There’s something about coming back to Vietnam that gets me every time - that feeling seeing how so much has changed in the last few years but also how some things just never change.
“The cơm tấm place on that street that you always had during secondary school years is still there! Do you want me to get you one?” My dad would ask me the first moment I got back home from the rusty 20 hour flight. And my stomach would light up instantly at the word “cơm tấm” even though my eyes are already on the verge of jetlag.
“What happened to the bustling mall that used to be here mom?” “They went bankrupt last year. Now they’re building another apartment complex on that spot. This street soon is going to be filled with high rises only.”
The mall that me and my mom used to go to every weekend, where she would give me several thousand VND to play at the arcade while waiting for her to shop around. Afterwards I would freak out trying to find her in an ocean full of middle-aged women wearing the same cheap market pajamas.
I would wander endlessly around the streets with my childhood friends, talking about how so much has changed for us but also looking in the mirror and realize we are still the same 12 year olds sitting next to each other in our small crowded 40-student classroom back then. Saigon is that magical place for me, once I’m back here I get to meet that little girl full of hope again. And I hold on to those pieces of memories tight to my chest, especially when it’s time for me to go back to my second life in America.
There’s a kind of tenderness in the way people in Saigon smile at anyone, as if warmth were a reflex. It’s not performative—it’s just who they are. I fall in love all over again with the winding roads, their gentle curves catching the last light of day. The way the sun drapes itself across rooftops at dusk—soft, golden, familiar. Even the sidewalks, crooked and crammed with motorbikes and tired workers at rush hour, hold a strange comfort. There’s a rhythm to it all: the honking, the swerving, the chaos that somehow never feels threatening—just alive. It’s in these little things that I remember what home feels like. Not polished or perfect, but textured, noisy, filled with everyday poetry. The kind of beauty that sneaks up on you, in the middle of a street that hasn’t changed in ten years—even if everything around it has.
Deep down, I crave that connection to a place like Saigon, because no matter where I go or how long I spend time there, no matter what luxury I can grasp to, I couldn’t call that place “home”. This wrecks me for a few years realizing this, because my friends and family would not think the same. “You have to know how fortunate you are to be able to have this opportunity. Others would die for this.” But how can I fight that feeling whenever I’m back in Saigon, the feeling like somewhere in between faded memories and new lights? And every once in a while, driving my car amidst the bustling streets in the US, I couldn’t help but relieve the memories I tried so hard to leave behind.
In a world that moves fast and forgets even faster, how am I still here?
