These days the tourism industry plays very important part in the world economy, (nearly 12% of the world’s GDP). Especially for developing countries like Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In the year 2006 Vietnam welcomed about 3.5 million foreign tourists, Laos: 1 million and Cambodia: 1.3 million. This represents a heavy injection of foreign funds into these economies.
While this creates many benefits that contribute to national and local development, it can also impact negatively on the environment and local cultures. Issues include the depletion of natural resources, pollution, land degradation, and breakdown of local cultures that have previously survived for thousand years.
By traveling responsibly with Viet Vision Travel, following this simple code of conduct and encouraging others to do the same, you can make a real, positive difference to the people and places you visit. We hope you will follow these guidelines to help preserve the beauty of our world for the next generation.
Responsible Traveler’s Code
Find out about your destination. Buy relevant guidebooks and learn about the culture, politics, geography, religion and customs of the area before you travel.
Learn some basic words and phrases (even just hello, please and thank you). Normally our guides will teach you some simple local words and phrases when the trip starts. A few words will go a long way towards developing communication and understanding with local people.
Dress respectfully. It is very easy to embarrass, shame or offend local people by not covering up or dressing appropriately especially when you visit pagodas, temples, or religious places.
In Indochina, do not touch heads of adults, as they believe that is the place through which they worship to their ancestors. (Touching children’s head is fine.)
Buy locally made goods and use locally provided services. Try to put money into the local economy by encouraging trade and the local manufacture of goods and crafts. Pay a fair price for the goods and services you buy. Haggling is often a part of local life, but make this light and bright - don’t go too far. Keep a realistic perspective. What is a trifling sum to you, could be a significant amount to a poor family (perhaps making the difference of having a meal or not.)
Ask permission to photograph or video – how would you like it if a stranger came along and took photos of you going about your everyday life (hanging out the washing, going to the gym or washing the dog)? But do not pay people for taking their picture. It leads to begging. If they ask, just don't take the picture.
Don't give children candy or sweets because many do not have dental care. If you want to give local people or children something please ask a Viet Vision Travel guide for suggestions. Avoid conspicuous displays of wealth, especially in very poor communities. Not only is this insensitive, you may become the target for thieves or snatchers. Remove watches, rings and expensive jewellery.
Our style of travel is environmentally and culturally responsible and at all times we endeavor to give something to the communities that we visit. Our policy will be provided to you at time of booking, and sets our environmental objectives and practices, and how you can play a part in reducing the impacts on environment and culture in the area visited.
These are some of our aims:
Our operation should maximize the positive impacts of tourism on the host communities. This includes using of the local staff, local suppliers and developing sustainable business.
Minimize the negative impacts of tourism. This is to ensure that tourism does not divert resources away from local communities or drive up prices of local resources.
Provide opportunities for cultural exchange, where the local communities and group members can share and learn from each other
Contribute toward the host community’s welfare. Whenever possible we will engage in partnerships with local agencies to develop programs that can assist the host communities. This may include support for health, education or environmental protection.
Showing posts with label VietNam Travel guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label VietNam Travel guide. Show all posts
Friday, March 5, 2010
Cantho Travel Guide Vietnam
Cantho, Vietnam one of the largest cities of the country, is practically considered the ‘capital’ of Mekong Delta. Being the gateway to the paradise of Mekong Delta, Vietnam, practically no other urban city in Vietnam can match Can Tho in terms of its spectacular landscape. Bustling with life and color, Cantho is like a painter’s stroke on the canvas of Vietnam. You must visit this place, one of the most frequented of the Vietnam popular destinations and that too with lots of time in hand.
The city of Cantho, Vietnam is located exactly on the Southern Bank of Hau Gi
ang, a tributary of the Mekong River. It is immediately behind Danang and is about 160 kilometers away from the Ho Chi Minh City. Cantho’s busy city life can be credited to the fact that this province produces some of the largest amount of rice, vegetables, fruits in the whole country. They also have a flourishing fish production unit. Its sea port, being able to house some large ships from foreign countries is also a centre of lot of activity.
In spite of being a prime urban area, Cantho’s picturesque location in the midst of meandering rivers, is what makes it a haven for tourism. Canal tours, the floating markets, the nearby villages, parks and other prominent attractions, the city offers plenty.
Some of the major tourist attractions in Cantho, Vietnam are:
Floating Markets in Cantho: These are one of the distinctive features of this district and are of great interest to the tourists. Some of the most frequented floating markets in this area are Cai Be, Cai Rang, Phung Hiep, Phong Dien, Nga Nam and Long Xuyen. Of these the Cai Rang Floating Market is the most popular one. Apart from providing a lovely view of the busting activities, these markets are a great place to hangout as they have lots of floating restaurants also.
Tourist Gardens in Cantho: There are several riverside gardens all over Can Tho like My khanh, San Duong, Ba lang and Tan Binh. These gardens give a closer view of the flora and fauna of this place.
Ong Pagoda in Cantho: Situated right at the centre of the city, on Hai Ba Trung Road, near the Ninh Kieu Wharf, the Ong Pagoda is the place for all Chinese cultural and religious activities in Cantho, Vietnam. Its colorful Chinese architecture is of special interest.
Ninh Kieu Wharf: This is the heart of all industrial activities in Cantho. Positioned on the bank of Hau River, it has a number of floating restaurants. Cantho City Museum: Situated on Phan Dinh Phung Street in Can Tho this museum provides an overview of the native history, culture, customs and traditions.
Army Museum: Situated on Hoa Binh just opposite to the City Museum, this Museum exhibits weapons, maps, photographs and other items from the Vietnamese War. It gives an idea of Vietnam’s long fight to freedom.
Cantho in Vietnam is a fabulous place offering everything required for a charming vacation. Getting here is quite easy as it is linked to the other main cities of Vietnam, like Ho Chi Minh City and My Tho by efficient bus services. The Cantho bus stop is just 2 km north-west to the heart of the city.
The city of Cantho, Vietnam is located exactly on the Southern Bank of Hau Gi
ang, a tributary of the Mekong River. It is immediately behind Danang and is about 160 kilometers away from the Ho Chi Minh City. Cantho’s busy city life can be credited to the fact that this province produces some of the largest amount of rice, vegetables, fruits in the whole country. They also have a flourishing fish production unit. Its sea port, being able to house some large ships from foreign countries is also a centre of lot of activity.In spite of being a prime urban area, Cantho’s picturesque location in the midst of meandering rivers, is what makes it a haven for tourism. Canal tours, the floating markets, the nearby villages, parks and other prominent attractions, the city offers plenty.
Some of the major tourist attractions in Cantho, Vietnam are:
Floating Markets in Cantho: These are one of the distinctive features of this district and are of great interest to the tourists. Some of the most frequented floating markets in this area are Cai Be, Cai Rang, Phung Hiep, Phong Dien, Nga Nam and Long Xuyen. Of these the Cai Rang Floating Market is the most popular one. Apart from providing a lovely view of the busting activities, these markets are a great place to hangout as they have lots of floating restaurants also.
Tourist Gardens in Cantho: There are several riverside gardens all over Can Tho like My khanh, San Duong, Ba lang and Tan Binh. These gardens give a closer view of the flora and fauna of this place.
Ong Pagoda in Cantho: Situated right at the centre of the city, on Hai Ba Trung Road, near the Ninh Kieu Wharf, the Ong Pagoda is the place for all Chinese cultural and religious activities in Cantho, Vietnam. Its colorful Chinese architecture is of special interest.
Ninh Kieu Wharf: This is the heart of all industrial activities in Cantho. Positioned on the bank of Hau River, it has a number of floating restaurants. Cantho City Museum: Situated on Phan Dinh Phung Street in Can Tho this museum provides an overview of the native history, culture, customs and traditions.
Army Museum: Situated on Hoa Binh just opposite to the City Museum, this Museum exhibits weapons, maps, photographs and other items from the Vietnamese War. It gives an idea of Vietnam’s long fight to freedom.
Cantho in Vietnam is a fabulous place offering everything required for a charming vacation. Getting here is quite easy as it is linked to the other main cities of Vietnam, like Ho Chi Minh City and My Tho by efficient bus services. The Cantho bus stop is just 2 km north-west to the heart of the city.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Phuquoc Natural Reserve Phu Quoc Island - Vietnam
Phuquoc Natural Reserve: Established in 1986 and later expanded to a total are of 37,000 ha, Phu Quoc Nature Reserve with diverse flora and fauna covers mainly the mountainous northern part of the island. There are nearly 929 tree species of which 19 newly-found species are first recorded in Vietnam. The forest is home to many species of birds and small mammals (flying squirrels, sloth-monkeys …) As explained by the French Larousse dictionary, the famous Phu Quoc dog is a well-tamed wild canine species which has become hunters' favorite companion. Trekking through the park should be done in the dry season only.
Phu Quoc White sandy beaches - Vietnam
White sandy beaches: First-time visitors to Phu Quoc are often surprised of its beaches which look sugary-white and the water is so crystal-clear. All are rated to be the best in Vietnam. The most spectacular beaches mostly spread along the western coast and gather around the southern tip of the island. Not far from the district town, private beaches next to all kinds of cozy hideaways are perfect for the family holiday. For young couples, the best choice of a secluded heaven is deserted bays ringed by sand, bushes and hills at the southern tip of the island.
Phu Quoc Island - Vietnam
Location: Phu Quoc Island lies in the Gulf of Thailand, Kien Giang Province, 45 km from Ha Tien and 15 km south of the coast of Cambodia.
Characteristics: Phu Quoc, the largest island in Vietnam, is also part of an archipelago consisting of 22 islands and islets. The island covers an area of 585km2 and is 50km long.
Phu Quoc Island covers an area of 567sq.km (about 62km long and between 3km and 28km wide), and its population is approximately 85,000 (in 2001).
Phu Quoc is called the island of "99 mountains" because of its many sandstone chains gradually descending from the north to the south. The longest one is Ham Ninh which stretches for 30 km along the eastern edge with its highest peak called Mt. Chua (603m).
Phu Quoc has a monsoon sub-equatorial climate. There are two seasons in the year: the rainy season (October only) and the dry season (November to September). The average annual rainfall is 2,879 m and the average temperature is 27oC. Trips to Phu Quoc can be made all year round, but the best time is dry season when the sky is always sunny, clear and blue.
Phu Quoc is also called the Emerald Island because of its natural treasures and infinite tourism potential. The island is well known for its high-quality fish sauce; Phu Quoc fish sauce smells particularly good since it is made from a small fish, ca com, with a high level of protein. The island produces 6 million liters of fish sauce every year.
Phu Quoc Island has many harbors such as An Thoi and Hon Thom where international and domestic ships anchor. Also, there are several historical sites on the island: National Hero Nguyen Trung Truc's military base, King Gia Long relics from the time he spent on the island, and Phu Quoc Prison.
Off the coast of the island emerges a group of 105 islands of all sizes. Some of them are densely inhabited such as Hon Tre and Kien Hai, 25km from Rach Gia. Visitors can spend time on the beach or hike while observing the wild animals.
It is possible to reach the island by either plane or boat from Rach Gia, Ho Chi Minh City (40minutes, by plane), Ha Tien (8 hours, by boat).
Phu Quoc Island Travel Guide Vietnam
Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam, is situated in the Gulf of Thailand. Located off the southern coast of Vietnam
and Cambodia, it is the largest island in Vietnam. The 48 kilometers long and 28 kilometers wide island is closer to the Cambodian mainland than Vietnam. Phu Quoc Island forms a triangular shape and to the west of it is the Long Beach, the longest beach of the island. Most of the accommodations in the island are along this beach. There are other varied accommodations available throughout the island ranging from cheap bungalows to beach resorts. Duong Dong is the largest town in Phu Quoc Island situated to the north of the Long Beach. Even a few years back Phu Quoc was known for its fish sauce. Today it is known as one of the major Vietnam popular destinations.
During the colonial rule of the French and the war with America Phu Quoc Island was used as a prison. Ruins of the prison are visible even today. After Vietnam gained independence in 1975 this island was used as a re-education camp.
Nearly half the island lets you view the unspoilt beauty of nature. Phu Quoc Island is covered with forests and the beaches are deserted creating an enchanting environment in the island. It provides a spectacular view with the perfect fusion of its blue waters, sandy beaches, and beautiful landscapes. In a visit to the island do not forget to view the magical sunset from the beach. The famous beaches in the island, other than the Long Beach, are Bai Dan and Bai Sao. Away from the beaches are the pepper fields, the rain forest, and the Suoi Da Ban river with its waterfalls.
Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam: Getting there
Phu Quoc Island, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Vietnam, can be reached by both air and boat. It is less than an hour’s journey by plane from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to Duong Dong. Vietnam Airlines make nearly four trips to the island everyday. Flights are available from Mekong Delta, Vietnam as well.
A ferry ride can be taken from the Rach Gia to the island. It takes around two and a half hours though it is better to avoid the ferry in rainy seasons.
and Cambodia, it is the largest island in Vietnam. The 48 kilometers long and 28 kilometers wide island is closer to the Cambodian mainland than Vietnam. Phu Quoc Island forms a triangular shape and to the west of it is the Long Beach, the longest beach of the island. Most of the accommodations in the island are along this beach. There are other varied accommodations available throughout the island ranging from cheap bungalows to beach resorts. Duong Dong is the largest town in Phu Quoc Island situated to the north of the Long Beach. Even a few years back Phu Quoc was known for its fish sauce. Today it is known as one of the major Vietnam popular destinations.During the colonial rule of the French and the war with America Phu Quoc Island was used as a prison. Ruins of the prison are visible even today. After Vietnam gained independence in 1975 this island was used as a re-education camp.
Nearly half the island lets you view the unspoilt beauty of nature. Phu Quoc Island is covered with forests and the beaches are deserted creating an enchanting environment in the island. It provides a spectacular view with the perfect fusion of its blue waters, sandy beaches, and beautiful landscapes. In a visit to the island do not forget to view the magical sunset from the beach. The famous beaches in the island, other than the Long Beach, are Bai Dan and Bai Sao. Away from the beaches are the pepper fields, the rain forest, and the Suoi Da Ban river with its waterfalls.
Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam: Getting there
Phu Quoc Island, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Vietnam, can be reached by both air and boat. It is less than an hour’s journey by plane from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to Duong Dong. Vietnam Airlines make nearly four trips to the island everyday. Flights are available from Mekong Delta, Vietnam as well.
A ferry ride can be taken from the Rach Gia to the island. It takes around two and a half hours though it is better to avoid the ferry in rainy seasons.
How did the Chinese come to settle in Cho Lon (Big Market), Sai Gon's Chinatown?
During the late 1700s, three brothers from Tay Son Village west of modern Quy Nhan City in the Center led a peaSont uprising. In 1777, the Tay Son peasant forces fought fiercely against the Nguyen Court representatives in the Cu Lao Pho region, now the site of Bien Hoa City northwest of Sai Gon. The Cu Lao Pho Market was burned down during the fighting. Chinese residents abandoned Thanh Ha Village in Cu Lao Pho to settle in Minh Huong Village, the current site of Sai Gon's Cho Lon Market.
The Chinese traditionally set up markets wherever they settled. They built a new market on the site of the current Cho Lon Post Office. Since the new market was larger than the existing Tan Kieng Market, people called the new market Cho Lon, which means "big market" in Vietnamese. Trinh Hoai Duc (1765-1825), a Vietnamese mandarin, described Cho Lon in his book, Gia Dinh thanh thong chi (Record of Gia Dinh Town, 1820), as follows: Streets and house roofs run continuously, shoulder to shoulder. Chinese and Vietnamese families live next to each other for three miles. The venders sell velvet, chinaware, paper, jeweler, books, medicines, tea, and powder. All kinds of goods travel over many different sea and river routes to arrive here.
Trading at Cho Lon became so attractive that many people poured in, congesting the neighborhood. A Chinese merchant, Quach Dam, bought 25,000 square meters of marshland in Binh Tay Hamlet and filled the area with earth. He proposed to the Cho Lon authorities that he erect a new market of reinforced concrete for the province if, in return, the province would allow him to build some streets with rental houses. The local authorities agreed. Quach Dam built the new Cho Lon Market, now called Binh Tay Market, which was larger and cleaner. The merchants showed their gratitude by calling it Quach Dam Market. Quach Dam regained his investment by renting houses near the market. After seven decades, Binh Tay Market still looks beautiful and remains one of the busiest markets in Sai Con - Ho Chi Minh City.
The Chinese traditionally set up markets wherever they settled. They built a new market on the site of the current Cho Lon Post Office. Since the new market was larger than the existing Tan Kieng Market, people called the new market Cho Lon, which means "big market" in Vietnamese. Trinh Hoai Duc (1765-1825), a Vietnamese mandarin, described Cho Lon in his book, Gia Dinh thanh thong chi (Record of Gia Dinh Town, 1820), as follows: Streets and house roofs run continuously, shoulder to shoulder. Chinese and Vietnamese families live next to each other for three miles. The venders sell velvet, chinaware, paper, jeweler, books, medicines, tea, and powder. All kinds of goods travel over many different sea and river routes to arrive here.
Trading at Cho Lon became so attractive that many people poured in, congesting the neighborhood. A Chinese merchant, Quach Dam, bought 25,000 square meters of marshland in Binh Tay Hamlet and filled the area with earth. He proposed to the Cho Lon authorities that he erect a new market of reinforced concrete for the province if, in return, the province would allow him to build some streets with rental houses. The local authorities agreed. Quach Dam built the new Cho Lon Market, now called Binh Tay Market, which was larger and cleaner. The merchants showed their gratitude by calling it Quach Dam Market. Quach Dam regained his investment by renting houses near the market. After seven decades, Binh Tay Market still looks beautiful and remains one of the busiest markets in Sai Con - Ho Chi Minh City.
How are French plays making a comeback on the Sai Gon stage?
During the 1940s, people in Sai Gon adapted many French plays because French-educated Vietnamese found this format acceptable. However, director Tran Minh Ngoc, an expert in French drama, had a different point of view as follows: Question: There were times when French plays disappeared from Sai Gon's stages. Some believe these scripts and showy performances cannot attract a modern audience. What is your view? Answer: In 1991, when I was teaching at the Drama School in the south, the Ministry of Culture invited me to attend a workshop on French drama in Hanoi. Some French authors and directors, including Georges Lavandant and Michel Deutsch, talked about modern French theater. We were shocked because we'd only known classic, formal French theater. We didn't know that modern French the after was more practical, realistic, and simple. This new format is more interesting to audiences, who like good scripts and performances. France has a long theatrical tradition; its writers can produce good scripts. The rest depends on whether the artists act the plays in ways that audiences accept.
Question: Do you think the recent appearance of French plays on Sai Gon's stages means French drama has acquired a new status in the city? Answer: The number of French plays being performed now is modest. The artists are partly to blame for this, since they don't I like the formal character of French theater. However, we should reconsider the criteria for reviewing Vietnamese and foreign scripts. I agree we should give priority to Vietnamese plays, but we should not take this to extremes. We must realize that a good script irrespective of its country of origin - makes staging more effective. Our staging of world-famous plays shows that our acting skills have reached a high standard. I n the past, we successfully performed great foreign plays such as L'Avare (The miser) and Tartuffe or L'lmposteur (Tartuffe or The imposter) by Moliere. Please don't think that by staging foreign plays, we were just absorbing foreign influence and had nothing to contribute. French theater emerged from enlightenment and rationalism. However, French theater is also changing. It is experimenting with the Oriental artistic approach, which is more conventional and symbolic.
Question: You mean that some plays staged at the Institut d'Echanges Culturels avec la France (IDECAF) have already incorporated these two way influences? Answer: Yes. That's why the artists could perform creatively and also the reason the audiences kept coming. You should come and see the performers. On stage, they live the lives of their characters. It's thanks to these scripts that Sai Gon's theater is more diverse these days.
Question: Do you think the recent appearance of French plays on Sai Gon's stages means French drama has acquired a new status in the city? Answer: The number of French plays being performed now is modest. The artists are partly to blame for this, since they don't I like the formal character of French theater. However, we should reconsider the criteria for reviewing Vietnamese and foreign scripts. I agree we should give priority to Vietnamese plays, but we should not take this to extremes. We must realize that a good script irrespective of its country of origin - makes staging more effective. Our staging of world-famous plays shows that our acting skills have reached a high standard. I n the past, we successfully performed great foreign plays such as L'Avare (The miser) and Tartuffe or L'lmposteur (Tartuffe or The imposter) by Moliere. Please don't think that by staging foreign plays, we were just absorbing foreign influence and had nothing to contribute. French theater emerged from enlightenment and rationalism. However, French theater is also changing. It is experimenting with the Oriental artistic approach, which is more conventional and symbolic.
Question: You mean that some plays staged at the Institut d'Echanges Culturels avec la France (IDECAF) have already incorporated these two way influences? Answer: Yes. That's why the artists could perform creatively and also the reason the audiences kept coming. You should come and see the performers. On stage, they live the lives of their characters. It's thanks to these scripts that Sai Gon's theater is more diverse these days.
How did the renowned scholar Nguyen Khac Vien see the future of Sai Gon?
Dr. Nguyen Khac Vien was one of the best known Vietnamese scholars of modern times. In 1992, he was awarded the Prix de la Francophonie given by the Academie Française. Between 1975 and 1995, he spent two to three months each year in Ho Chi Minh City. Here are some of Dr. Nguyen Khac Vien's observations about Ho Chi Minh City made in 1995, two years before he died. His observations are as relevant today as they were then.
Opposite or Supplementary? The south and the north of Viet Nam have many geographic and historic differences. Objectively speaking, they form a bi-polarity. Subjectively, there are two possibilities, that they are either opposite or supplementary to each other. Sai Gon is materially richer than Hanoi. For that reason, some parochial people have wanted to split the south from the north, turning the south into its own state. The French tried to set up such a system in 1946 as the "State of Cochinchina." They appointed Dr. Nguyen Van Thinh, a Sai Gon intellectual, as prime minister. After some months, Dr. Thinh realized his erroneous act and committed suicide. The United States poured in billions of dollars and sent half a million troops into the south yet could not maintain the separate Republic of Viet Nam. Viet Nam as a single, unified country is a well established concept in the minds of Vietnamese. The question now is how to turn the differences into a diversified but unified whole. This issue is important for Sai Gon and for the relationship between north and south, between people in the plains and those in the mountains, as well as the relationships among Viet Nam's fifty-four ethnic groups.
Social Diversities: Sai Gon accounts for only 6% of Viet Nam's population, yet the city possesses almost 40% of the country's cash in circulation. On the one hand, Sai Gon is a leading center in the economic development of the country, speeding up the development of other regions; on the other hand, it is like an octopus sucking resources from other regions. The widening gap between rich and poor is an inevitable consequence of the market economy. The differences between social strata are sharper in Sai Gon than anywhere else in the country. Can the people of Sai Gon - especially the intellectuals - clearly see this difference between their city and the country's other regions? A pressing question for the nation and particularly for Sai Gon's intellectuals is how to develop a market economy without widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Two thousand years ago, a sage said: "People are not afraid of poverty but, instead, of unfair distribution." During the war, those living in the resistance bases did not feel unhappy, no matter how poor they were. Of course, no one wants eternal poverty. Thanks to the current economic development, it is now possible for Viet Nam to produce enough food and clothes for its people. Yet even though this is so, it remains hard to avoid gaps between rich and poor.
The Year 2000: Sai Gon - Ho Chi Minh City now boasts a population of 5 million. Sai Gon faces urgent issues like those challenging Manila, Bangkok, Jakarta, Cairo, Sao Paulo, and other large cities of the developing world. First, it is impossible to prevent poor rural migrants from pouring into Sai Gon. The city applies strict rules for residential registration, but every year hundreds of thousands of migrants from Lao Cai and Yen Bai, Quang Binh, and Binh Dinh Provinces move to Sai Gon. By the year 2000, Viet Nam will not have solved the family-planning problem in the rural areas. Nevertheless, Sai Gon will find it hard to avoid the "ghost hamlets," where non-registered inhabitants stay, and the city will find it equally hard to solve the problem of street children. In Sai Gon, a hard-working person who is a little clever can earn VND 5,000 to VND10, 000 a day - an amount difficult to secure in the countryside. Money is flowing into Sai Gon. The government is aware of these issues, but whether its current efforts can address the imbalance remains to be seen because remote areas need substantial investment to counter the nation's gap between rich and poor.
Like other big cities, Sai Gon's infrastructure is inadequate. It faces shortages in water, electricity, accommodations, and communications even though this is the best equipped city in Viet Nam. How much longer will this situation continue? Today's scientific and technological developments can help Viet Nam solve the problem; within the next decades, Sai Gon, Bien Hoa, and Vung Tau will become large, modern urban centers. Saigon intellectuals interested in economics, science, and technology will easily find a lifestyle well-suited to those interests. However, in spite of their obsession with informatics and economic management, Sai Gon's intellectuals must also tackle issues such as the disintegrating family, environmental pollution, population pressures, drug addiction, juvenile delinquency, and HIV/AIDS. Some individuals wonder whether they should join a government agency to help manage the country or work for a private foreign business to double their income. Many do not care about what they do or whom they serve. Like the rest of Viet Nam, Sai Gon has been in a crisis these past few years. A way out of the crisis will most likely have been found by 2000, but leaders must consider more than just the economy.
Opposite or Supplementary? The south and the north of Viet Nam have many geographic and historic differences. Objectively speaking, they form a bi-polarity. Subjectively, there are two possibilities, that they are either opposite or supplementary to each other. Sai Gon is materially richer than Hanoi. For that reason, some parochial people have wanted to split the south from the north, turning the south into its own state. The French tried to set up such a system in 1946 as the "State of Cochinchina." They appointed Dr. Nguyen Van Thinh, a Sai Gon intellectual, as prime minister. After some months, Dr. Thinh realized his erroneous act and committed suicide. The United States poured in billions of dollars and sent half a million troops into the south yet could not maintain the separate Republic of Viet Nam. Viet Nam as a single, unified country is a well established concept in the minds of Vietnamese. The question now is how to turn the differences into a diversified but unified whole. This issue is important for Sai Gon and for the relationship between north and south, between people in the plains and those in the mountains, as well as the relationships among Viet Nam's fifty-four ethnic groups.
Social Diversities: Sai Gon accounts for only 6% of Viet Nam's population, yet the city possesses almost 40% of the country's cash in circulation. On the one hand, Sai Gon is a leading center in the economic development of the country, speeding up the development of other regions; on the other hand, it is like an octopus sucking resources from other regions. The widening gap between rich and poor is an inevitable consequence of the market economy. The differences between social strata are sharper in Sai Gon than anywhere else in the country. Can the people of Sai Gon - especially the intellectuals - clearly see this difference between their city and the country's other regions? A pressing question for the nation and particularly for Sai Gon's intellectuals is how to develop a market economy without widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Two thousand years ago, a sage said: "People are not afraid of poverty but, instead, of unfair distribution." During the war, those living in the resistance bases did not feel unhappy, no matter how poor they were. Of course, no one wants eternal poverty. Thanks to the current economic development, it is now possible for Viet Nam to produce enough food and clothes for its people. Yet even though this is so, it remains hard to avoid gaps between rich and poor.
The Year 2000: Sai Gon - Ho Chi Minh City now boasts a population of 5 million. Sai Gon faces urgent issues like those challenging Manila, Bangkok, Jakarta, Cairo, Sao Paulo, and other large cities of the developing world. First, it is impossible to prevent poor rural migrants from pouring into Sai Gon. The city applies strict rules for residential registration, but every year hundreds of thousands of migrants from Lao Cai and Yen Bai, Quang Binh, and Binh Dinh Provinces move to Sai Gon. By the year 2000, Viet Nam will not have solved the family-planning problem in the rural areas. Nevertheless, Sai Gon will find it hard to avoid the "ghost hamlets," where non-registered inhabitants stay, and the city will find it equally hard to solve the problem of street children. In Sai Gon, a hard-working person who is a little clever can earn VND 5,000 to VND10, 000 a day - an amount difficult to secure in the countryside. Money is flowing into Sai Gon. The government is aware of these issues, but whether its current efforts can address the imbalance remains to be seen because remote areas need substantial investment to counter the nation's gap between rich and poor.
Like other big cities, Sai Gon's infrastructure is inadequate. It faces shortages in water, electricity, accommodations, and communications even though this is the best equipped city in Viet Nam. How much longer will this situation continue? Today's scientific and technological developments can help Viet Nam solve the problem; within the next decades, Sai Gon, Bien Hoa, and Vung Tau will become large, modern urban centers. Saigon intellectuals interested in economics, science, and technology will easily find a lifestyle well-suited to those interests. However, in spite of their obsession with informatics and economic management, Sai Gon's intellectuals must also tackle issues such as the disintegrating family, environmental pollution, population pressures, drug addiction, juvenile delinquency, and HIV/AIDS. Some individuals wonder whether they should join a government agency to help manage the country or work for a private foreign business to double their income. Many do not care about what they do or whom they serve. Like the rest of Viet Nam, Sai Gon has been in a crisis these past few years. A way out of the crisis will most likely have been found by 2000, but leaders must consider more than just the economy.
What are some day-tour highlights in Ho Chi Minh City?
There are many excellent historic sights in Ho Chi Minh City. Here are some recommendations:
Ben Thanh Market: This largest of the city's major markets is located in the downtown area. It opened in 1914 after two years of construction. The market has a wide selection of inexpensive, locally produced garments and textiles as well as items imported from the West and Eastern Europe. At one end is a "wet market" with all kinds of fresh meats, fish, fruits, and flowers.
Cho Lon District (Chinatown): Ho Chi Minh City is home to about a million ethnic Chinese, who form a major part of the private-sector economy that has been growing rapidly since Viet Nam began its shift to the "free-market" system. In 1998, the ethnic Chinese community joined other residents in celebrating the city's 300th anniversary. Known in Vietnamese as the Viet Hoa (Chinese Vietnamese), the ethnic Chinese trace their origins to Chinese immigrants who first settled during the seventeenth century on the banks of the Kinh Tau Hu Creek. The area, which was later known as Cho Lon, is home to about 500,000 people. As with other Chinese communities around the world, the Vietnamese Chinese have sought to preserve their own traditions, culture, and language. Cho Lon is a mix of large thoroughfares and narrow side streets and alleys, which, when taken together, provide the site for an exciting stroll. Visitors can see traditional medicine sellers, old temples, local Chinese restaurants, calligraphy shops, and more. They will feel they are both stepping into the past and simultaneously discovering fresh expectations and opportunities of new businesses in modern Ho Chi Minh City.
History Museum: Formerly the Blanchard de la Brosse Museum, the History Museum was built within the grounds of the Botanical Gardens in 1929, using a composite neo-Vietnamese style. It houses exhibits collected by the Ecole Française d'Extreme Orient, among others. The display includes a section on Vietnamese Ethnography.
Giac Lam Pagoda: Built in 1744, this is the oldest pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City. Situated in Tan Binh District, the pagoda evokes a feeling of another world with its pungent incense, funeral tablets, and carved inscriptions. Reconstruction work was last carried out in 1900. Carved wooden pillars in the main building bear placards written in gilded nom, Viet Nam's ancient ideographic script. The biographies of monks from previous generations accompany the monks' portraits on the pagoda walls. Giac Lam Pagoda also houses beautifully carved jack wood statues of Buddha, of the reincarnations of Buddha, as well as of judges, guardians from Hell, and the Goddess of Mercy.
Ho Chi Minh Museum: This museum is housed in a fine building, which was formerly the Sai Gon Customs House. Built in 1863; it stands on the banks of the Sai Gon River and is perhaps the best preserved example of French colonial architecture in Sai Gon. Ho Chi Minh is said to have set sail from a nearby dock for France in 1911. He supported himself by serving as an assistant to the ship's cook. The museum houses documents, pictures, and collages about Ho Chi Minh's life, vision, challenges, and accomplishments.
Jade Emperor Pagoda (Chua Ngoc Hoang): Built in 1892, the Jade Emperor Pagoda, also known as the Tortoise Pagoda (Chua Phuoc Hai Tu) is dedicated to a pantheon of mythical Chinese Vietnamese divinities in a mixture of Taoism and Buddhism. This pagoda was an important meeting place for Chinese secret societies that hoped to overthrow the Manchu Dynasty in Peking. One of the most colorful pagodas in Ho Chi Minh City, it is filled with statues of various divinities and heroes. A haze of heady incense and candle smoke envelops a fascinating array of native-style wooden statues inspired by Taoism and Buddhism. The elaborately robed Taoist Jade Emperor surveys the main sanctuary, the roof of which is covered in elaborately patterned tiles.
Notre Dame Cathedral: Built between 1877 and 1883, Notre Dame Cathedral is one of Ho Chi Minh City's most famous landmarks and represents the major seat of Catholicism in southern Viet Nam. It was built in a neo-Romanesque style, using red bricks brought from Marseilles and colored glass windows made in France's Chartres Province. The Cathedral was consecrated in 1962 in honor of the-centenary of the Bishopric of Saigon. Full services in both Vietnamese and English are held every Sunday morning and are well attended by Vietnamese and foreigners alike. Other services are held throughout the week.
Re-Unification Palace (Presidential Palace): This modernistic palace of former President Nguyen Van Thieu and his predecessors is now a museum and venue for official receptions. In 1868, the French had the Norodom Palace built for the French Governor-General of Indochina, but then they moved the governor's offices to Hanoi in 1880 and used the Norodom Palace only intermittently until 1954, when the French turned it over to the Vietnamese Government of South Viet Nam. President Ngo Dinh Diem used the palace as his own luxurious residence until 1962, when two disaffected Sai Gon Army pilots dropped bombs in an assassination attempt that destroyed the Palace. Ngo Dinh Diem was not hurt. The replacement palace took four years to build and reflects the influence of American 1960s architecture, including rocket screens on the building's front. Tours of the Palace include the various meeting rooms upstairs and the basement War Room complete with radio equipment, maps, and other leftovers from the hurried surrender in 1975. The grounds contain one of the first tanks to burst through the Palace gates on 30 April 1975 as well as the fighter plane that bombed the Palace toward the end of the war. The pilot of that aircraft is now a senior officer of Vietnam Airlines.
Rue Catinat (Dong Khoi Street): Dong Khoi, a one-way street that runs from the Continental Hotel to the river, is Sai Gon's most famous street for shopping, art galleries, restaurants, and bars. The quaint shops selling souvenirs from the war are becoming a thing of the past as international retailers establish themselves in the city center. A discerning eye can still find worthwhile purchases.
Sai Gon Post Office: Located next to Notre Dame Cathedral is a magnificent French-style post office. Built between 1886 and 1891, the structure has a glass canopy with an iron frame. A huge mural with a map of Sai Gon was added at the beginning of the twentieth century. A large portrait of Ho Chi Minh looks down on the main hall.
Thien Hau Pagoda: Cantonese fishermen built this Chinese temple, which is dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea, at the end of the eighteenth century. They decorated the roof with intricate ceramic friezes that have three-dimensional figures. Women often bring offerings, which they set on the altar of the Heavenly Lady. The altar features three statues of Thien Hau. Worshipers also burn paper votive offerings in a large vessel near the entrance.
War Crimes Museum: This museum displays tanks, fighter planes, other war relics, and photographs. It is popular with local groups as a means to educate children on the consequences of war and the value of peace.
Ben Thanh Market: This largest of the city's major markets is located in the downtown area. It opened in 1914 after two years of construction. The market has a wide selection of inexpensive, locally produced garments and textiles as well as items imported from the West and Eastern Europe. At one end is a "wet market" with all kinds of fresh meats, fish, fruits, and flowers.
Cho Lon District (Chinatown): Ho Chi Minh City is home to about a million ethnic Chinese, who form a major part of the private-sector economy that has been growing rapidly since Viet Nam began its shift to the "free-market" system. In 1998, the ethnic Chinese community joined other residents in celebrating the city's 300th anniversary. Known in Vietnamese as the Viet Hoa (Chinese Vietnamese), the ethnic Chinese trace their origins to Chinese immigrants who first settled during the seventeenth century on the banks of the Kinh Tau Hu Creek. The area, which was later known as Cho Lon, is home to about 500,000 people. As with other Chinese communities around the world, the Vietnamese Chinese have sought to preserve their own traditions, culture, and language. Cho Lon is a mix of large thoroughfares and narrow side streets and alleys, which, when taken together, provide the site for an exciting stroll. Visitors can see traditional medicine sellers, old temples, local Chinese restaurants, calligraphy shops, and more. They will feel they are both stepping into the past and simultaneously discovering fresh expectations and opportunities of new businesses in modern Ho Chi Minh City.
History Museum: Formerly the Blanchard de la Brosse Museum, the History Museum was built within the grounds of the Botanical Gardens in 1929, using a composite neo-Vietnamese style. It houses exhibits collected by the Ecole Française d'Extreme Orient, among others. The display includes a section on Vietnamese Ethnography.
Giac Lam Pagoda: Built in 1744, this is the oldest pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City. Situated in Tan Binh District, the pagoda evokes a feeling of another world with its pungent incense, funeral tablets, and carved inscriptions. Reconstruction work was last carried out in 1900. Carved wooden pillars in the main building bear placards written in gilded nom, Viet Nam's ancient ideographic script. The biographies of monks from previous generations accompany the monks' portraits on the pagoda walls. Giac Lam Pagoda also houses beautifully carved jack wood statues of Buddha, of the reincarnations of Buddha, as well as of judges, guardians from Hell, and the Goddess of Mercy.
Ho Chi Minh Museum: This museum is housed in a fine building, which was formerly the Sai Gon Customs House. Built in 1863; it stands on the banks of the Sai Gon River and is perhaps the best preserved example of French colonial architecture in Sai Gon. Ho Chi Minh is said to have set sail from a nearby dock for France in 1911. He supported himself by serving as an assistant to the ship's cook. The museum houses documents, pictures, and collages about Ho Chi Minh's life, vision, challenges, and accomplishments.
Jade Emperor Pagoda (Chua Ngoc Hoang): Built in 1892, the Jade Emperor Pagoda, also known as the Tortoise Pagoda (Chua Phuoc Hai Tu) is dedicated to a pantheon of mythical Chinese Vietnamese divinities in a mixture of Taoism and Buddhism. This pagoda was an important meeting place for Chinese secret societies that hoped to overthrow the Manchu Dynasty in Peking. One of the most colorful pagodas in Ho Chi Minh City, it is filled with statues of various divinities and heroes. A haze of heady incense and candle smoke envelops a fascinating array of native-style wooden statues inspired by Taoism and Buddhism. The elaborately robed Taoist Jade Emperor surveys the main sanctuary, the roof of which is covered in elaborately patterned tiles.
Notre Dame Cathedral: Built between 1877 and 1883, Notre Dame Cathedral is one of Ho Chi Minh City's most famous landmarks and represents the major seat of Catholicism in southern Viet Nam. It was built in a neo-Romanesque style, using red bricks brought from Marseilles and colored glass windows made in France's Chartres Province. The Cathedral was consecrated in 1962 in honor of the-centenary of the Bishopric of Saigon. Full services in both Vietnamese and English are held every Sunday morning and are well attended by Vietnamese and foreigners alike. Other services are held throughout the week.
Re-Unification Palace (Presidential Palace): This modernistic palace of former President Nguyen Van Thieu and his predecessors is now a museum and venue for official receptions. In 1868, the French had the Norodom Palace built for the French Governor-General of Indochina, but then they moved the governor's offices to Hanoi in 1880 and used the Norodom Palace only intermittently until 1954, when the French turned it over to the Vietnamese Government of South Viet Nam. President Ngo Dinh Diem used the palace as his own luxurious residence until 1962, when two disaffected Sai Gon Army pilots dropped bombs in an assassination attempt that destroyed the Palace. Ngo Dinh Diem was not hurt. The replacement palace took four years to build and reflects the influence of American 1960s architecture, including rocket screens on the building's front. Tours of the Palace include the various meeting rooms upstairs and the basement War Room complete with radio equipment, maps, and other leftovers from the hurried surrender in 1975. The grounds contain one of the first tanks to burst through the Palace gates on 30 April 1975 as well as the fighter plane that bombed the Palace toward the end of the war. The pilot of that aircraft is now a senior officer of Vietnam Airlines.
Rue Catinat (Dong Khoi Street): Dong Khoi, a one-way street that runs from the Continental Hotel to the river, is Sai Gon's most famous street for shopping, art galleries, restaurants, and bars. The quaint shops selling souvenirs from the war are becoming a thing of the past as international retailers establish themselves in the city center. A discerning eye can still find worthwhile purchases.
Sai Gon Post Office: Located next to Notre Dame Cathedral is a magnificent French-style post office. Built between 1886 and 1891, the structure has a glass canopy with an iron frame. A huge mural with a map of Sai Gon was added at the beginning of the twentieth century. A large portrait of Ho Chi Minh looks down on the main hall.
Thien Hau Pagoda: Cantonese fishermen built this Chinese temple, which is dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea, at the end of the eighteenth century. They decorated the roof with intricate ceramic friezes that have three-dimensional figures. Women often bring offerings, which they set on the altar of the Heavenly Lady. The altar features three statues of Thien Hau. Worshipers also burn paper votive offerings in a large vessel near the entrance.
War Crimes Museum: This museum displays tanks, fighter planes, other war relics, and photographs. It is popular with local groups as a means to educate children on the consequences of war and the value of peace.
How is the fine arts markets changing?
More than 700 painters are members of the Ho Chi Minh City's Association of Fine Arts. They come from many backgrounds - artists who were in the city before 1975, artists arriving from the resistance bases after the war ended, artists arriving from the north after 1975, graduates from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Fine Arts after 1975, amateur trainees from private galleries, painters of Chinese origin, and Vietnamese returnees from overseas. This mix gives fine arts in Ho Chi Minh City its special character, which is multi-faceted, open, and dynamic. Some painters delve deeper into the war, while others continue with topics specific to southern Viet Nam, and still others reveal the soul's universal qualities.
These characteristics make Ho Chi Minh City a good environment for graphic artists and their many clubs and associations reflecting different artistic trends and tastes. Sai Gon's fine-arts market has grown quickly since the country opened more than fifteen years ago. Although life in the fine arts has grown busier, individual artists face new challenges. Of course there are those artists who paint only to make money, but there are also those who try to define values for Vietnamese fine arts. Their open exchange with Western, Chinese, American, Cham, Khmer, and Indian arts provides a special influence on art in Sai Gon. Many Sai Gon painters employ symbolism and abstraction to reveal the depth of the soul in a language of modern art with a Vietnamese heart.
These characteristics make Ho Chi Minh City a good environment for graphic artists and their many clubs and associations reflecting different artistic trends and tastes. Sai Gon's fine-arts market has grown quickly since the country opened more than fifteen years ago. Although life in the fine arts has grown busier, individual artists face new challenges. Of course there are those artists who paint only to make money, but there are also those who try to define values for Vietnamese fine arts. Their open exchange with Western, Chinese, American, Cham, Khmer, and Indian arts provides a special influence on art in Sai Gon. Many Sai Gon painters employ symbolism and abstraction to reveal the depth of the soul in a language of modern art with a Vietnamese heart.
Who are some of the most prominent figures in the history of Sai Gon?
Nguyen Dinh Chieu (1822-1888):
Nguyen Dinh Chieu was born on 1 July 1822 in the village of Tan Thai in Gia Dinh Province within the present city limits of Sai Gon - Cho Lon. He died on 3 July 1888 in Ben T re at the age of sixty-six.
Nguyen Dinh Chieu received his education in the imperial city of Hue. At the age of twenty, he returned to his home province and in the next year earned a Bachelor of Arts in the regional examination. In 1849, the news of his mother's death while he was preparing for the national examination in Hue forced his return to Gia Dinh. Illness soon deprived him of his eyesight. In spite of blindness, Nguyen Dinh Chieu went into teaching, medicine, and literature. His fame as a physician and scholar spread to the six provinces the Western missionaries had named Cochinchina. Nguyen Dinh Chieu had planned to devote himself entirely to teaching and medicine, but then the French invasion began. In 1858, the French bombarded the port of Da Nang (called Tourane by the French) in Central Viet Nam to intimidate the Court of Hue. In 1859, they occupied Can Gio Port and the Gia Dinh Citadel. In 1862, the Court of Hue surrendered the three eastern provinces to the French and followed suit in 1867 with the three western provinces. Now, all of Cochinchina had fallen under the grip of French imperialism.
Nguyen Dinh Chieu took part in the popular resistance against the French. His writings, which were inspired by militant patriotism, stimulated the partisans' morale. Even though the French suppressed the popular resistance, he never gave up his struggle. Through his literary work, he kept confidence in the country's future alive for the population of the six provinces. The colonialists and their lackeys tried to win him over. Michel Ponchon, the governor of Ben Tre, visited Nguyen Dinh Chieu. Once, the governor even offered to give him back his house and land in Sai Gon. Nguyen Dinh Chieu retorted, "Why should I care about my house when the King has lost his domain?"
On another occasion, the official I press of Sai Gon wanted to organize a public campaign to help Nguyen Dinh Chieu, but he refused to participate, knowing only too well that this was another attempt to buy him off. Nguyen Dinh Chieu refused to collaborate with the invaders and preferred to live, instead, in poverty. To demonstrate his opposition, he refused to use anything imported from France and refused to send his children to French schools. Until his death, his irreproachable patriotism commanded respect from the people of Cochinchina.
Truong Dinh (1820 – 1864)
Truong Dinh was born in Binh Son District of Quang Ngai Province. While still a child, he followed his father, Truong Cam, a colonel of the provincial army, to Gia Dinh. As a young adult, he married the daughter of a well-to-do family in Tan An, Dinh Tuong Province and chose to stay on in his wife's native region after his father's death. Both Ky Xuyen Van Sao by Nguyen Thong, director of education in Vinh Long Province, and Paulin Vial's Les Premieres Annees de la Cochinchine (The First Years of Cochinchina) describe Truong Dinh as a tall man with a fair complexion and a proud bearing. Truong Dinh was renowned for his intelligence, marksmanship, and sound knowledge of military arts. During the reign of King Tu Duc, he spent much of his wealth in clearing waste land and organizing the poor, thereby earning a promotion to quan co, which was a position the feudal state had created to supervise plantation laborers. Truong Dinh was a good organizer and showed solicitude for the workers, who respected him.
French troops attacked Gia Dinh in 1859, killing Vo Duy Ninh, the citadel commander, and routing the imperial army. Truong Dinh stationed his own force of 500 farm hands to resist the French. He showed such courage that Lieutenant Paulin Vial, who fought against him several times, acknowledged his bravery. In his book, Paulin Vial gave this account: "Truong Dinh had a comrade named Huy. When the French seized Dong Son, Huy went over to the conquerors, which made him a canton chief. Huy lived among the French in their garrison. He spotted Truong Dinh's campsite and sent a servant with a letter to tell the French, but instead the servant took the secret letter to Truong Dinh. Truong Dinh immediately went to Dong San, beheaded the traitor, and returned to his own camp unscathed. He accomplished this feat in the very region where French troops were concentrated."
Paulin Vial added that this daring escapade made Truong Dinh famous and enhanced his prestige as a rebel dedicated to a noble cause. In another passage, Paulin Vial acknowledged that Truong Dinh possessed the flexibility and boldness needed to fulfill the complicated task he had set for himself. The French defeated the royal army at Phu Tho during the first month of the Lunar year of the Rooster (Tan Dau, 1861). The royal army fell back to Bien Hoa, and Truong Dinh withdrew his forces to Tan Hoa, where he commanded armed plantation workers and the regular Court soldiers who had reassembled after the debacle. During their siege of Bien Hoa and Vinh Long, the French discounted Truong Dinh and his men, calling them pirates who hardly merited attention. Truong Dinh took advantage of the French lack of vigilance to acquire and store food, manufacture arms and munitions, and raise more troops with the help of two mandarins, District Chief Luu Tien Thien and an eighth-degree clerk, Le Quang Quyen.
The insurgents had nearly a thousand men. Since he was familiar with the terrain, Truong Dinh mounted ambushes and inflicted heavy losses on the French. The Court heard about his victories and made him a lieutenant colonel of the Gia Dinh Provincal Army. During the eleventh lunar month of 1861, French troops seized Bien Hoa. The court reprimanded Than Van Nhiep and Nguyen Tuc Trung, the two mandarins responsible for defending the district, and ordered them to contact Truong Dinh at Tan Hoa and recapture Bien Hoa. Truong Dinh had already succeeded in occupying Qui Son; by now, his army consisted of six divisions with more than 6,000 men.
After the French occupation of Gia Dinh, the insurgent Vietnamese troops lacked discipline. Only the forces commanded by Truong Dinh at Tan Hoa and Nguyen Van Trung at Tan Thanh retained any degree of organization. The discipline and courage of Truong Dinh's men in battle earned them popular support and respect; their ranks grew. As a result, during the second month of the Year of the Dog (Nham Tuat, 1862), the Court gave Truong Dinh command of all the patriotic troops in Gia Dinh. His principle base was in Go Thuong District of Tan Hoa. In his Histoire de l'expedition de Cochinchina (History of the Cochinchina Expedition), Leopold Pallu de la Barrire remarked that "the attack on Go Cong by a well-led armed band astounded everybody. One believed the Annamites to be still buried in primitive stupor. The servile, frightened crowd that went trembling past the French in Sai Gon did not foreshadow such an act of resistance.... "
Ton Duc Thang (1888 - 1980):
Ton Duc Thang, who was President of the SRVN (Socialist Republic of Viet Nam) until 1980, led an eventful life, including a long period of vigorous struggle against the French colonialists. His name is closely associated with the Vietnamese working class and with liberation of the nation. Ton Duc Thang was born in Long Xuyen Province (Cochinchina) in 1888; four years after French colonialists had completed their conquest of Viet Nam. His family could not afford to send him to school. Poverty forced him to leave his family for Sai Gon, where he began his schooling while working as a servant. Young as he was, he resented the social injustices he felt and persuaded his schoolmates to boycott the classes of a teacher favoring pupils who gave the teacher presents and ran his errands. The school expelled Ton Duc Thang. He earned his living doing odd jobs.
Ton Duc Thang was working in a Sai Gon ship repair yard attached to a technical school in 1912 when a strike broke out among the student apprentices. The French colonialists called in the workers of Ba Son, another shipyard, to break the strike, which spread to that yard. Both strikes were successful, resulting in French concessions. However, the French turned their wrath against Ton Duc Thang, one of the movement's leaders and organizers.
During the World War I, Ton Duc Thang worked as a mechanic in the French Navy, and was aboard the cruiser, Paris, in the Black Sea when the French sailors mutinied, refusing to fight against the new Soviet State. He well remembered the day he had to leave his home country. After the pupils of the Sai Gon Technical School and the workers at the Ba Son Naval Shipyard struck with their demands, he had to disguise himself and use another name; he took work on a French ship to escape the manhunt the Security Service had mounted.
That's how Ton Duc Thang began his new life at sea. He thirsted after learning and was obsessed with how to make the struggle more effective when he returned home. He tried to get in touch with Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh) many a time, but never managed to find him.
He first came across the 'Russian Revolution,' 'Bolshevism,' and 'Lenin' as names and ideas in some of the uncensored press the navy allowed reading at that time. Those newspapers helped him to see that the capitalists and imperialists denigrated the Russian revolution, yet the revolution made them shake in their shoes. His contacts with French workers also helped him to understand better that this was a social revolution, a revolution of oppressed workers. They told him about the Paris Commune, a revolution of workers and laborers that had ended 'n failure. Even though the French workers had kept up their revolutionary traditions and struggle, the Russians were the first to have a successful evolution. These comrades also explained that all the peoples of the former Russian Empire had united behind the revolution and that Lenin had called for equality and co-operation among these peoples.
All this increased Ton Due Thang's sympathy for the Russian revolution and strengthened his conviction that the workers in Russia had risen to abolish injustices that he himself had also known as a worker among colonized people of the yellow race. He was convinced that the justice and beauty blossoming in Russia were harmful to the interests of the capitalists and imperialists. As they talked, the French workers and sailors showed their respect for Lenin and the Russian workers. They had made up their minds not to let the capitalists and imperialists use them to fight the Russian people. He was quite determined to resist on the same count.
When night fell, the ship was about to pass through the Straits of the Dardanelles. The atmosphere on board was electric. Some of the comrades urged the sailors to hold a meeting as a show of resistance to the officers. "Before the meeting starts," they said to him, "you hoist the red flag on the mast so that the ships of the Red Army know we're friends." He jumped at the chance.
Day broke as the cruiser steamed into the Black Sea. The bugle sounded. A routine affair, but this time the order did not come from the officers. The red flag was immediately hoisted on the mast. He thought to himself: The ship was still a long way from their port. They could not see the red flag yet. But from the middle of the Black Sea it fluttered his greetings to them. He hoped the ship would reach their port with the flag still flying; then he could jump ashore to join their revolution and learn how to go about things when he got back to his own country.
When the cruiser returned to Toulon, Ton Duc Thang took part in the struggle of the workers and soldiers in the port. He returned in Viet Nam in 1920, but had still not gained a complete n understanding of the organization of the party of the working class. Nevertheless, he was the first to Ii spread in southern Viet Nam a consciousness of sympathy with the Russian Revolution and an understanding for the French working class. Above all, he organized the first bases in Sai Gon – Cho Lon for the clandestine Association of Workers. This was a very important step both for the workers' n movement and for political thinking in Viet Nam. Between 1921 and 1925, the Associations organized by Ton Duc Thang were active in the national movement. They preserved their original structure until 1926, when they merged with the Association of Revolutionary Youth (Thanh Nien cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi).
The workers' movement in Viet Nam was n developing rapidly in 1929 when the French colonialists arrested Ton Duc Thang. They sentenced him to twenty years of imprisonment and transported him to Poulo Condore Prison. In During his seventeen years in prison, Ton Duc Thang remained an example of courage and valor for his comrades. He was released from prison during the August Revolution of 1945. Ton Duc Thang became an energetic leader during the Resistance War against France in the South and was often found among the fighters at the front or among the munitions carriers. He often succeeded in penetrating areas the French had encircled, and he covered up the withdrawal of patriotic Vietnamese units.
In January 1946, the population of Sai Gon - Cho Lon elected Ton Duc Thang to the National Assembly of the DRVN (Democratic Republic of Viet Nam). He worked closely with the Party's Central Committee and held important positions in the National Assembly, the Fatherland Front, and the Government. Ton Duc Thang served as Minister of the Interior, Chairman of the Standing Committee of DRVN National Assembly, Chairman of the Central Patriotic Emulation Committee, President of the Lien Viet National Front, President of the Vietnam - USSR Friendship Association, Honorary President of the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labor, Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, and President of the DRVN. His last post was President of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam (SRVN), the name chosen in 1976 by the first National Assembly of a unified Viet Nam.
Nguyen Thi Minh Khai (7970-1947):
Streets in Ho Chi Minh City as elsewhere in Viet Nam often bear the names of important people from Vietnamese history and literature. The boulevard that divides Districts 1 and 3 and runs in front of Independence Palace is named for Nguyen Thi Minh Khai.
Nguyen Thi Minh Khai came from Nghe An Province in Central Viet Nam and, in 1935, was the first Vietnamese woman revolutionary to study in Moscow. She addressed the Seventh Congress of the Communist International in Moscow, where she emphasized the oppression of women peasants and workers in colonized countries and chided the Congress for not including more women delegates from the West.
After returning to Sai Gon, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai organized farmers and women, created training materials, and was selected Party Secretary for Sai Gon and Cho Lon. She was arrested on 30 July 1940. While in Catinat Prison, Minh Khai bit her fingertip and, using her forefinger as a pen and her blood as ink, wrote a revolutionary poem on the prison wall. A firing squad executed Nguyen Thi Minh Khai on 28 August 1941. She insisted that the guards remove her blindfold so she could stare at her executioners. She intentionally wore a white blouse so the marksmen would be forced to see her blood.
Nguyen Dinh Chieu was born on 1 July 1822 in the village of Tan Thai in Gia Dinh Province within the present city limits of Sai Gon - Cho Lon. He died on 3 July 1888 in Ben T re at the age of sixty-six.
Nguyen Dinh Chieu received his education in the imperial city of Hue. At the age of twenty, he returned to his home province and in the next year earned a Bachelor of Arts in the regional examination. In 1849, the news of his mother's death while he was preparing for the national examination in Hue forced his return to Gia Dinh. Illness soon deprived him of his eyesight. In spite of blindness, Nguyen Dinh Chieu went into teaching, medicine, and literature. His fame as a physician and scholar spread to the six provinces the Western missionaries had named Cochinchina. Nguyen Dinh Chieu had planned to devote himself entirely to teaching and medicine, but then the French invasion began. In 1858, the French bombarded the port of Da Nang (called Tourane by the French) in Central Viet Nam to intimidate the Court of Hue. In 1859, they occupied Can Gio Port and the Gia Dinh Citadel. In 1862, the Court of Hue surrendered the three eastern provinces to the French and followed suit in 1867 with the three western provinces. Now, all of Cochinchina had fallen under the grip of French imperialism.
Nguyen Dinh Chieu took part in the popular resistance against the French. His writings, which were inspired by militant patriotism, stimulated the partisans' morale. Even though the French suppressed the popular resistance, he never gave up his struggle. Through his literary work, he kept confidence in the country's future alive for the population of the six provinces. The colonialists and their lackeys tried to win him over. Michel Ponchon, the governor of Ben Tre, visited Nguyen Dinh Chieu. Once, the governor even offered to give him back his house and land in Sai Gon. Nguyen Dinh Chieu retorted, "Why should I care about my house when the King has lost his domain?"
On another occasion, the official I press of Sai Gon wanted to organize a public campaign to help Nguyen Dinh Chieu, but he refused to participate, knowing only too well that this was another attempt to buy him off. Nguyen Dinh Chieu refused to collaborate with the invaders and preferred to live, instead, in poverty. To demonstrate his opposition, he refused to use anything imported from France and refused to send his children to French schools. Until his death, his irreproachable patriotism commanded respect from the people of Cochinchina.
Truong Dinh (1820 – 1864)
Truong Dinh was born in Binh Son District of Quang Ngai Province. While still a child, he followed his father, Truong Cam, a colonel of the provincial army, to Gia Dinh. As a young adult, he married the daughter of a well-to-do family in Tan An, Dinh Tuong Province and chose to stay on in his wife's native region after his father's death. Both Ky Xuyen Van Sao by Nguyen Thong, director of education in Vinh Long Province, and Paulin Vial's Les Premieres Annees de la Cochinchine (The First Years of Cochinchina) describe Truong Dinh as a tall man with a fair complexion and a proud bearing. Truong Dinh was renowned for his intelligence, marksmanship, and sound knowledge of military arts. During the reign of King Tu Duc, he spent much of his wealth in clearing waste land and organizing the poor, thereby earning a promotion to quan co, which was a position the feudal state had created to supervise plantation laborers. Truong Dinh was a good organizer and showed solicitude for the workers, who respected him.
French troops attacked Gia Dinh in 1859, killing Vo Duy Ninh, the citadel commander, and routing the imperial army. Truong Dinh stationed his own force of 500 farm hands to resist the French. He showed such courage that Lieutenant Paulin Vial, who fought against him several times, acknowledged his bravery. In his book, Paulin Vial gave this account: "Truong Dinh had a comrade named Huy. When the French seized Dong Son, Huy went over to the conquerors, which made him a canton chief. Huy lived among the French in their garrison. He spotted Truong Dinh's campsite and sent a servant with a letter to tell the French, but instead the servant took the secret letter to Truong Dinh. Truong Dinh immediately went to Dong San, beheaded the traitor, and returned to his own camp unscathed. He accomplished this feat in the very region where French troops were concentrated."
Paulin Vial added that this daring escapade made Truong Dinh famous and enhanced his prestige as a rebel dedicated to a noble cause. In another passage, Paulin Vial acknowledged that Truong Dinh possessed the flexibility and boldness needed to fulfill the complicated task he had set for himself. The French defeated the royal army at Phu Tho during the first month of the Lunar year of the Rooster (Tan Dau, 1861). The royal army fell back to Bien Hoa, and Truong Dinh withdrew his forces to Tan Hoa, where he commanded armed plantation workers and the regular Court soldiers who had reassembled after the debacle. During their siege of Bien Hoa and Vinh Long, the French discounted Truong Dinh and his men, calling them pirates who hardly merited attention. Truong Dinh took advantage of the French lack of vigilance to acquire and store food, manufacture arms and munitions, and raise more troops with the help of two mandarins, District Chief Luu Tien Thien and an eighth-degree clerk, Le Quang Quyen.
The insurgents had nearly a thousand men. Since he was familiar with the terrain, Truong Dinh mounted ambushes and inflicted heavy losses on the French. The Court heard about his victories and made him a lieutenant colonel of the Gia Dinh Provincal Army. During the eleventh lunar month of 1861, French troops seized Bien Hoa. The court reprimanded Than Van Nhiep and Nguyen Tuc Trung, the two mandarins responsible for defending the district, and ordered them to contact Truong Dinh at Tan Hoa and recapture Bien Hoa. Truong Dinh had already succeeded in occupying Qui Son; by now, his army consisted of six divisions with more than 6,000 men.
After the French occupation of Gia Dinh, the insurgent Vietnamese troops lacked discipline. Only the forces commanded by Truong Dinh at Tan Hoa and Nguyen Van Trung at Tan Thanh retained any degree of organization. The discipline and courage of Truong Dinh's men in battle earned them popular support and respect; their ranks grew. As a result, during the second month of the Year of the Dog (Nham Tuat, 1862), the Court gave Truong Dinh command of all the patriotic troops in Gia Dinh. His principle base was in Go Thuong District of Tan Hoa. In his Histoire de l'expedition de Cochinchina (History of the Cochinchina Expedition), Leopold Pallu de la Barrire remarked that "the attack on Go Cong by a well-led armed band astounded everybody. One believed the Annamites to be still buried in primitive stupor. The servile, frightened crowd that went trembling past the French in Sai Gon did not foreshadow such an act of resistance.... "
Ton Duc Thang (1888 - 1980):
Ton Duc Thang, who was President of the SRVN (Socialist Republic of Viet Nam) until 1980, led an eventful life, including a long period of vigorous struggle against the French colonialists. His name is closely associated with the Vietnamese working class and with liberation of the nation. Ton Duc Thang was born in Long Xuyen Province (Cochinchina) in 1888; four years after French colonialists had completed their conquest of Viet Nam. His family could not afford to send him to school. Poverty forced him to leave his family for Sai Gon, where he began his schooling while working as a servant. Young as he was, he resented the social injustices he felt and persuaded his schoolmates to boycott the classes of a teacher favoring pupils who gave the teacher presents and ran his errands. The school expelled Ton Duc Thang. He earned his living doing odd jobs.
Ton Duc Thang was working in a Sai Gon ship repair yard attached to a technical school in 1912 when a strike broke out among the student apprentices. The French colonialists called in the workers of Ba Son, another shipyard, to break the strike, which spread to that yard. Both strikes were successful, resulting in French concessions. However, the French turned their wrath against Ton Duc Thang, one of the movement's leaders and organizers.
During the World War I, Ton Duc Thang worked as a mechanic in the French Navy, and was aboard the cruiser, Paris, in the Black Sea when the French sailors mutinied, refusing to fight against the new Soviet State. He well remembered the day he had to leave his home country. After the pupils of the Sai Gon Technical School and the workers at the Ba Son Naval Shipyard struck with their demands, he had to disguise himself and use another name; he took work on a French ship to escape the manhunt the Security Service had mounted.
That's how Ton Duc Thang began his new life at sea. He thirsted after learning and was obsessed with how to make the struggle more effective when he returned home. He tried to get in touch with Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh) many a time, but never managed to find him.
He first came across the 'Russian Revolution,' 'Bolshevism,' and 'Lenin' as names and ideas in some of the uncensored press the navy allowed reading at that time. Those newspapers helped him to see that the capitalists and imperialists denigrated the Russian revolution, yet the revolution made them shake in their shoes. His contacts with French workers also helped him to understand better that this was a social revolution, a revolution of oppressed workers. They told him about the Paris Commune, a revolution of workers and laborers that had ended 'n failure. Even though the French workers had kept up their revolutionary traditions and struggle, the Russians were the first to have a successful evolution. These comrades also explained that all the peoples of the former Russian Empire had united behind the revolution and that Lenin had called for equality and co-operation among these peoples.
All this increased Ton Due Thang's sympathy for the Russian revolution and strengthened his conviction that the workers in Russia had risen to abolish injustices that he himself had also known as a worker among colonized people of the yellow race. He was convinced that the justice and beauty blossoming in Russia were harmful to the interests of the capitalists and imperialists. As they talked, the French workers and sailors showed their respect for Lenin and the Russian workers. They had made up their minds not to let the capitalists and imperialists use them to fight the Russian people. He was quite determined to resist on the same count.
When night fell, the ship was about to pass through the Straits of the Dardanelles. The atmosphere on board was electric. Some of the comrades urged the sailors to hold a meeting as a show of resistance to the officers. "Before the meeting starts," they said to him, "you hoist the red flag on the mast so that the ships of the Red Army know we're friends." He jumped at the chance.
Day broke as the cruiser steamed into the Black Sea. The bugle sounded. A routine affair, but this time the order did not come from the officers. The red flag was immediately hoisted on the mast. He thought to himself: The ship was still a long way from their port. They could not see the red flag yet. But from the middle of the Black Sea it fluttered his greetings to them. He hoped the ship would reach their port with the flag still flying; then he could jump ashore to join their revolution and learn how to go about things when he got back to his own country.
When the cruiser returned to Toulon, Ton Duc Thang took part in the struggle of the workers and soldiers in the port. He returned in Viet Nam in 1920, but had still not gained a complete n understanding of the organization of the party of the working class. Nevertheless, he was the first to Ii spread in southern Viet Nam a consciousness of sympathy with the Russian Revolution and an understanding for the French working class. Above all, he organized the first bases in Sai Gon – Cho Lon for the clandestine Association of Workers. This was a very important step both for the workers' n movement and for political thinking in Viet Nam. Between 1921 and 1925, the Associations organized by Ton Duc Thang were active in the national movement. They preserved their original structure until 1926, when they merged with the Association of Revolutionary Youth (Thanh Nien cach Mang Dong Chi Hoi).
The workers' movement in Viet Nam was n developing rapidly in 1929 when the French colonialists arrested Ton Duc Thang. They sentenced him to twenty years of imprisonment and transported him to Poulo Condore Prison. In During his seventeen years in prison, Ton Duc Thang remained an example of courage and valor for his comrades. He was released from prison during the August Revolution of 1945. Ton Duc Thang became an energetic leader during the Resistance War against France in the South and was often found among the fighters at the front or among the munitions carriers. He often succeeded in penetrating areas the French had encircled, and he covered up the withdrawal of patriotic Vietnamese units.
In January 1946, the population of Sai Gon - Cho Lon elected Ton Duc Thang to the National Assembly of the DRVN (Democratic Republic of Viet Nam). He worked closely with the Party's Central Committee and held important positions in the National Assembly, the Fatherland Front, and the Government. Ton Duc Thang served as Minister of the Interior, Chairman of the Standing Committee of DRVN National Assembly, Chairman of the Central Patriotic Emulation Committee, President of the Lien Viet National Front, President of the Vietnam - USSR Friendship Association, Honorary President of the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labor, Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, and President of the DRVN. His last post was President of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam (SRVN), the name chosen in 1976 by the first National Assembly of a unified Viet Nam.
Nguyen Thi Minh Khai (7970-1947):
Streets in Ho Chi Minh City as elsewhere in Viet Nam often bear the names of important people from Vietnamese history and literature. The boulevard that divides Districts 1 and 3 and runs in front of Independence Palace is named for Nguyen Thi Minh Khai.
Nguyen Thi Minh Khai came from Nghe An Province in Central Viet Nam and, in 1935, was the first Vietnamese woman revolutionary to study in Moscow. She addressed the Seventh Congress of the Communist International in Moscow, where she emphasized the oppression of women peasants and workers in colonized countries and chided the Congress for not including more women delegates from the West.
After returning to Sai Gon, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai organized farmers and women, created training materials, and was selected Party Secretary for Sai Gon and Cho Lon. She was arrested on 30 July 1940. While in Catinat Prison, Minh Khai bit her fingertip and, using her forefinger as a pen and her blood as ink, wrote a revolutionary poem on the prison wall. A firing squad executed Nguyen Thi Minh Khai on 28 August 1941. She insisted that the guards remove her blindfold so she could stare at her executioners. She intentionally wore a white blouse so the marksmen would be forced to see her blood.
What part do street vendors play in Sai Gon's life?
In the past, Sai Gon's street vendors carried goods in baskets on their heads or in two baskets hanging from a shoulder pole. For example, candy vendors balanced round metal boxes on small cloth-covered pads set on their heads. They had attached their round, yellow candies to the sides of the boxes. Each time a vender met buyers, she used both hands to set the box on the ground. Then, taking a special chisel and a piece of metal as a hammer, she pried off the candies. The buyer s asked for whatever length of candy they wanted. The longer the piece of candy, the higher the price. This type of candy broke crisply in the mouth.
Vendors also carried other foods, such as meat, eggs, and cakes in boxes or baskets on their heads. The meat included liver, tongue, heart, ear, nose, or an entire pig's head. The eggs were twenty-one day old fertilized duck eggs, which are eaten with persicaria and peppered salt. Among the cakes were banh beo, banh bo, bean cakes, manioc cakes, biscuits, and shrimp and meat cakes. They also sold different kinds of pancakes: large, small, thick, and thin. Sometimes the sellers spread sesame or coconut juice on top of their cakes. Sometimes, they arranged them neatly when the cakes were still hot from baking. And sometimes the vendors loaded the cakes into big nylon bags and carried the bags on their heads.
Both children and adults enjoyed roasted ground nuts soaked with Chinese traditional medicine and sold in conical-shaped bags. Vietnamese call this treat "pha san." The nut vendors would walk through residential areas and call out: "Pha san! Pha san! "The nuts were crisp and fragrant. Some vendors also carried their goods in baskets hanging from shoulder poles. They sold granular salt, powdered salt, iodized salt, and cheap fruits such as pomelos, mangoes, carambolas, oranges, tangerines, custard apples, Siamese custard apples, and boiled ground nuts. They also carried other foods, including: tofu, black sesame pudding, tao soan bean pudding, sweet pancakes, xoi vo sticky rice, xoi nep than sticky rice, xoi la cam sticky rice, and ground-nut sticky rice plus a variety of puddings: thick green bean, black bean, French bean, and white bean with coconut juice. Still other vendors sold mats, chicken-feather dusters, balloons, hammocks, whisk brooms made from twigs, and floor brooms made from weeds. Some vendors sharpened knives and scissors. Still other street vendors transported these goods on bicycles, motorbikes, or carts. Their displays tended to look eater.
By now, vendors selling "jobless coffee" have all but disappeared from the streets. These vendors ere usually women wearing large-brimmed hats and carrying two rectangular cases that swung from shoulder pole. One case had two sections. The larger section held a basin of water, and the smaller had glasses and spoons. The other case held a small earthen oven with a kettle containing a dark sweet rink made from burnt rice. Plumbers, knife-sharpeners, and barbers with wooden tool boxes also practiced their crafts in the streets. In the evenings the masseurs could be found walking in every quarter of the city. The fortune tellers were particularly interesting. They were sometimes blind and tended to wear dark glasses and would keep a hand on the shoulder of a young servant or child. The young child held a cymbal in one hand and a stick in the other. From time to time he would raise the cymbal and strike it. Day by day, more fancy supermarkets, food stores, groceries, fruit stalls, and other service outlets appear. They are attractive, and these changes make life easier for both buyers and sellers. However, many residents miss the many vendors who once hawked their wares on Sai Gon's streets.
Vendors also carried other foods, such as meat, eggs, and cakes in boxes or baskets on their heads. The meat included liver, tongue, heart, ear, nose, or an entire pig's head. The eggs were twenty-one day old fertilized duck eggs, which are eaten with persicaria and peppered salt. Among the cakes were banh beo, banh bo, bean cakes, manioc cakes, biscuits, and shrimp and meat cakes. They also sold different kinds of pancakes: large, small, thick, and thin. Sometimes the sellers spread sesame or coconut juice on top of their cakes. Sometimes, they arranged them neatly when the cakes were still hot from baking. And sometimes the vendors loaded the cakes into big nylon bags and carried the bags on their heads.
Both children and adults enjoyed roasted ground nuts soaked with Chinese traditional medicine and sold in conical-shaped bags. Vietnamese call this treat "pha san." The nut vendors would walk through residential areas and call out: "Pha san! Pha san! "The nuts were crisp and fragrant. Some vendors also carried their goods in baskets hanging from shoulder poles. They sold granular salt, powdered salt, iodized salt, and cheap fruits such as pomelos, mangoes, carambolas, oranges, tangerines, custard apples, Siamese custard apples, and boiled ground nuts. They also carried other foods, including: tofu, black sesame pudding, tao soan bean pudding, sweet pancakes, xoi vo sticky rice, xoi nep than sticky rice, xoi la cam sticky rice, and ground-nut sticky rice plus a variety of puddings: thick green bean, black bean, French bean, and white bean with coconut juice. Still other vendors sold mats, chicken-feather dusters, balloons, hammocks, whisk brooms made from twigs, and floor brooms made from weeds. Some vendors sharpened knives and scissors. Still other street vendors transported these goods on bicycles, motorbikes, or carts. Their displays tended to look eater.
By now, vendors selling "jobless coffee" have all but disappeared from the streets. These vendors ere usually women wearing large-brimmed hats and carrying two rectangular cases that swung from shoulder pole. One case had two sections. The larger section held a basin of water, and the smaller had glasses and spoons. The other case held a small earthen oven with a kettle containing a dark sweet rink made from burnt rice. Plumbers, knife-sharpeners, and barbers with wooden tool boxes also practiced their crafts in the streets. In the evenings the masseurs could be found walking in every quarter of the city. The fortune tellers were particularly interesting. They were sometimes blind and tended to wear dark glasses and would keep a hand on the shoulder of a young servant or child. The young child held a cymbal in one hand and a stick in the other. From time to time he would raise the cymbal and strike it. Day by day, more fancy supermarkets, food stores, groceries, fruit stalls, and other service outlets appear. They are attractive, and these changes make life easier for both buyers and sellers. However, many residents miss the many vendors who once hawked their wares on Sai Gon's streets.
Why the name “Sai Gon?” Is “Sai Gon” the phonetic transcription of an aboriginal Vietnamese or Chinese word?
Most historians accept the explanation that the name "Sai Gon" lifted its pronunciation from the Vietnamese word for the kapok or ceiba tree, Ceiba pentandra, which is known as "cay goong" or "cay gon" in Vietnamese. Ceiba trees reach a height of forty meters; have palmate leaves, and large bell shaped flowers. Their thick, woody seedpods contain a fiber that resembles cotton. Years ago, this fiber was commonly used for mattresses.
"The city's present name," Antoine Brebion noted in the Revue Indochinoise (Indochinese Review, 1911), "comes from the large number of ceiba trees surrounding the old earth-built fortifications.’Sai Gon’ consists of two parts: 'Sai' in Chinese means 'wood,' and 'gon' in Vietnamese means 'ceiba.' According to Guidas Madroile's Manuel du Voyageur en Indochine du Sud (Handbook for the traveler in South Indochina, 1928), missionaries were already using "Sai Gon, forest of ceiba trees" in their letters during the eighteenth century. However, this explanation does not seem convincing for syntactic reasons. If "Sai Gon" were a Vietnamese word translated as "forest of ceiba trees," then the order of the words would be inverted into "gon" + "sai." Moreover, Vietnamese compound words formed from Sino ("Sai") and Vietnamese ("gon") elements are extremely rare. Further, "sai" means "wood," not "forest."
Two Vietnamese professors - Pham Thieu and Ca Van Thinh - explain that Chinese traders from Guangdong Province pronounced "cay gon" (ceiba) as "thay ngon," which means "urban center on the bank of a river and near a dam." The original meaning of the word "cay gon" is thus completely distorted. One also wonders why the Southern Chinese would transcribe "Sai Gon" as "Tay Cong" if the reasons were purely phonetic. In any case, it is clear that the etymology of "Sai Gon" deserves deeper study.
"The city's present name," Antoine Brebion noted in the Revue Indochinoise (Indochinese Review, 1911), "comes from the large number of ceiba trees surrounding the old earth-built fortifications.’Sai Gon’ consists of two parts: 'Sai' in Chinese means 'wood,' and 'gon' in Vietnamese means 'ceiba.' According to Guidas Madroile's Manuel du Voyageur en Indochine du Sud (Handbook for the traveler in South Indochina, 1928), missionaries were already using "Sai Gon, forest of ceiba trees" in their letters during the eighteenth century. However, this explanation does not seem convincing for syntactic reasons. If "Sai Gon" were a Vietnamese word translated as "forest of ceiba trees," then the order of the words would be inverted into "gon" + "sai." Moreover, Vietnamese compound words formed from Sino ("Sai") and Vietnamese ("gon") elements are extremely rare. Further, "sai" means "wood," not "forest."
Two Vietnamese professors - Pham Thieu and Ca Van Thinh - explain that Chinese traders from Guangdong Province pronounced "cay gon" (ceiba) as "thay ngon," which means "urban center on the bank of a river and near a dam." The original meaning of the word "cay gon" is thus completely distorted. One also wonders why the Southern Chinese would transcribe "Sai Gon" as "Tay Cong" if the reasons were purely phonetic. In any case, it is clear that the etymology of "Sai Gon" deserves deeper study.
How has Ben Thanh Market grown over the years?
One can easily recognize Ben Thanh Market in the logo used in 1998 for Sai Gon's tri-centenary anniversary. Even though the market was not completed until early 1914, the name existed long before. In the past, the market was situated in the port area of the Ben Nghe River, now the Sai Gon River, at the end of Nguyen Hue and Ham Nghi Streets. At that time, those two streets were two streams. The market faced the Gia Dinh Citadel. In Vietnamese "ben" means "wharf" and "thanh" means "citadel," hence "Ben Thanh Market." Dai Nam Nhat Thong Chi Book of Quoc su quan of Nguyen Dynasty described the Ben Thanh Market in its Vol. V, p. 228: "The market is located on the river bank...There are lots of shops and restaurants. Tiled-roof houses line the streets. Goods keep arriving. Merchant boats continuously come and go:" However, the market was less busy and many streets were destroyed between 1833 and 1835, when le Van Khoi led a rebellion against the royal court.
The market suffered its greatest setback when the French and their Spanish allies took control of Sai Gon in 1859. The French, who wanted to turn the market into a river port, forced the traders to move to the site of the current Banking School No.3, next to the waterway by Vai Market. Laborers later filled the waterway, which became Nguyen Hue Street. The new market was simple: Its shops were huts made from iron poles supporting tile roofs but had no walls.
The city center remained marshland until the end of the nineteenth century. Many current streets such as Nguyen Hue, Ham Nghi, Le Loi, and Pasteur were waterways. In 1912, Sai Gon mayor Eugene Cuniac had the Boresse Swamp filled in order to build the Ben Thanh Market. Brossard and Maupin, a construction company, built the new market on 12,000 square meters of land. The local authorities held a big ceremony when construction was finished in March 1914.
Coach stations on either side of the river served the customers. Passengers going to the western provinces left from the station on Schroeder Street (now Phan Chu Trinh), while those traveling to the eastern provinces departed from Vienot Street (now Phan Boi Chau). A nearby railway station served passengers going to Cho Lon Market or Lai Thieu (in today's Binh Duong Province). The Ben Thanh Market bustled all day as people came and went and bought and sold. Every day, as Sai Gon grows more crowded, Ben Thanh Market seems to become smaller. Some people want to demolish the current building and replace it with a huge modern, business-and shopping center. However, the majority of people in Sai Gon do not want to lose their familiar symbol: Ben Thanh Market.
The market suffered its greatest setback when the French and their Spanish allies took control of Sai Gon in 1859. The French, who wanted to turn the market into a river port, forced the traders to move to the site of the current Banking School No.3, next to the waterway by Vai Market. Laborers later filled the waterway, which became Nguyen Hue Street. The new market was simple: Its shops were huts made from iron poles supporting tile roofs but had no walls.
The city center remained marshland until the end of the nineteenth century. Many current streets such as Nguyen Hue, Ham Nghi, Le Loi, and Pasteur were waterways. In 1912, Sai Gon mayor Eugene Cuniac had the Boresse Swamp filled in order to build the Ben Thanh Market. Brossard and Maupin, a construction company, built the new market on 12,000 square meters of land. The local authorities held a big ceremony when construction was finished in March 1914.
Coach stations on either side of the river served the customers. Passengers going to the western provinces left from the station on Schroeder Street (now Phan Chu Trinh), while those traveling to the eastern provinces departed from Vienot Street (now Phan Boi Chau). A nearby railway station served passengers going to Cho Lon Market or Lai Thieu (in today's Binh Duong Province). The Ben Thanh Market bustled all day as people came and went and bought and sold. Every day, as Sai Gon grows more crowded, Ben Thanh Market seems to become smaller. Some people want to demolish the current building and replace it with a huge modern, business-and shopping center. However, the majority of people in Sai Gon do not want to lose their familiar symbol: Ben Thanh Market.
How did the future Tsar Nicolas II visit Sai Gon?
Nicolas had finished his formal education including a course at a seminary, humanities at a, university, and a course at the Military Academy - and he had recently served as an intern in a National Guard regiment. His father, Emperor Alexander III, wanted his son to have practical Navy experience and sent Nicolas on a voyage around the world. Nicolas was twenty.
His fleet set off with three warships, the Pamiat Azova, the Vladimir Monomakh, and the Zporozes. Later on, three more warships-the Admiral Nakinmov, the Manzur and the Korets - from the Sibirsk fleet joined them. The flagship Pamiat Azova, which had been built at the Baltic Shipyard in 1888, was 115.6 meters long, weighed 6,700 tons, and carried fifteen heavy artillery guns and seventeen small artillery guns. Powered by steam engines, it could run seventeen nautical miles per hour. The entire fleet, which consisted of thirty officers and 600 sailors, had called at ports in Greece, Egypt, India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand before arriving in Sai Gon. Henri Danel, the French Lieutenant Governor for Cochinchina, had approved a budget of 15,000 piastres for the visit and had checked the list of local officials to attend the reception honoring Nicolas. On 28 March 1891, French military and naval officers boarded the Russian fleet at Cap Saint-Jacques (now Vung Tau) to welcome Nicolas and his entourage and then to escort the fleet upriver to Sai Gon, where the Lieutenant Governor a for Cochinchina awaited them along with an honor guard of one hundred marines.
Twenty cannons discharged a salvo of welcome as the future Nicolas II strode down the gangplank of the flagship Pamiat Azova. The band played the Russian national anthem. The man who would become the last tsar of the Russian Empire landed it in Sai Gon among the hurrahs and shouts of "Long Live Russia." The motorcade, which was escorted by cavalrymen, followed Catinat and Norodom Boulevards through intersections decorated for the three-day visit. On the first day, Nicolas and his entourage saw the French opera Jirojles -Jirojlas at the Opera House. Visits and entertainments filled the next two days. Nicolas took part in two dances, one hosted by the French Government on land and the other on board a ship called the La Loire. He also attended a performance at the National Theatre and a lion dance in Cho Lon.
On 30 March, the French arranged a big farewell for Nicolas, mobilizing the city residents to participate. Nicolas was extremely pleased with the visit and, during the farewell party, told the Lieutenant Governor that he felt at home. At 4:00 P.M., the Russian fleet lifted anchor and departed Sai Gon for China, Japan, and the Russian port of Vladivostok. Nicolas was the first Russian emperor to tour the world. The trip did not have an overt political aim. However, the King of Siam (Thailand) felt the visit helped strengthen Siam's nationalist stand against Western (especially British) domination. The 10 French wanted to take advantage of the visit for their struggle against the Germans. Nicolas himself did not want to playa political role during the al voyage. People found him to be "a bad politician but a good host."
His fleet set off with three warships, the Pamiat Azova, the Vladimir Monomakh, and the Zporozes. Later on, three more warships-the Admiral Nakinmov, the Manzur and the Korets - from the Sibirsk fleet joined them. The flagship Pamiat Azova, which had been built at the Baltic Shipyard in 1888, was 115.6 meters long, weighed 6,700 tons, and carried fifteen heavy artillery guns and seventeen small artillery guns. Powered by steam engines, it could run seventeen nautical miles per hour. The entire fleet, which consisted of thirty officers and 600 sailors, had called at ports in Greece, Egypt, India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand before arriving in Sai Gon. Henri Danel, the French Lieutenant Governor for Cochinchina, had approved a budget of 15,000 piastres for the visit and had checked the list of local officials to attend the reception honoring Nicolas. On 28 March 1891, French military and naval officers boarded the Russian fleet at Cap Saint-Jacques (now Vung Tau) to welcome Nicolas and his entourage and then to escort the fleet upriver to Sai Gon, where the Lieutenant Governor a for Cochinchina awaited them along with an honor guard of one hundred marines.
Twenty cannons discharged a salvo of welcome as the future Nicolas II strode down the gangplank of the flagship Pamiat Azova. The band played the Russian national anthem. The man who would become the last tsar of the Russian Empire landed it in Sai Gon among the hurrahs and shouts of "Long Live Russia." The motorcade, which was escorted by cavalrymen, followed Catinat and Norodom Boulevards through intersections decorated for the three-day visit. On the first day, Nicolas and his entourage saw the French opera Jirojles -Jirojlas at the Opera House. Visits and entertainments filled the next two days. Nicolas took part in two dances, one hosted by the French Government on land and the other on board a ship called the La Loire. He also attended a performance at the National Theatre and a lion dance in Cho Lon.
On 30 March, the French arranged a big farewell for Nicolas, mobilizing the city residents to participate. Nicolas was extremely pleased with the visit and, during the farewell party, told the Lieutenant Governor that he felt at home. At 4:00 P.M., the Russian fleet lifted anchor and departed Sai Gon for China, Japan, and the Russian port of Vladivostok. Nicolas was the first Russian emperor to tour the world. The trip did not have an overt political aim. However, the King of Siam (Thailand) felt the visit helped strengthen Siam's nationalist stand against Western (especially British) domination. The 10 French wanted to take advantage of the visit for their struggle against the Germans. Nicolas himself did not want to playa political role during the al voyage. People found him to be "a bad politician but a good host."
What were foreigners' impressions of early Sai Gon?
1861 - Two years after French conquest:
"The visitor to Sai Gon sees on the right bank a street interrupted by occasional large spaces. The houses, mostly made of wood, are covered with leaves from dwarf coconut trees; other houses are made of stone. Their roofs of red tile delight and assuage the eyes. Then there are the curved roofs of the pagodas. Seen in perspective, the Arroyo Chinois and the two small canals that serve as a temporary dock for small boats look shorter than in actuality. An abandoned barn, which is used as a warehouse, looks as if it were about to collapse.
"Clusters of areca palms blend with the sky; the rest of the landscape has little character. Thousands of boats lean against the riverbank and form a floating town. The Annamese, Chinese, Hindus, and a few French soldiers come and go; a quick look at the strange scene is enough to bore the eyes. There is nothing much to see in Sai Gon except the clean stone houses along the Arroyo Chinois Canal; some of these houses are old and have survived rebel wars: Here and there, a nice Annamese farm hides among the areca palms; a little further, on the hills, are the residences of the French and Spanish commanders, and the camp for academic examinations. That's everything or almost everything: Muddy streets, scattered houses, and a relatively miserable mix - this is the town of Gia Dinh, which we call Sai Gon."
At the turn of the twentieth century:
"Whereas Marseilles has Canebiere Street, which is as large as any in Paris, Sai Gon can be proud of Catinat Street (currently called Dong Khoi Street), which is unique in its own way. "Catinat Street slopes gently from Francis Garnier Quay, which might be better named Messageries Maritimes Quay, to the high square of the Cathedral, stretching more than one kilometer between tamarind and mango trees. The busy traffic makes the street seem too narrow for its needs. Seen individually, each house on the river side does not have a special character. Old huts date back to the conquest; more recent constructions have a better appearance. And yet, as a whole, our Cochinchinese sun has a joyful and intimate air, giving the impression of one's home. There are also feminine features: Looking at their details, you may find something ungraceful, yet as a whole, the details blend into a charming harmony.
"European and Asian merchants occupy the lower part of the street, which reaches as far as Espagne Street; the higher section is reserved for official functions. We move quickly from one to another so that we can spend more time in the square in front of the Municipal Theatre, which is a true jewel. "Almost all varieties of our metropolitan trade can be found in Catinat Street: wealthy jeweler hops, crowded bazaars, cozy milliner's shops, comfortable barber's shops, and bookstores displaying the latest publications from Paris. You I can find all the latest Parisian novelties, I including carefully labeled bottles at the chemist's. Nothing is lacking. One can buy everything at a reasonable price. However, it is the groceries that enjoy the greatest popularity in that busy, joyful corner. Chinese and French elements compete with each other. "People used to call Saigon the 'Pearl of the Far East.' This is how Myriam Harry described it: 'Oh! What a beautiful town Saigon is! One cannot help loving it, but one does not know why. Probably, it is because of its space, or probably because of its sleepy look created by green trees, or by white houses having the appearance of Greek temples ..."
"The visitor to Sai Gon sees on the right bank a street interrupted by occasional large spaces. The houses, mostly made of wood, are covered with leaves from dwarf coconut trees; other houses are made of stone. Their roofs of red tile delight and assuage the eyes. Then there are the curved roofs of the pagodas. Seen in perspective, the Arroyo Chinois and the two small canals that serve as a temporary dock for small boats look shorter than in actuality. An abandoned barn, which is used as a warehouse, looks as if it were about to collapse.
"Clusters of areca palms blend with the sky; the rest of the landscape has little character. Thousands of boats lean against the riverbank and form a floating town. The Annamese, Chinese, Hindus, and a few French soldiers come and go; a quick look at the strange scene is enough to bore the eyes. There is nothing much to see in Sai Gon except the clean stone houses along the Arroyo Chinois Canal; some of these houses are old and have survived rebel wars: Here and there, a nice Annamese farm hides among the areca palms; a little further, on the hills, are the residences of the French and Spanish commanders, and the camp for academic examinations. That's everything or almost everything: Muddy streets, scattered houses, and a relatively miserable mix - this is the town of Gia Dinh, which we call Sai Gon."
At the turn of the twentieth century:
"Whereas Marseilles has Canebiere Street, which is as large as any in Paris, Sai Gon can be proud of Catinat Street (currently called Dong Khoi Street), which is unique in its own way. "Catinat Street slopes gently from Francis Garnier Quay, which might be better named Messageries Maritimes Quay, to the high square of the Cathedral, stretching more than one kilometer between tamarind and mango trees. The busy traffic makes the street seem too narrow for its needs. Seen individually, each house on the river side does not have a special character. Old huts date back to the conquest; more recent constructions have a better appearance. And yet, as a whole, our Cochinchinese sun has a joyful and intimate air, giving the impression of one's home. There are also feminine features: Looking at their details, you may find something ungraceful, yet as a whole, the details blend into a charming harmony.
"European and Asian merchants occupy the lower part of the street, which reaches as far as Espagne Street; the higher section is reserved for official functions. We move quickly from one to another so that we can spend more time in the square in front of the Municipal Theatre, which is a true jewel. "Almost all varieties of our metropolitan trade can be found in Catinat Street: wealthy jeweler hops, crowded bazaars, cozy milliner's shops, comfortable barber's shops, and bookstores displaying the latest publications from Paris. You I can find all the latest Parisian novelties, I including carefully labeled bottles at the chemist's. Nothing is lacking. One can buy everything at a reasonable price. However, it is the groceries that enjoy the greatest popularity in that busy, joyful corner. Chinese and French elements compete with each other. "People used to call Saigon the 'Pearl of the Far East.' This is how Myriam Harry described it: 'Oh! What a beautiful town Saigon is! One cannot help loving it, but one does not know why. Probably, it is because of its space, or probably because of its sleepy look created by green trees, or by white houses having the appearance of Greek temples ..."
What about interesting overnight excursions from Ho Chi Minh City?
Phan Thiet: An alternative to Vung Tau for beaches and accommodations is the coastal town of Phan Thiet. In itself the town is similar to many small urban areas in Viet Nam. However, Phan Thiet has deserted, white-sand beaches, some with a backdrop of spectacular sand dunes.
Da lat: The city of Da Lat is set 1500 meters above sea level in the Lang Biang Mountain Range about 300 kilometers northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. This city of 125,000 inhabitants is located on a lush plateau complete with pine forests and lakes. Temperatures average 17 Celsius year round. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, French residents from Sai Gon recognized this area as the part of Viet Nam where the climate most resembled that of Europe. They soon had a road built from Sai Gon and turned Da Lat into a popular summer getaway for French colonists and wealthy Vietnamese.
Da Lat shows this strong French colonial influence in the more than 2,000 French-designed buildings and villas dotting the landscape. Many of the buildings fell into disrepair after the war but have been renovated or are scheduled for renovation. Da Lat looks to tourism for increasing revenue to renovate more villas, terrace shops, and tourist attractions. Foreign investments are attracting tourists. Of note is the renovation of the old French-style Palace Hotel, which is now managed by Accor as a Sofitel Hotel. It has forty-eight rooms, which have polished wooden floors and have been decorated in a colonial style. Across from the hotel is a magnificent golf resort. A new cable-car system gives guests a bird's-eye view of the city. Popular tourist sites in and around Da Lat include:
Da lat Catholic Cathedral: The cathedral in the old French Quarter was built in 1931 and offers regular services.
Morning Market: This market in the center of Da Lat Township sells a variety of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, all of which grow well in Da Lat's temperate climate. In the early morning, members of the local ethnic minority groups sell their handicrafts, which include rough silk and wooden instruments.
Ethnic Minority Museum: Exhibits include traditional costumes, ornaments, jewellery, baskets, hunting implements, and musical instruments. There is also an archaeological display of regional artifacts, some of which date back 1,500 years.
Valley of love: This Lake set within the pine forest that was part of Emperor Bao Dai's hunting grounds is a popular site for visitors.
Prenn Waterfall: The Prenn Waterfall is thirteen kilometers south of Da Lat. Its water drops fifteen meters across the mouth of a cave. Visitors can walk on a wooden bridge behind the falls.
Da lat: The city of Da Lat is set 1500 meters above sea level in the Lang Biang Mountain Range about 300 kilometers northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. This city of 125,000 inhabitants is located on a lush plateau complete with pine forests and lakes. Temperatures average 17 Celsius year round. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, French residents from Sai Gon recognized this area as the part of Viet Nam where the climate most resembled that of Europe. They soon had a road built from Sai Gon and turned Da Lat into a popular summer getaway for French colonists and wealthy Vietnamese.
Da Lat shows this strong French colonial influence in the more than 2,000 French-designed buildings and villas dotting the landscape. Many of the buildings fell into disrepair after the war but have been renovated or are scheduled for renovation. Da Lat looks to tourism for increasing revenue to renovate more villas, terrace shops, and tourist attractions. Foreign investments are attracting tourists. Of note is the renovation of the old French-style Palace Hotel, which is now managed by Accor as a Sofitel Hotel. It has forty-eight rooms, which have polished wooden floors and have been decorated in a colonial style. Across from the hotel is a magnificent golf resort. A new cable-car system gives guests a bird's-eye view of the city. Popular tourist sites in and around Da Lat include:
Da lat Catholic Cathedral: The cathedral in the old French Quarter was built in 1931 and offers regular services.
Morning Market: This market in the center of Da Lat Township sells a variety of vegetables, fruits, and flowers, all of which grow well in Da Lat's temperate climate. In the early morning, members of the local ethnic minority groups sell their handicrafts, which include rough silk and wooden instruments.
Ethnic Minority Museum: Exhibits include traditional costumes, ornaments, jewellery, baskets, hunting implements, and musical instruments. There is also an archaeological display of regional artifacts, some of which date back 1,500 years.
Valley of love: This Lake set within the pine forest that was part of Emperor Bao Dai's hunting grounds is a popular site for visitors.
Prenn Waterfall: The Prenn Waterfall is thirteen kilometers south of Da Lat. Its water drops fifteen meters across the mouth of a cave. Visitors can walk on a wooden bridge behind the falls.
Who were the first settlers in Sai Gon?
Traditionally, Viet Nam was divided into three regions: North (Bac Ky), Center (Trung Ky), and South (Nam Ky). The French called the regions, respectively: Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina. According to scholar Ben Kiernam, the name "Cochin" comes from a Portuguese pronunciation of "Giao-chi," a Chinese name for Viet Nam. The French added "china" to distinguish the location from the city of Cochin in India. The fertile land in the South awaited human development. Fish, shrimp, crabs, and crocodiles filled its rivers and streams. The climate was pleasant, and the rain and wind patterns were so moderate that the area seldom experienced typhoons, floods, or droughts. Such heavenly blessings attracted peasants from the far harsher climate of the North and Center to the South.
Before the French invaded, the South had only two urban areas: Sai Gon and Cho Lon (Big Market). The rest of what is now southern Viet Nam was a vast stretch of wild countryside divided into six provinces bordered by Cambodia, the Gulf of Siam (Thailand), and the sea. This area contained the extremely fertile Mekong (Cuu Long) Delta. Compared with the North and Center, the Mekong Delta's easy climate and fertile soil made a stable supply of food and even the possibility of wealth seem within easy reach. The people living in the six provinces came from three main groups: Soldiers and convicts: The Nguyen Court sent soldiers to ensure security, defend the frontiers, and set up colonies. The Court also sent convicts to expand farming land around their military posts. When a colony grew large enough, those involved in reclamation received part of the land and the public retained ownership of the remaining reclaimed land.
A handful of the rich and powerful: Representatives of the Nguyen Court implemented the Court's land policy by recruiting poor peasants mostly from the Center to help claim the land in the South. Poor peasants from the North and Center: These peasants were adventurous pioneers armed with hammers, ploughs, fishing nets, and the energy to conquer new land. They arrived during the seventeenth century after escaping the long and bloody territorial wars between two feudal families, the Trinh and Nguyen. The rich and powerful expanded their holdings to become big landowners, while the others became tenants and servants. Usually, the relationship between a landlord and tenants favors the landlord. However, the landlords needed the peasants to work new farm land more than the tenants needed the employment. Landlords didn't dare set high rents or behave too harshly; as a result, rents in the six provinces were much lower than those in the North and Center. Further, southern peasants who did not want to kow-tow to a landlord could support themselves by fishing and by reclaiming land to raise a garden. With work, they soon became middle-level farmers owning several hectares of land and perhaps even from three to seven water buffaloes.
During that time, families in the North and Center concentrated their houses in clusters amidst surrounding rice fields, while those in the southern delta spread out along waterways. Each southern household had a large area within a bamboo hedge. Many of these new southerners had come from regions in the Center, where contempt for feudal authority and Confucianism was common. Their relationships with the mandarins and even among the villagers themselves were not close. As a result, at times the government had trouble maintaining order in the six provinces. Outlaws and rebels roamed the vast forests, crisscrossing rivers and streams and coming as close to Sai Gon as the town of Gia Dinh.
Before the French invaded, the South had only two urban areas: Sai Gon and Cho Lon (Big Market). The rest of what is now southern Viet Nam was a vast stretch of wild countryside divided into six provinces bordered by Cambodia, the Gulf of Siam (Thailand), and the sea. This area contained the extremely fertile Mekong (Cuu Long) Delta. Compared with the North and Center, the Mekong Delta's easy climate and fertile soil made a stable supply of food and even the possibility of wealth seem within easy reach. The people living in the six provinces came from three main groups: Soldiers and convicts: The Nguyen Court sent soldiers to ensure security, defend the frontiers, and set up colonies. The Court also sent convicts to expand farming land around their military posts. When a colony grew large enough, those involved in reclamation received part of the land and the public retained ownership of the remaining reclaimed land.
A handful of the rich and powerful: Representatives of the Nguyen Court implemented the Court's land policy by recruiting poor peasants mostly from the Center to help claim the land in the South. Poor peasants from the North and Center: These peasants were adventurous pioneers armed with hammers, ploughs, fishing nets, and the energy to conquer new land. They arrived during the seventeenth century after escaping the long and bloody territorial wars between two feudal families, the Trinh and Nguyen. The rich and powerful expanded their holdings to become big landowners, while the others became tenants and servants. Usually, the relationship between a landlord and tenants favors the landlord. However, the landlords needed the peasants to work new farm land more than the tenants needed the employment. Landlords didn't dare set high rents or behave too harshly; as a result, rents in the six provinces were much lower than those in the North and Center. Further, southern peasants who did not want to kow-tow to a landlord could support themselves by fishing and by reclaiming land to raise a garden. With work, they soon became middle-level farmers owning several hectares of land and perhaps even from three to seven water buffaloes.
During that time, families in the North and Center concentrated their houses in clusters amidst surrounding rice fields, while those in the southern delta spread out along waterways. Each southern household had a large area within a bamboo hedge. Many of these new southerners had come from regions in the Center, where contempt for feudal authority and Confucianism was common. Their relationships with the mandarins and even among the villagers themselves were not close. As a result, at times the government had trouble maintaining order in the six provinces. Outlaws and rebels roamed the vast forests, crisscrossing rivers and streams and coming as close to Sai Gon as the town of Gia Dinh.
What were the fates of Sai Gon's two famous citadels?
In its 300-year history, Sai Gon witnessed the rise and fall of two citadels. Nguyen Anh retained two Frenchmen to design the Quy (Turtle) or Bat Quai Citadel, which was finished in 1790 and stood on a hill in Gia Dinh, now the site of four streets: Le Thanh Ton, Nam Ky Khoi Nghia, Nguyen Dinh Chieu, and Dinh Tien Hoang. This was the first Vietnamese citadel built in the Western style made famous by Vauban. Vietnamese mandarin Trinh Hoai Duc (1765-1825) wrote: "The Bat Quai Citadel looks like a lotus flower, with its eight gates and eight crisscrossing roads."
Laborers built the citadel's walls with that thon bricks seven decimeters long and with late rite tones, using a special mortar containing molasses. The citadel's walls were 6.3 meters high, and its e moat was 6.8 meters deep. In 1835, King Minh Mang crushed a rebellion in Gia Dinh. He had the e citadel demolished in 1836. King Minh Mang built another citadel called the Phung (phoenix) or Vuong (square) Citadel in the ) same general area, now the site of four streets: Nguyen Du, Mac Dinh Chi, Nguyen Dinh Chieu, and Nguyen Binh Khiem. The Royal Court decided the new citadel should be smaller than the one in the capital city of Hue; therefore, the new citadel was less than half the size of the previous one. Its walls were only 4.7 meters high, and its moat was only 3.1 meters deep.
The Royal Court's narrow thinking also led to a weaker defense of the citadel. On 17 February 1859, the French with assistance from Spanish troops used small boats to approach citadel. The Vietnamese fired but missed their targets. Using explosives, the invaders broke holes in the fortress while Frenchmen using ladders scaled the walls. After hand-to-hand fighting, the Vietnamese withdrew. The French feared they could not retain control. Using explosives, they destroyed the citadel's walls and turrets and then burned its houses and warehouses.
Laborers built the citadel's walls with that thon bricks seven decimeters long and with late rite tones, using a special mortar containing molasses. The citadel's walls were 6.3 meters high, and its e moat was 6.8 meters deep. In 1835, King Minh Mang crushed a rebellion in Gia Dinh. He had the e citadel demolished in 1836. King Minh Mang built another citadel called the Phung (phoenix) or Vuong (square) Citadel in the ) same general area, now the site of four streets: Nguyen Du, Mac Dinh Chi, Nguyen Dinh Chieu, and Nguyen Binh Khiem. The Royal Court decided the new citadel should be smaller than the one in the capital city of Hue; therefore, the new citadel was less than half the size of the previous one. Its walls were only 4.7 meters high, and its moat was only 3.1 meters deep.
The Royal Court's narrow thinking also led to a weaker defense of the citadel. On 17 February 1859, the French with assistance from Spanish troops used small boats to approach citadel. The Vietnamese fired but missed their targets. Using explosives, the invaders broke holes in the fortress while Frenchmen using ladders scaled the walls. After hand-to-hand fighting, the Vietnamese withdrew. The French feared they could not retain control. Using explosives, they destroyed the citadel's walls and turrets and then burned its houses and warehouses.
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