Saigon's Parks
Spend a day in one of Saigon’s district parks and witness a hub of traditional Vietnamese social life!
Get up at 5 am and be awed by the silence of a hundred locals gathered in the parks gently doing their tai chi exercises with colorful flags in hand; families quietly playing badminton or jogging (seemingly always counter-clockwise around the parks circumference); or stretching, shaking, or twisting their bodies in the relatively cool morning air.
Community Walk in the Park
Later the local university uniformed students pile off the buses into the parks for their daily late-morning gym class activities.
Students Gather in the Park for "Gym Class"
Around the edges of the parks are fruit stands, cafes, and flower shops. Many parks include public swimming pools where locals and visitors can enjoy a cool afternoon dip for about 60 cents. (But, they are likely closed for lunch.)
After work the masses return to the parks for another round of games and exercises – this time with the addition of a few hundred disco-aerobics devotees.
And the other night, what in the world was that country-western dance class doing in the park’s band shell at 10 pm during a pounding rainstorm, dancing to Anne Murray’s “Could I Have This Dance?” What an amazing site!
And then this morning … this 7AM dance lesson!