Good morning! Hello to all new readers, and welcome to the latest free-to-read edition of the Vietnam Weekly, written by Ho Chi Minh City-based reporter Mike Tatarski
For paying subscribers, on Wednesday I published a preview of the colossal Vạn Thịnh Phát trial, which begins Tuesday. It involves thousands of people and billions of dollars in one of the largest financial crimes ever. To access this and all other exclusive articles, consider upgrading to a paid subscription for US$8/month or US$90/year.
I also released a new episode of The Vietnam Weekly Podcast on Monday, so be sure to catch up on that - it’s available on all major podcast platforms, as well as YouTube. The next show drops on Monday.
On to the news.
The Heat
While northern Vietnam dealt with dangerous cold a few weeks ago, southern provinces have been roasted by a heat wave since early this month.
Dear readers, I can assure you: it is damn hot here in HCMC.
Meteorologists have pointed to the ongoing El Niño cycle and climate change, and while the heat makes life in HCMC uncomfortable, it is downright dangerous in the Mekong Delta.
Officials have warned for weeks that this heat wave - and the attendant lack of rain - would increase the risk of saltwater intrusion and coastal erosion across the region.
On Wednesday, AFP reported that farmers are struggling to transport their harvested rice due to low water levels in the numerous canals that crisscross the delta.
One district in Cà Mau Province, perennially among the hardest-hit in the delta given its exposure to the sea on two sides, has already recorded about 340 occurrences of subsidence this year, causing nearly US$530,000 in damage.
Pictures published by Thanh Niên show extremely low water levels and badly damaged infrastructure.
In Bến Tre Province, thousands of families are using salt-contaminated water for showering and laundry after seawater made it into local water plants.
Last month, forecasters predicted that salt water would make it as far as 62 kilometers inland in Bến Tre.
In neighboring Tiền Giang, saltwater has reached the city of Mỹ Tho, 50 km inland.
Officials don’t think this year’s saline intrusion will be as bad as 2015-2016 or 2019-2020, but we have a long way to go before the wet season begins. This is just the latest reminder of how exposed the Mekong Delta - Vietnam’s most important agricultural region - is to climate risks.
These risks will only become more severe moving forward.
The Movie
You may not know it from reading this newsletter, but I’m a huge movie fan (see you at Dune 2 tonight?).
However, I’ve connected with very few Vietnamese movies, generally due to the poor writing and production quality.
I’m not alone in feeling that way, and most years there is consternation in the domestic movie industry as Hollywood blockbuster after blockbuster dominates the local box office.
This year, however, domestic movies are thriving. Major cinema operator CGV Vietnam expects to have a banner Q1 thanks to Mai, a smash hit over Tết, and the incredible phenomenon that is Đào, Phở và Piano (Peach Blossoms, Phở and Piano), a government-funded war movie.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism produced the film for US$815,000. It “narrates the story of a young couple's attempt to reunite on Feb. 17, 1947, amid the 60-day Battle of Hanoi that marked the beginning of the First Indochina War.”
The movie premiered at the government-owned National Cinema Center in Hanoi on February 10 and was intended to have a limited run. Instead, it turned into an unprecedented viral hit, apparently sparked by the review of one TikToker.
The cinema’s website crashed and crowds swamped the actual theater, with added screenings instantly selling out. Last weekend, the movie had 32 screenings per day in theaters with 402 seats.
The film has since expanded to about a dozen other provinces and cities, including HCMC, where crowds lined up for tickets as well. In Đà Nẵng, people waited in line outside for over two hours to get tickets.
Đào, Phở và Piano has grossed nearly US$300,000 since its release, leading some to wonder why it isn’t being screened for free since it is government-backed. On the other hand, people are buying tickets on social media for as much as VND400,000 (US$16) each - tickets here generally cost VND150,000 (US$6) or less.
This is all fascinating and utterly bizarre: state-funded movies are usually poorly regarded since they have even smaller budgets than privately financed movies, though the culture ministry announced last year that it would spend more on movies aiming “to balance between propaganda and profit.”
Another state-backed movie, Hồng Hà Nữ Sĩ (Hồng Hà Lady of Letters), was released the same day as Đào, Phở và Piano and, as far as I can tell, has been completely ignored.
These hits are in line with Vietnam’s fast-growing movie market, as recently covered by Deadline.
To my elder millennial eyes, it also seems this movie craze is an extension of the numerous food-related TikTok phenomena we saw last year, largely in HCMC.
These included mayhem at one specific Emart location as young people fought each other for custard cakes that evidently weren’t even very good (Emart could be compared to Target), or the moment in November when hand-pounded lime tea became the latest trend and dozens of people queued at tea stalls.
I can’t comment on any of this without sounding condescending or dismissive, so I’ll just leave it there.
ID Digitalization
Quickly closing on a few intriguing government initiatives to digitize or digitalize certain processes.
The HCMC government has launched an AI software program called Social Beat that scrapes data from popular social media platforms to create, as reported by VnExpress, “a general view of Internet trends and categorize public views of them, whether positive, neutral or negative…”
A more eye-catching paragraph follows, stating that Social Beat will “help organizations manage and shape public opinion by monitoring and analyzing Internet trends and thoughts, but also help monitor information on hostile forces who take advantage of the Internet…”
The image depicting Social Beat that VnExpress published was interesting: most HCMC districts had a majority positive or neutral public opinion, while Thủ Đức City was 84% negative and Hóc Môn was 96% negative.
According to the municipal Department of Information and Communications, HCMC’s population has 22 million social media accounts across 350 various platforms.
Elsewhere, Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính has ordered the Ministry of Public Security to study using FaceID and electronic passports for immigration procedures.
The MPS, for its part, will begin collecting biometric information for citizen ID cards from July 1, when a new law on identification goes into effect. The agency also proposed rules for foreigners to register for e-ID, though I imagine this will be quite complicated and unpopular.
Extra Links:
Meet 90-Year-Old Huỳnh Văn Ba, the Father of Hội An's Foldable Lanterns (Saigoneer)
Finding Great Coffee in Ho Chi Minh City (The New York Times - $)
UK court tells VietJet not to interfere with export of repossessed jets (Reuters)
Have a great weekend!
Is this a thing? “Phenomenons”?
I hate to sound like the grammar police, but I thought we all knew phenomenon (sing.), phenomena (plural).
Or was it the bossy spellchecker? 😅