Word: saigon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...South Vietnam and currently an economic adviser to Hanoi, the economic infrastructure in the South remains about 35 years ahead of that in the North, despite great efforts to bridge the gap. The differences are immediately apparent between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, which is still called Saigon, even by local officials...
...there is a liveliness about the city, an authenticity as a national capital that somehow always eluded Saigon. May 19 marks the 100th birthday of Ho Chi Minh, the man who fought the Japanese, the French, the Americans and his own countrymen to win an independent, unified nation. For the past month, Hanoi has played host to thousands of visitors, foreign and Vietnamese alike, as they paid homage to the frail little man with a will of iron. The pilgrims move slowly past Ho's body lying on a glass-enclosed platform in the neo- Stalinist marble mausoleum, stopping only...
Anchored in the Saigon River is the Saigon Floating Hotel, offering single rooms at $150 a night and a BLT sandwich -- "Ho Chi Minh-style" -- for $8.50. It is crowded with Hong Kong, Singaporean and European businessmen. On Dong Khoi Street, the Continental Palace Hotel has undergone a complete renovation. The famous "Continental shelf," once an open-air terrace where American journalists and government officials camped out, is now enclosed and air-conditioned. The Rex, formerly a U.S. Army billet, has reopened as a luxury hotel, and the Majestic, facing the Saigon River, has been spruced up. The hotels take...
...home. A decade ago, a 1 1/2-mile strip of Bolsa Avenue between Garden Grove and Westminster in Orange County, Calif., was a ragged quilt of vacant lots and small stores, bean fields and discount emporiums. Today the stretch is as alive as payday in a port city -- specifically, Saigon. Between 20,000 and 50,000 Vietnamese flock each weekend to 800 shops and restaurants, buying herbal medicine and dining out on snail-tomato-rice-noodle soup. In the mornings people may attend Buddhist ceremonies in makeshift temples; in the evenings they can applaud Elvis Phuong, who, complete with skintight pants...
More than 80,000 refugees have made the area, known locally as Little Saigon, the center of one of the largest Vietnamese enclaves outside Indochina. Says Frank Jao, the Vietnamese-American developer of Bolsa Avenue: "The Chinese, the Japanese, the Italians and the Jews grouped together when they came to the U.S. There seemed to be no reason why the Vietnamese wouldn't follow the same tradition...