Talk:Ho Chi Minh City/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Ho Chi Minh City. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Old talk

210.49.196.xxx: "Fall of Saigon" is a phrase that's often bandied about at least in the United States, which is why I emphasised it as we normally do for a secondary definition. (This way, anybody trying to understand that particular phrase will be able to find it easily, especially important as the page grows.) Do you think that this is wrong? — Toby 16:44 Aug 5, 2002 (PDT)

Sorry i just didn't understand what it was for! My bad sorry! -- 210.49.196.xxx

No problem ^_^. — Toby 19:11 Aug 5, 2002 (PDT)

photo of South Vietnamese flag

File:RiverofSaigon.JPG

Saigon River

This photo was added by User:Jimmyvanthach. It shows a South Vietnamese flag and has little relevance to the article, rather it seems to be that Jimmy is pushing his POV. Dunc|☺ 12:39, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Chu Nom

I have removed the mention to the so-called "chu nom" characters of the city. The "chu nom" in this case is nothing more than Chinese. First of all, the name "Ho Chi Minh City" has been in use only since 1976, so including a Chinese name for a Vietnamese city is absurd. Secondly even if there is a Chinese name for Saigon, it should only be included in the etymology section since this is a Vietnamese city, not a Chinese one. [[User:DHN|DHN]] 02:16, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Sàigòn?

I've rarely seen the city name being called Sàigòn in Vietnamese. The only usage of it I've seen are "SàiGòn" (to save space) or among certain groups of people who want to "modernize" the language and make it more "Westernized" [1]. The French called it Saigon and the Vietnamese called it Sài Gòn. Before the French arrived (but after it was Vietnamized), I think the city name was written with Chinese characters, so the spelling of Sàigòn is moot. DHN 02:20, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

According to the Vietnamese Google, there are 471,000 webpages with the spelling Sài Gòn, but only 8,940 webpages with the spelling Sàigòn. So I think that settles the matter. I am reverting to the Sài Gòn spelling in the article. Hardouin 11:11, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't call the "Sài Gòn" way "traditional". I've seen it written as "Sài-gòn" in pre-1975 documents in southern Vietnam. There's no one way of writing quốc ngữ that can be considered traditional. I've seen what is now "ph" written as "f" and "c" as "k" in propaganda posters circa 1946. Vietnamese spelling have changed considerably since the beginning of the 20th century, when it was new. Ho Chi Minh's 1927 pamphlet "Đường Kách Mệnh" (Road to Revolution) would be written as "Đường Cách Mạng" in modern Vietnamese. DHN 05:35, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Sài Gòn are 2 seperate words in Vietnamese, and should be written so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.7.157.141 (talk • contribs) 15:25, 22 March 2006

Saigon is better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.147.71 (talk • contribs) 23:10, 9 February 2007

Copyedit

There seems to be plenty of random hyphons inserted everywhere. I removed two but there's more. Skinnyweed 18:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed most, if not all of them. Sir Vicious 22:11, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Political and Administrative System

Someone that really understands the city government, please check my changes for that section - thanks Crum375 19:32, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I need more imiges —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.15.54.234 (talk • contribs) 11:39, 10 May 2006

Etymology of Saigon

I am quite sceptical about this: "gòn, from the Chu Nom character for the cotton plant". Acccording to the online Chu Nom dictionary [2], the only gòn is 棍 which means stick, staff, but not cotton. Cotton, on the other hand, is Chu Nom 綿, pronounced either miên, men, or mền. So I believe the article is wrong on that, unless someone has an explanation to offer. Hardouin 15:40, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

As a native Vietnamese speaker, I can vouch that gòn is the Vietnamese word for "cotton" [3]. The Nom lookup tool's context for the word is "bông gòn", which is "cotton-wool". The character given by the tool, when translated back to Vietnamese from Chinese, is pronounced côn, gon, or gòn[4], which are mostly similar to gòn. Remember that Nom was never formalized, and since gòn is a native Vietnamese word, they had to make up a new character that sounds like the word. DHN 04:07, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I checked this in detail, and I understand that the native Vietnamese word for cotton is "bông". Maybe "bông" is a cognate of the Khmer word "amboh", which would make sense since Vietnamese and Khmer are related languages. On the other hand, gòn is definitely a Chinese word (棍, pronounced gùn in Mandarin), and it means "stick". From what I understand, the native Vietnamese word bông and the Chinese loan word gòn were used together, in the sense of "cotton stick", i.e. "cotton plant", and it is probable that later, by contraction, "gòn" alone came to be understood as meaning "cotton", which is why as a native Vietnamese speaker you say it means cotton. However, the original meaning of gòn is clearly "stick". The article needs to be rephrased accordingly. Hardouin 02:02, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

You may be right. However, in my experience, bông is mostly used in the sense of "flower" except in certain complex words where it means "cotton" (chăn bông = cotton blanket). DHN 02:13, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, according to the online Vietnamese dictionary, bông is the standard word for cotton in Vietnamese [5]. Maybe in the particular region of Vietnam where your family come from, the word gòn is favored, I don't know. In any case, I am rewriting the etymology section to better reflect the etymology of gòn. You tell me if you like it. Hardouin 11:16, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Gòn is the word for cotton. It is not colloquial. I have always heard it referred to in this way and used gòn in reference to cotton. The fact that you find it in a dictionary reference as one way does not make it definitive. If you go back to your dictionary source and do a simple lookup on gòn you will find it does mean cotton. http://vdict.com/?word=g%C3%B2n&dictionary=2 .

Isn't it pointless to start the article with a long discussion of a name which the article isn't about? It starts off with "Origin of the name", but one sentence is devoted to the origin of its present name. The etymology section ought to go.Mangoe 01:23, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The city is still known to most people as Saigon. The etymology of its official name is a no-brainer. DHN 02:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Then perhaps the etymology belongs as a much-deemphasized note under the history of the name changes. As it is, it seems irrelevant, not to mention out of proportion. Mangoe 04:10, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

History

There is no mention of the Japanese occupation of Saigon in the History section. I thought Vietnam was invaded in WW ll ?

84.130.85.62 14:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Images

I removed two images - image:Saigon-hcmc hotels.jpg and image:Hcm center.jpg - that were added to the infobox at the beginning of the article. The infobox doesn't seem like the right place for these images, and they were far too large, making the infobox overlap much of the article. I would have moved them farther down the page, but there's no information about what the images depict. Also there is no copyright information for the images. If anyone knows what is shown in these images, please include a caption if you re-insert them in the article. PubliusFL 19:12, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Keep as separate article!

Keep separate! Main HCMC article is bound to grow too big sooner or later. Tabletop 02:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Hong Kong article is even bigger :D. Magnifier (talk) 20:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Merger of People's Committee Article

There is a separate article on the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee which is an orphaned stub - not even this article links to it. I have proposed merging that article into the Political and Administrative System section of this article. The People's Committee article could become a redirect to that section. Alternatively, maybe there is enough information about the political and administrative system to merge that section AND the People's Committee article into a new article. PubliusFL 01:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. Per your request. --ShakataGaNai (talk) 00:02, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Media

In the media section we find this snippet in between semicolons:

; the highest circulation newspaper in Vietnam;

I'm thinking one of these should be a comma... but which newspaper has the highest circulation: Tuoi Tre (Youth), Nguoi Lao Dong (Labourer), or Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon)? —dragfyre 17:08, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Tuoi Tre. DHN (talk) 17:38, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok - I made this change in the aforementioned section: "...Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) and its Chinese, investment and finance, sports, evening and weekly editions; Tuoi Tre (Youth), the highest circulation newspaper in Vietnam;..."—dragfyre 20:28, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Chữ Nôm?

Why is the article full of chữ Nôm transliterations? Chữ Nôm is basically a dead language. Vietnamese schools don't even teach it anymore. It's like giving Latin transliterations in an article about a modern European city. Actually it's even worse than that, if this is to be believed: Scholars who can read and understand chữ Nôm today are almost extinct. Kauffner (talk) 06:35, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Some editors with some affinity for Chinese characters insist on adding them despite it not being used for a hundred years. See articles about Vietnamese provinces and you'd see the battle between people who insist on adding them and those who want them off. DHN (talk) 07:29, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not full of chu Nom transliterations. Chu Nom is only found in the historial section of the city's name, so I think it's revelant enough in order to explain the name's origin. Pieuvre (talk) 18:54, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

LACK OF NEUTRALITY IN ARTICLE

Someone please assist. This article is a disaster and is in huge need of re-writing to fit neutrality. There are parts of the article, such as the "Transportaiotn" section where it says quote: "enforcement of traffic law is a joke. Drivers can still be seen driving the wrong way up a one way street or ignoring red lights. "

That piece of information is useless. anyone who has been to a third world country knows that this is commonplace in some lands. (Dominican Republic, Philippines and India are some I have persoally seen with my eyes)

This article is in servere need of revising. I will not remove the above caption until administrators can see for themselves Kcuello (talk) 17:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Traffic laws in Saigon are certainly not a joke. They are quiet serious and they have been painstakingly codified. The issue here is that the original contributor is inarticulate. It would have been more accurate to state that traffic laws are not enforced or traffic laws are loosely interpreted, but claiming that they are a “joke” is yet more evidence that Wikipedia is not of an encyclopedic standard. The professionals over at Encyclopedia Britannica would never have been so sloppily inarticulate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.95.241.179 (talk) 20:03, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Etymology

The article tells me far more than I'll ever want to know about the etymology of the name. Please cut this back to a single senstence at most. PiCo 11:59, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Khmer name

This idea is wrong: Prey Nokor means “god”, or “heavenly” in Khmer (Prey = “god”; Nokor = “empire,city”, from Sanskrit nagara). The editor is confusing "Prey" that in Khmer is "Forest" with "Preah" that is "heavenly, God...". The translation would be "The city of the forest". For this reason the Cambodian king gave the place to Vietnam because for him "it was just a forest" = nuh tae prey ... El Viajero Paisa (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 15:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

the famous Dr. Keng, Vansak

If Dr. Keng, Vansak is famous, then why does the entry need to state that he is famous? Stating that someone or something is famous suggests that, in fact, it or they are not. If they are famous then we don't need to be told -- if we need to be told then they are not famous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.95.241.179 (talk) 19:56, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

=== Yeah, what is going on? The article focus too much on origin of the name and debates surrounding it, I thought I am going here to read about the city in general, not the name in particular, besides Khmer name, chinese name, etc can be explained a bit but not too much, and it should be mentioned in history, but not separate into another section like that 77.86.125.211 (talk) 00:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

any songs about Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City?

List of songs about Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City
Thanks.Civic Cat (talk) 19:07, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

"Hồ Chí Minh" as the city's name

I noticed that Vietnamese radio nowadays calls the city Hồ Chí Minh. I don't know when they changed it, but at one time "Hồ Chí Minh" referred strictly to the person and city had to be referred to as Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh. At five syllables, this is probably one of the longest city names in the world. Kauffner (talk) 02:56, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Obviously you haven't heard of Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit or El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de la Porciúncula. DHN (talk) 03:21, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This is very common. It's sort of like people shortening the name of Quebec City to simply Quebec. If people walked around saying Ville de Québec all the time, they'd end up looking either silly or annoying. So while the official name is "Ho Chi Minh City", many people use the shorthand "Ho Chi Minh" (or "HCM" to save even more space). It's usually clear from the context whether they're referring to the person or the city. --dragfyre (talk 05:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

New Talk - 2010

Does this page really need so many photos? I feel that it is destroying the flow of the main content, the text. On top of that, the photos aren't the best representations of Saigon. "busy saigon street" is not busy at all, that's an average Saigon street. I was adding a clear element to the temperature table when I realized it would take several more clear sections to not get pictures to trample over all of the useful data without pushing it off the end of the browser page. Lullabud (talk) 21:33, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Awesome! Somebody undid my formatting edits so that now shit flows over other shit just like it used to! I'm so glad I spent the time to research ways to debug and fix those formatting errors in Camino and Safari. Lullabud (talk) 18:57, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Definitely agreeing with you on the overabundance of photos in the article. This seems to have been partly alleviated with the addition of the gallery section, but there are several sections, such as Economy, that are still extremely pic-crufty. The Economy section looks very messy text-wise, too, so maybe what we need to do is rewrite it completely. --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 15:25, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore! What would be really great is if, in the spirit of summary style, we could split off some of the bigger sections of this article (or the sections that deserve to be bigger) into their own articles. This could happen right away for Economy and History—the first is huge enough already, and History can be quickly expanded with references from Names of Ho Chi Minh City and related articles like Citadel of Saigon, State of Vietnam, South Vietnam, and so on (I've started a page in my sandbox for this). This would allow us to balance the inclusion of images with enough text to wrap around them—IMO the biggest problem right now is that there's simply no content to balance all the images people have been adding. --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 18:23, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Massage Parlours

I think there should be a section here talking about massage parlours and these disguised hair cut places that end up being something else. Thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Knguyeniii (talk • contribs) 09:42, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Template

Someone can help me to create the template of "List of HCMC Administrative Units" and replace it in the same section.--Tranletuhan (talk) 05:32, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Looks like you figured out the table template :) By the way, I've been meaning to say it earlier, but that table has gotten really huge. I'd like to propose that we remove the columns "Population as of Mid YYYY" and only include the columns "Population as of Census" 2004 and 2009, since the interim years are basically just extrapolation in between census years anyway. Thoughts? --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 14:31, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and done this, since there were no comments to the contrary. --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 14:51, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I just realized something else - that table really needs to be under "Demographics". --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 14:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

"Citation needed" on motorbikes?

why is there a "citation needed" flag on the fact that motorbikes are the most common way of moving around the city? Any photo of the city shows this to be true; many parts of HCMC cannot even be comfortably accessed via automobile (no parking, narrow streets, construction rendering the streets impassable). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asthasr (talk • contribs) 08:33, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Because on Wikipedia, assertions need to be cited to avoid being challenged. Besides, it's really not that hard to look up, say, a Lonely Planet guide that says "Motorbikes are the most common method of transport in HCMC" and add it as a reference. It gives readers the ability to verify facts for themselves, helps them learn more, and it makes our work look more professional and reliable. --dragfyre_ʞןɐʇc 12:40, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Inconsistent use of diacritics

It has been pointed out at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English) that this article has an inconsistent use of diacritics. Interested editors should discuss which variant is more common, and standardize the use of Ho Chi Minh City / Hồ Chí Minh City in the article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:19, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

File:Sai-gon-chang-vang.jpg Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Sai-gon-chang-vang.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests August 2011

What should I do?