Most history books will tell you that after crashing through the gates of the Presidential Palace in 1975 the first official act of the victorious Communists was to rename Saigon, that symbol of Western decadence and imperialism, after the late hero of Vietnamese unity and the People's War, Ho Chi Minh. Now, the clumsy title of Ho Chi Minh City is rigidly enforced by the nation's Communist overlords in stark denial of the city's rich history, and woe betide anyone caught calling it 'Saigon'.
The truth is a bit more complicated. For one thing, the vast majority of what is now Ho Chi Minh City is manifestly not Saigon. After the end of the war and reunification the city underwent such massive and rapid expansion that many suburbs and outlying small towns were swallowed up. The most famous example of this being Cholon aka Chinatown aka District 5, which until the 1960s at least was several miles away from Saigon. Of the city's 24 urban and suburban districts, only three or four were even partially incorporated into Saigon before the 1970s.
Also, there's nothing subversive about using the old title. Most Vietnamese will use the terms interchangeably, and if they don't it's usually to distinguish the modern city from the old historic center. The government itself doesn't seem to care; the airport code is SGN, and even the official city tourism office is called SaigonTourist.
Of course, Saigon is a lot easier and sexier than Ho Chi Minh City, so I'll stick with that.
1 comment:
In the old days (a few years ago...) only authentic Saigoneses call it Saigon. Nowadays, everyone seems to interchange the name.
As for you, the usage depends on what you want to do in the city. If you hate it you probably don't want to go around deprecate "Ho Chi Minh City sucks." If you want to get things done with the bureaucracy it seems wiser sticking with the official name. And of course appealing to the Ho Chi Minh on paper works even better...
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