
Vietnam
The First Asian in Space Was Vietnamese. He’s Still Alive Today.
Most Vietnamese schoolkids grew up learning about Phạm Tuân as the first Vietnamese in space, but few know that he was also the first Asian person to clinch the honor.
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The complete feed
Every newly published Saigoneer article, ordered from newest to oldest across all sections and series.

Resorts
Inspired by the spirit of the horse, The Grand Ho Tram encourages you to have a year of success, confidence, and new horizons. Traditional Tết performances and activities alongside special feasts and opportunities for revelry will usher in a year of remarkable achievements and memorable moments.

Saigon Hẻm Gems
When the owner of a popular restaurant in South Korea specializing in dwaeji-gukbap, a dish widely beloved in Korea but little known outside, visited Vietnam for vacation for the first time around a decade ago, he saw a real possibility of bringing and introducing this special Korean dish to Vietnam. Fast forward to today, his vision has materialized into the quite remarkable scene of a restaurant in Thảo Điền bustling with Vietnamese customers who come to enjoy the humble dish.

Music & Arts
“I miss that. When I was young, on the motorbike with my friends, it was like ’hey, you have 15 minutes?’ and we just met up [...], had some street food and did literally nothing; just street watching. It was fun,” Chan-Nhu Le shared with Saigoneer about the inspiration for her illustrations.

Architecture
A clear directive was issued before construction of the home: all 26 cashew trees occupying the 100-square-meter plot must be preserved.

Music & Arts
“Điển is like a flower; there is no question of growing or not growing.”

Music & Arts
Can ceramics be a form of self-care? Sitting in a cozy space, slowly covering blank clay with color can have a profoundly calming effect. Rotating a textured mug in your hand to spread paint across a template or letting your imagination reveal a picture on the surface of a plate is important in what it's not: idly scrolling a screen or absorbing a chaotic assault of algorithm-indebted ads and announcements. As digital busyness invades every minute of our waking lives, hand-painting ceramics is a mental and emotional cleanse.

Society
In a small kiosk overlooking the crowded Nguyễn Trọng Tuyển Street in Phú Nhuận, Nguyễn Thị Tâm routinely checks the clock and reviews the day’s train schedule meticulously. She’s repeated these tasks countless times, a crucial component of a job that she’s done for two decades as a train crossing attendant.

Music & Arts
Động Tag Live Session, Cổ Động’s series of live recordings aiming to highlight Vietnam’s up-and-coming musicians, is returning with a second season.

Vietnam
We often see archival images of old Hanoi, but these photos are different — they are personal. The following shots, which come from a collection of five photo albums, are the only surviving record of my two great-great-grandfathers’ presence in what was then Indochina.

Education
After several years of preparation, Viet Nam Tinh Hoa by North London Collegiate School (VNTH) has achieved recognition as an IB World School , joining a global network of over 5,700 schools worldwide.

Saigon Hẻm Gems
I almost never remember the faces of the employees at cafes that I’ve been to, but I am strangely attuned to the existence of their cats. I remember the textures of their fur when I gave them pets, the little squeaks when they jumped up and down the furniture, and the subtle ways they expressed their personality during our fleeting but memorable encounters.

Culture
"In the early 2000s, the market experienced an exodus of painters due to the shift to digital; it was difficult to retain customers otherwise. I didn't want my craft to be forgotten, so I started everything all over,” Nguyễn Hoài Bảo told me in Vietnamese when I visited his studio.

Travel
Last year marked an impressive year for tourism in Vietnam. A record number of 21.17 million international tourists visited the country in 2025, a 20.4% increase compared to 2024. This far exceeded the global average growth rate of around 5%, as well as that of the Asian Pacific region of roughly 8%.

Environment
A trail of enormous footprints, criss-crossing slabs of cracked concrete, lead to a battered ranger station in Vietnam’s Pù Mát National Park. Park staff say the wild Asian elephant that left the tracks is as friendly as it is lonely.

Music & Arts
How can personal and collective memories – alongside questions of community and heritage – be explored through artistic practices that span different mediums and respond to changing times?

Loạt Soạt
Last year, acclaimed Vietnamese American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen published To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other , a collection of six essays adapted from the prestigious Norton Lectures that he delivered at Harvard in 2023–2024.

Vietnam
Its entrances flanked by ATMs and adverts for international airlines, the Sun Wah Tower on Nguyễn Huệ today appears to be another nondescript testament to the global economy and Vietnam’s enthusiastic place within it. However, on those same grounds only 150 years ago, a guillotine was set up to decapitate people on order of the colonial authorities at the Justice de paix.

Eat & Drink
A kitchen usually protects its cooks. Walls soften mistakes. Noise hides hesitation. If something goes wrong, the rhythm of service absorbs it.

Saigon
I’m willing to forgive nearly everything about Saigon. It’s a sign of a sustainable relationship, as I still wish to coexist in peace with this city. To me, Saigon’s midday, even when the searing sun flares the strongest, is when the trees are the most glorious. The sudden bouts of torrential rain are indeed a nuisance, but I tell myself that at least the streets can get a wash after a dusty day. But there’s one thing that never goes away and that I can never write off; something I can’t, for the life of me, find reasons to romanticize or defend. Those are the infuriating floods that submerge Saigon streets every time the tide is high.

Travel
Hanoi’s infamous train street might be going away if a new municipal plan becomes a reality.

Resorts
Celebrate your special day in privacy and refined style at Renaissance Danang Hoi An Resort & Spa . Cherished by both international and local couples, the resort offers a warm, family-like atmosphere that embraces the timeless beauty of ancient Hoi An.