life

Looking back at Pre-1975 Saigon

Submitted by tomo on August 8, 2011 - 2:31am

Men drinking at a sidewalk cafe in Saigon circa 1961

 

Looking at photographs of pre-1975 Saigon always make me wonder how differently things could have turned out had South Vietnam and North Vietnam remained separate countries. Would South Vietnam be as developed, modern, and affluent as South Korea is today compared to the starving citizen-prisoners of the Hermit Kingdom? If you've seen old photos of both Hanoi and Saigon you'll notice that even then Saigon was much more modern, cosmopolitan, and affluent compared to Hanoi.

In some ways, today we haven't really changed all that much since 1975, if you ignore the forward and backwards steps in the two decades after the war ended.  The streets are still recognizable, mostly they've just changed names.  Freedom has been replaced with Revolution. The black and white renditions of wooden cafe seats are even nicer than the red or blue plastic chairs I'm often in today.

Anyways, I've been looking over the 245 photos of 1961-era Saigon scanned in from Life magazine all weekend.  I hope you enjoy as much as I did, even if loading them takes awhile.

 

A map shows the train used to terminate at Ben Thanh market. Saigon had grade-separated highways back in 1961.

Saigon.

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