Goethe-Institut - Blog Cityscapes - Saigon

Happy branded Xmas, Saigon!

nospam@example.com (Christian Berg) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 14:35:43 +0100

just some impressions from a late afternoon in downtown Saigon a few days before Christmas...

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Rites & Rituals: Big festival - lonely city

nospam@example.com (Phạm, Lan Phương) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 19:42:35 +0100

by Lan Phuong

Saigon is not a hometown. It is just a place to earn money, or to find an opportunity. It is strange and far away in mind of most people here. Have you ever wondered how immigrants celebrate their festival seasons in the unfamiliar place like this?

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The music of goodbye

nospam@example.com (Nga To Thi Van) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 13:23:29 +0100

By To Van Nga

The music of goodbye
i can hear from my balcony
through my window
i pray
for someone just passed away
someone I don’t know
or never talk with
someone lives nearby

The music of goodbye
(don’t cry)
lively and cheerful
for celebrating saying goodbye
to this world
where not joy but sorrow remains?
welcoming to everlasting heaven
above you

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A Flying dream

nospam@example.com (Nga To Thi Van) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 12:56:41 +0100

By To Van Nga

waking up from a Sunday morning dream
My shoulders still moving
higher and higher
The flying emotion still in my muscles
higher and higher
..............
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An Indifferent Pain

nospam@example.com (Nga To Thi Van) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:01:45 +0100

By To Van Nga

We meet each other at parties
we bump into each other at events
park view deluxe suites
and beaches
We went for lunch and shopping

And we become new friends
Oh my new friends

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Saigon Traffic

nospam@example.com (Christian Berg) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:56:19 +0100

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Jam it - Moving about in my city : Motorbike or dead?

nospam@example.com (Phạm, Lan Phương) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:06:00 +0100

by Lan Phuong

In Saigon, morning begins with a huge flow of motorbike. In a sudden, silent streets are full of motorbikes and helmets. Motorbike is a symbol. Motorbike is a disaster.

Living on motorbikes

If you live or work in Saigon, you need a motorbike as your legs. No motorbike, no move. That is the concept for every rural people who go to the city to work. They wake up with a motorbike, run around the city, stay in the office all day, and ride motorbike home among thousands of other motorbikes. There is no other choice.

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Saigon - before the big fashion night

nospam@example.com (Christian Berg) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 08:13:59 +0100

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What is my city’s style? - High heels promote Áo Dài

nospam@example.com (Phạm, Lan Phương) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:43:00 +0100

by Lan Phuong

Wear Áo Dài (*) in the middle of Saigon? It’s just an idea in a very leisure day. Young girls wander on their high heels around the Notre Dame Church. That seems to be the only usage of beautiful traditional Áo Dài in such a high pressure city.

A charming áo dài in Saigon - Photo: Courtesy Kim Tuyen

Áo Dài, a very beautiful costume, can show off all the most charming curved line in women body. It was designed long time ago and is still very popular nowadays.
5 years ago, high school girl students wore Áo Dài to schools. People could easily see some young and nice girl ride bicycles and laugh very naturally. It was the past. Now, Students wear modern office dresses to schools. It’s suitable for such a busy, dirty and crowded city like Saigon. Moreover, International schools have made a big fashion change in student costumes with dresses and shoes.

Women love branded fashion

In huge offices buildings, women in Prada, Gucci walk up and down. In that world of beauty and wealthy, you can hardly recognize that you are standing on a street of Saigon, one of a fairly poor country of the South East Asia region. Western companies have brought a new definition in dressing and being beautiful in offices.
Women wear high heels, office dresses, make up attractively. They try to be suitable for a newly developing society. They meet clients, meet new people, and sign contracts. Being beautiful and BRANDED is more important than ever before. They are eager to pay expensively to look charming and luxurious.

In another hand, cheap Chinese and Thai fashionable cloths flow continuously into Saigon and appear in pavement stands everywhere. In TV shows, teenagers see Thai boys or Chinese girls wear something cool and charming. Immediately then, those kinds of fashion are easily found in cheap prices. It’s not a problem to go shopping anymore. It’s the problem that how you wear and go to meet your friends.

Young ladies in Ho Chi Minh Post office - a famous Western building in Saigon

Western movies with young teenager in active jeans and modern simple T- shirt also have very big affect on fashion here for young guys and gals.
Saigon is colorful in fashion, where you can find girls look likely each other in dresses, making up, and hair style. Those kind of fashions are easily found somewhere in Asia months ago.

Traditional – very privilege fashion

Time of cheap Áo Dài passed. Nowadays, when seeing someone wearing beautiful Áo Dài on the street, you must notice that the traditional wear is not cheap at all. Price of material is rising. Price of tailoring is rising. Áo Dài becomes the symbol of beauty, tradition but expensive and leisure.

A charming áo dài in Saigon - Photo: Courtesy Kim Tuyen

In some tours for foreigners, women tour guide are asked to wear Áo Dài. In banks, women wear Áo Dài. In big post offices, Áo Dài is the main uniform. But those are almost only places where women are clean and leisure enough to wear such tender and charming clothing.

However, if you sitting in a corner of the Notre Dame Church on Sunday, you can found a charming city of women in Áo Dài, taking wedding photos with their gallant bridegrooms. Hardly does any woman get married without a wedding picture in Áo Dài. To be a Vietnamese woman is purely attractive, naturally charming, however the city is modernized.

High heels make women look more charming in Áo Dài.

(*) Áo Dài: The traditional dress of Vietnamese women

Cents and Sensibility: Get lost in the wealthy of Saigon

nospam@example.com (Phạm, Lan Phương) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:57:00 +0200

by Lan Phuong

I still remembered the first moment when I arrived in Saigon in my first year at University. I came from a small town, 40 km away from Saigon.

I used public bus to move around and discovered the city. Sometimes, I spent 4 hours at noon (from 12am-3pm), paid a 4,000VND (1/4 of a USD) ticket to...sleep in the bus. My renting room near the university was so hot with a low roof and small space that I couldn’t concentrate on doing anything. The bus moved to and fro in a 60km route around the city. I slept peacefully in cool air conditioner. With 200, 000VND/week, I had a high- level- life standard compared to many of my classmates at that time. At least, I had time to sleep on the bus sometimes.

I tried to find a job to earn a living. I just noticed that all of my classmates found something to do to earn a living. Finally, I found a cafeteria which needed a washer to clean dishes.

People run fast in the flow of money in Saigon.

I started at 6pm every day. A big woman asked me to use some kind of unknown soap to clean the dishes. That soap was thick and I could re-use it many times after waves of dishes flowing into the kitchen. I washed dishes. I re-washed them in water. I dried them with a dirty towel that the big woman gave me. I couldn’t even have a chance to hold my head up one time. Everything was a mess. There were hundreds of dishes and bowl. I still remembered the smell of soup and barbecued pork chops. When you mixed them up with the unknown soap, it was a disastrous smell.

I received 400,000VND (25USD) for a month with that job. At the time, that paid my room renting.

I was immerged in dishes, pork smell, and soap smell. I was tired out every day after 10pm. I slept as I had never slept before. I forgot my exercises, homework and research.

All other of my classmate failed some subjects as they also worked at the same pressure with me. We are rural students. If we didn’t work, we had no choice to study in the city. At that time, I pursued my dream to study in a university. That was all I had in my brain and heart. If I left school, I was low-educated and continued to earn so little money in countryside.

At that time, earning 400,000VND is a dream. Even in my nightmare, I saw that amount. If I had earned more, life could have been better. I guessed.

3 years later

I am working in Saigon. Saigon gave a chance for everyone who works hard and tries to be better.

At 25 years old, many young people can earn a lot. They spent money on bars, clubs, cinemas, theatres, sport games, music show...

I just bought a ticket to see a 3D movie this week in Megastar – a big cinema in Saigon. The price is half of 400,000VND (my own salary as a dish cleaner).
Even in economy, earning money seems to be so easy in Saigon. Young people become richer and richer. We have a lot of chance to work with western companies. We are paid in Western money (USD, SGD or AUD). That is a huge amount compared to local salary. They pay a lot to cloths, automobiles, cosmetic products, branded shoes and bags. Money seems to be the origin of wealthy in Saigon.

I get lost in the wealthy

And I get lost in the wealthy.

I can buy tickets to every movie in the cinema each month. I also earn enough to pursue some luxurious expenses like buying some branded shoes and bags.

Once, I walked in a big shopping all. Everyone was so chilly to each other. They walk around with no emotion. Girls gaze at diamond jewelry. Men look fixedly at coat and boots in a Valentino Shops. In the front door of the shopping mall, a young teenager forced another boy into the corner of the big wall near the door. He hit the boy very hard and continuously. The boy fell down. I ran out the mall. Everybody was just walking and took a fast glance at them. When the rarely-seen-guard of the mall appeared to impede that fighting, the boy fell down. Blood sheds on his face and head. Nobody helped him.

When I tried to catch a taxi for the guard to take him to hospital, no taxi stopped or just fastened immediately when they saw the boy. Finally, we could take him to hospital.

I was stressed down. I remembered so hard about people with beautiful costumes wandering around and didn’t help anyone. Since earning better living, I spent a lot of time in places like that. There is no human connection in that place. People just pay attention on luxurious stuff. They forget other people around them.

After that they, I often wonder about money, about living standard, about privilege products and places. Are they useful? Are they worth buying? Is money worth to change our attitude to this life, even in a very luxurious shopping mall or an expensive restaurant?

In exchange for wealthy, I get lost in a big world of consumption.

Saigon Cents and Sensibilities

nospam@example.com (Christian Berg) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:38:00 +0200

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Tonight I'm fed up with your world

nospam@example.com (Nga To Thi Van) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 04:22:00 +0200

By To Van Nga

I’m in the garden, talking with trees
you’are sufferring with the party
with strangers
the ones not smiling

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Imagine Green in Saigon

nospam@example.com (Christian Berg) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0200

Sometimes I imagine Saigon to be a much greener place... but maybe my imagination is not strong enough.

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Saigon: DYING BIRDS

nospam@example.com (Phạm, Lan Phương) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:59:36 +0200

by Lan Phuong

Once, near the Notre Dame Catholic Church in Saigon, an old woman throws rice on pavements for pigeon. Birds gather around her. Pigeons eat, sparrows eat. They fly around. They walk on the pavement. In a very long time, no bird concentrates so naturally like that in any space of Saigon.

When Saigon get busier, open space get smaller and more tiring. Birds and trees were changed by appearance of skyscrapers everywhere. Old people feel lost in the city that they grew up in. Some of them collect food and start dropping rice for birds around the Notre Dame Church, the space of which very large and natural with trees. Habit begins. Birds start coming.

From then on, young teenagers or photographers have a chance to see pigeon walking comfortably on pavements near the church. They walk and enjoy fresh air in their own way, when humans look at them curiously. In a small green space, small green habits were established between human and birds.

Just after some years, the flock of pigeon becomes bigger. They concentrate on the pavement almost every afternoon to eat rice and things that human give them. Some more time, the old motor keeper near the church wondered to me: “What happened to those pigeon? They seem to be fewer and fewer every week.”
One morning, in the daily newspaper: “Catch pigeons to eat when drinking” – There was a group of painters and bricklayers who worked for buildings near the church often caught pigeons and cook to drink in the evening. Pigeons disappeared gradually. Volunteers who often feed birds feel painful when recognizing that those beautiful birds around the church were killed just for entertainment meals of those guys.

People feed birds, hunters catch them for meals....

In Vietnam, The full moon day of July (Lunar year) is very important day in which dead people return to visit their family. Living people often donate for poor people; do volunteer to give forgiveness for dead people who committed crime when they lived in this life. Releasing birds is also a tradition to show the forgiveness for dead people. In Saigon, every pagoda celebrates this anniversary with high respect and serious attitude.

Old women often buy birds from vendors on streets and release them to the nature. Some rich families buy hundreds of bird just to release in this day. Irony, no bird actually can escape from the cage. Birds are fed some drugs so that they can’t fly up any further the pagoda. They fall down just some minutes after being released. Vendors simply go around, pick them up, and continue to sell for other people. Finally, birds died after finishing their job to earn money for vendors. Buyers are still very satisfied because they did good things for dead people. They still release the birds. They do not know/care what happen after they release birds.
An old man told me: “They will leave human. People do not know how to live on nature. They do not respect any other son or daughter of Mother Nature.” – In Saigon, when green space is disappearing for big buildings and towels, even birds, squirrels, cats also disappear because of the merciless heart of people living around this city. They are so busy. They do not care about the existence of other species in this narrow town.

Birds disappear. Trees feel sad. And parks keep silence in its own sorrow.

The city is losing its green appearance.

Culture of channels

nospam@example.com (Phạm, Lan Phương) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:23:56 +0200

by Lan Phuong

There are about 1700km of channels and rivers in Saigon. Completely different from Hanoi (the city of lakes), Saigon breathes in the air of channels. In old pictures in museums, one must be very surprised to discover that Nguyen Hue, one of the biggest streets in District 1, used to be a channel for boats to transport around.

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