Hanoi — Saigoneer

Hanoi

Life on the Streets of 1978 Hanoi in Black and White

In August 1978, I visited Hanoi as part of an educational tour organized by a professor from La Trobe University in Melbourne. I was a high school history teacher at the time and an avid photographer. I walked the streets of Hanoi and took many photographs of everyday life in the city, and until now, these photographs have remained unpublished.

Hanoi

Life on the Streets of 1978 Hanoi in Black and White

Hanoi

A Rare Album by Photographer Bruno Barbey Brings Us Back to Tết in 1994 Hanoi

What do you remember most about the 1990s? Do you remember the fashion, the old-timey technology, or the lack of traffic? And if you were just a wee child, do these memories stay with you?

Hanoi

A Slice of Life in Coupon-Era Hanoi via Colorful Vintage Lottery Tickets

What can tiny sheets of paper reveal about a whole time period?

Hanoi

The Legends of Thăng Long Tứ Trấn, the 4 Guardian Temples Protecting Hanoi

In the edict to move Vietnam’s capital to Hanoi, Emperor Lý Thái Tổ described this land as the middle of heaven and earth, the center of the four directions. Such a place would bring peace and prosperity, he believed, and deserved sacred protection.

Hanoi

Street Cred: Pháo Đài Láng, Home of Ông Voi and Where the War Began

More often than not, a country’s independence is won with guns. The location where the first shots were fired for Vietnam is memorialized to this day.

Hanoi

A Personal History of Hồ Tây: Romance, Colonial Rule and Subsidy-Era Fishing Heists

My father-in-law has spent decades visiting Hồ Tây (West Lake). His personal story both contrasts and reflects Vietnam's history as a whole and, as a result, offers a profound insight into the importance of Hanoi's largest lake.

Hanoi

The Rickety Last Days of Hanoi's Tramway System in the 1990s

Vietnam residents are rightfully celebrating recent advances in public transit.

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Hanoi

Hanoi's Soviet-Style Khu Gia Binh and Life Amid Vietnam's Growing Pains

Hanoi is often known in Vietnam as the land of a millennium-old civilization, a living archive of past Vietnam life. Each tiny alley within the capital can evoke a strong sense of nostalgia in visitors, as those locations encapsulate both wartime memories and charming quotidien moments. There’s one special place in Hanoi that has contributed to the city’s languid pace of life amid the nation’s rapid developments — khu gia binh.

Lã Khánh GiangDec 2, 2024

Hanoi

Rare Black-and-White Album Depicts a Historic Flooding in 1952 Hanoi

The extreme weather patterns in recent years might make you worry that Vietnam’s drainage network is buckling under the pressure of rapid urbanization, but looking at these rare photos taken of a flood in Hanoi over half a century ago provides strange comfort that our soggy reality today might not be all that bizarre.

SaigoneerOct 29, 2024

Hanoi

How Hanoi's Infectious Rats and Impish Locals Bamboozled the French in 1902

When facing a bubonic plague epidemic, is it wiser to delve into sewers and cull infected rats yourself or offer payment to Vietnamese for deliveries of severed tails instead? For Hanoi’s French colonial rulers, the answer to this question was never in doubt, yet the consequences led to one of most humiliating periods of their rule.

Murray JonesSep 27, 2024

Hanoi

Postcard-Ready Vintage Album Highlights a Lonesome Hanoi in the 1920s

Looking at past albums of our cities today, I’m always stricken by a bewildering vastness — every street, every square, every building seemed to have been constructed in a ghost town, serving lonesome phantoms and nonchalant horse-drawn wagons.

SaigoneerApr 8, 2024

Hanoi

Street Photos in 1973 Capture a Rebuilding Hanoi After Linebacker II

In this collection of black-and-white photos taken by German photographer Horst Faas, Hanoi's streets seem bursting with life, but lurking behind innocent smiling children and packed tram rides are the undeniable remnants of an ongoing war.

SaigoneerJun 8, 2023

Hanoi

The Rich History Behind One of Hanoi's 2 Remaining Chinese Guild Halls

With the changing gears of history, at times even the oldest layers of a thousand-year-old town must evolve to house new meanings.

Uyên ĐỗApr 5, 2023

Hanoi

Once Home to Hanoi's Greatest Tailors, Làng Cựu Is Fading Into History

Làng Cựu, a village about 40 kilometers south of Hanoi, houses nearly 50 mansions that showcase the best of French and Sino-Vietnamese architecture from the turn of the century. It was built with the fortune of the tailors who originated there, and who were once considered to be some of the best garment craftsmen in Tonkin during the French colonial era.