SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳: PROUD TO BE VIETNAMESE

“A people who have courageously opposed French domination for more than eighty years, a people who have fought side by side with the Allies against the Fascists during these last years, such a people must be free and independent.” – Ho Chi Minh
Art Deco–style façade at 16–18–20 Thủ Khoa Huân Street.
This façade strongly suggests it was built in the late French colonial period, probably around the 1930s to early 1940s, during the height of Saigon’s Art Deco boom.
This style was heavily influenced by Paris, Shanghai, and American theater architecture of the era.
Proud to be Vietnamese

April 2026

SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳: SLEEP

These men work brutal hours in brutal heat for money that would make a Westerner cry. But the sleep itself is not sad. The sleep is the one moment in the day that belongs to them. Nobody is paying for it. Nobody is timing it. Nobody is asking them to deliver something or drive somewhere or fix something. For ten minutes or an hour, the man and the motorbike are still, and the city flows around them.
Built: ~1955–1965 (most likely around early 1960s)
📍 Lý Tự Trọng Street, was heavily developed during the 1950s–60s as Saigon expanded into a modern capital.
After reunification in 1975, this building was eventually used by the hát bội troupe (established 1977).
Hát bội is Vietnam’s traditional opera:
painted faces, symbolic acting, historical drama, and big moral storytelling.

April 2026

SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳: RED PLASTIC CHAIRS AND STOOLS – ICONIC

Everything in Saigon happens on a red plastic chair or stool.
In Vietnam red means luck and happiness and also “sit here, the pho is ready.” 😊

I’ve eaten the best meals of my life on red plastic chairs. Com tam suon, hunched over broken rice and grilled pork, green onion oil dripping off the spoon, my knees pressed against a table😆.

Ca phe sua da sweating in a glass, sitting so low to the ground, watching motorbikes pass.
Nobody looks comfortable on a red plastic chair. Everybody looks at home.

April 2026

SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳 STREET ART: 🐰

April 2026

SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳 STREET ART: PINK FLOWERS 🌺

April 2026

SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳 GRAFFITI: LIVIN’ DA SAIGON DREAM

April 2026

SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳 STREET ART: BOOK 📕 FOREST

April 2026

SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳 STREET ART: LOTUS 🪷 PROPAGANDA

April 2026

SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳 STREET ART: ⭐️

Anthony Bourdain:
“Vietnam. It grabs you and doesn’t let you go. Once you love it, you love it forever.”

April 2026

SAIGON, VIETNAM 🇻🇳 GRAFFITI: THUMBS 👍 UP

April 2026