years ago when I lived here. I can only attribute it to the rise of social media. They saw it happening in cities all over the world, and decided to try it here. I haven’t done enough research yet to find out how the government feels about this vandalism. Based on the pics directly above and below, it looks like people are either oblivious or resigned to it. They co-exist neutrally without declaring acceptance.
IYKYK – the women run the city at the street level, allowing the men to sit around, have fat chats, and drink lots of coffee. 🙂 I’m half-joking.
Quintessential Vietnam. Conical Hat. Red Stool. Mobile Kitchen. On a Street Corner.
March 2026
BANGKOK, THAILAND 🇹🇭 STREET ART: BANGKOK IN THE PAST
25jan26
BANGKOK, THAILAND 🇹🇭 STREET ART: FLOWER 🌼 MARKET MURAL
24jan26
BANGKOK, THAILAND 🇹🇭 STREET ART: DREAMY PAST
Riety Pahn is a contemporary Thai-Cantonese artist whose work combines social, ecological, and visual narratives, using art as a lens to reflect on nature and culture.
25jan26
BANGKOK, THAILAND 🇹🇭: SACRED BANYAN TREE
Sacred Banyan Tree
It’s believed to be a spirit dwelling (ศาลผี / ผีต้นไม้).
In Thai belief, especially in older animist traditions that sit comfortably alongside Buddhism, large, old trees are homes to spirits. Cutting or harming them without respect is thought to bring bad luck. When a tree is clearly old and powerful like this one, people treat it as inhabited, not decorative.
The colorful cloth wrapped around the trunk = protection and respect.
Those bright fabric bands (often called ผ้าสามสี or spirit cloth) are offerings. Wrapping the tree is a way of saying:
• We see you
• We respect you
• Please protect this place
25jan26
BANGKOK, THAILAND 🇹🇭: CHINESE-THAI SHRINE
This is a Chinese-Thai shrine, very common in old Bangkok neighborhoods—especially near markets, river areas, and Chinese communities.
Although Thailand is mostly Buddhist, Bangkok has a deep Chinese heritage. Shrines like this are dedicated to Chinese deities, local guardian spirits, or revered ancestors, and they often sit right on the street, woven into daily life.
The central golden figure is likely a protector deity (often associated with prosperity, health, or safety), not the Buddha—even though the posture can look similar at first glance.
Although Thailand is mostly Buddhist, Bangkok has a deep Chinese heritage. Shrines like this are dedicated to Chinese deities, local guardian spirits, or revered ancestors, and they often sit right on the street, woven into daily life.
The central golden figure is likely a protector deity (often associated with prosperity, health, or safety), not the Buddha—even though the posture can look similar at first glance.
Everything on the altar has meaning:
• Oranges → good fortune and abundance
• Flowers (often marigolds) → respect and impermanence
• Incense → communication with the spirit world
• Candles → guidance and clarity
People stop briefly, light incense, make a wish, say thanks, then continue their day.
Shrines like this survive because people believe they protect the area itself—the building, the street, the business, the neighborhood. Developers often build around them rather than remove them.
In Bangkok, the spiritual world isn’t separate from daily life.
It’s embedded.
25jan26