The last time I went to Vietnam was 2009. 30 July to 10 August to be precise. I also went to a very different part of Vietnam. At that time, it was still a developing city. I can’t really share the full details about what I was doing, but there were people following our group around officially in that time. This was at the start of smart phones, but it also meant that not many people had access to smart tech. It was a really different time and season.
Fast forward to the trip I just came back from. The place was swarming with Grab riders. Previously, you would need to hail someone down and trust that they would understand you and take you where you need to go. Not in modern day. We were booking rides from our Grab app (South East Asian version of Uber), and these verified taxi operators or motorcyclists would bring us around. This alone was a huge jump from past times, where taxi drivers would receive commissions for driving guests to different souvenir shops.
Just one of many huge changes to a place like Vietnam.
I visited Ho Chi Minh city this time, previously known as Saigon. Ho Chi Minh was the founder of modern Vietnam, the one who fought for independent rule away from the French, and then later against the Americans. There is so much history behind it, and I’ve watched a few too many war movies to know that it was not a great war for the Americans. There were so many war crimes done against a group of people with a lot less resources, and the city of Ho Chi Minh remembers the past well.
It also embraces a lot of the future. The advertising and the approach of global brands were there: Uniqlo, Muji, Nike, H&M, Zara, and the list goes on. Coming from Singapore, some of these malls looked like variations of the many malls that we already have. As much as it looked like progressive capitalism, it also showed a certain sense of wanting to join in the rest of the world, with the growing sense of globalism. There were TikTokers in the Vietnamese gardens, decked out in some serious drip, and also dripping in sweat (I think). I was constantly damp with sweat anyway.
One of the most interesting buildings we went to was the Cafe Apartment. This gentrified building sat in the middle of a more premium district, with some performance areas amongst other things. A very decorated facade of the building, full of signboards and outdoor balcony areas for coffee drinking and photo taking. Every floor of the building had cafes, shops, and still had some residential units. The pricing of these coffees were bumped up to a premium too, and matched the pricing of cafes in Singapore even. Singapore is one of the most expensive cities in the world, if not the most.
The pricing doesn’t reveal the state of the people, as much as it shows the expected travel and affluence that the city hopes to capture. In the global world, it’s the internet that sees and wants to travel. States and governments are really in a different place of authority, or at least that’s how it seems to be moving towards. The commonplace of the English speaking internet allows for subcultures to travel in the most interesting ways. There’s a break from tradition and expectations, and instead, there’s an embracing of the new and unique.
Much like how mechanical keyboards, watercolors, and sketching has given me a chance to speak with people that I’d never have met, globalization of the cities have given access for young people to skip past layers of communication, and we can talk together because of social media as a our main access point. Physical meeting has become an authentication of the virtual person that we meet, but because the virtual person is so public, it demands more authenticity. I probably need to reserve this topic for another post, I’m going a lot more reflective than I thought I would.
In any case, I rate the trip a 4/5 stars. The lacking star is from the heat, but everything else was great. The food was awesome, and the places to visit and see were also very interesting. Tonnes of history, and a lot of culture brought forward and mingled together.
I’m pretty sure we’ll definitely go back again!