Ho Chi Minh City is accustomed to change — or rather, accusations of changing too much. Walking through the city, scenes of pollution, billboards and construction sites that weren’t there yesterday are symptoms of a rush to cash in on the trends of global modernity. In tandem with this emphatic embrace of capitalism is a surge of disquiet and nostalgia. Existing in some kind of limbo between past and present, being both defunct and contradictory, these images have little regard for the future. There’s something strange about walking through my city – though ever new development feels like a blow to the heart, there’s at least time enough to release a commiserative sigh of “at least this thing’s still here.”
