Discover Vietnam: A Vietnam Podcast

Tâm is the first listener-suggested guest, thanks to regular listener, Brandon Coleman. Tâm is an entertaining and interesting guest that has an in-depth story and many insights to share about life in Saigon, which can be seen by the length of this episode. 

Born in Texas to Vietnamese refugees, Tâm moved to Saigon after a stint in Singapore. 

Here in Saigon she worked at an international branding agency but soon started creating Vie...

You may have seen Susan Li around town or posting on Fexpats. She is one of of Fexpats original founders and she's been really busy the last 6 years in Saigon!

We cover a lot in this episode from the founding of Fexpats, RAD7 and Honey Badger Events to online trolls, dating in Saigon and opening a new bar, The Wreck, with Matt Ryan.

Originally born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Susan decided to move abroad...

WARNING: If you are small minded and homophobic you can probably skip this episode.

Daniel was born and raised in Saigon by conservative Northern parents, with his dad having fought for the North before moving South. Daniel faced the familiar familial pressures that many young people in Saigon face, to study hard and get good grades.

Daniel's passions are and always have been music, food and fashion but under...

Lewis Wright is a talented music producer from the UK who now lives in Saigon, working for InQ International producing kids songs for a Vietnamese audience and Vietnamese artists for an international audience. He even composed the popular theme music for Seven Million Bikes.

Lewis is originally from the UK and has lived in Vietnam for just over a year, having visited and lived on and off in previous years. He started out a...

Greg has what would be for many a dream job - a freelance football journalist. After moving to Saigon in January Greg planned to stay for only three months, but now going to be staying for the foreseeable future. He was recently featured in The Guardian writing about digital nomads which Greg is currently debating whether that label applies to him.

As both avid football fans Greg and I had so much to talk about I’ve split this episo...

“Rome is always Rome. Saigon is never Saigon. It’s always changing.”

That line from this conversation stopped me in my tracks. I’ve lived in Saigon for nearly 10 years, and sometimes I forget just how intense, exciting, and different this city feels when you first arrive. Talking with Ebru, who had only been in Vietnam for three months, gave me a fresh perspective on a place I call home.

What I really loved about this episode was how...

"All tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises—just like not all who wander are lost."

Niall Mackay sits down with James Hunt, an American expat in Vietnam known for his restaurant ventures like Brick and Barrel and Big Boss Bistro. However, James's story extends far beyond the world of fried chicken and culinary pursuits. He delves into his passion for wildlife photography, which initially drew him to ...

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Phuong Truong, "just another lesbian in town", is the owner of Twist coffee bar in Thao Dien, a fun place for everyone and a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community.

We discuss the LQBTQ+ community in Vietnam in the context of religion, region and generational acceptance.

We also talk about sex education in Vietnam in light of a recent story in VNExpress with the headline, It&apos...

“I never thought I was going to have kids here… that wouldn’t have even crossed my mind.” — Claire Simpson

This episode with Claire really opened my eyes to a side of Vietnam I’ve never personally experienced but have always been curious about — what it’s actually like to be an expat parent here. I've interviewed entrepreneurs, creatives, teachers, founders… but motherhood is a whole different universe.

There were parts of this ...

Slawpi Đô, his pseudonym, shares why he is dedicated to learning Vietnamese. why he wants to be on Vietnamese TV, and talks about his military background, trying to start a business in Vietnam and learning to enjoy being unproductive. 

In this episode Niall and Slawpi Đô talk about;

• what it is really like to be in the US Airforce
• Why he is learning Vietnamese
• the challenges of living in Vietnam
• the difficulty of accepting ...

“The first thing I saw that I just loved so much is that the women here are so fearless.” — Amy Wenham

This conversation with Amy was one of those episodes where I found myself nodding almost the entire time. I’ve been talking about how badass Vietnamese women are for years, but Amy put language to things I’ve seen but could never fully articulate.

What I loved most is that she didn’t just compare Vietnam to the UK — she compared it ...

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This episode’s guest, Tracey Nguyen Mang, is the founder and creator of the award winning podcast: The Vietnamese Boat People. This podcast shares the stories of hope, survival and resilience from the Vietnamese diaspora during 1975-1992.

Tracey was so interesting and engaging an interview it went for nearly two hours. It's been edited into two parts with bonus content ...

“If I really spent $4,000 a month, I’d have a villa and a problem.”

Having Markeiz back on Discover Vietnam felt like picking up a conversation we never really finished the first time. When he first joined me back in 2020, I was recording out of my bedroom, praying the iPhone wouldn’t ruin the audio. This time, we were sitting in a full podcast studio — lights, cameras, a technician, the whole lot. It made me think about how much th...

This episode’s guest, Tracey Nguyen Mang, is the founder and creator of the Vietnamese Boat People podcast, an award winning podcast which shares the stories of the Vietnamese diaspora, and something that has often been discussed with previous guests on this show. Tracey was born the youngest of seven children, in Nha Trang Vietnam before her family risked their lives to flee Vietnam.

Tracey was just three when her family ...

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I met Anastasia Sokyrka in Government Quarantine in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. You can listen to my episode with her and my wife, Adrie, about our experiences while we were living them.

Since then we have become close friends, a silver lining of a tough experience (17 days with no mattress, no air con and no booze!)

Finally, after two years of the pandemic Anastasia was able to ...

Join The Community with Zion!

Zion Johnson is a former Transactivist, a writer and Seven Million Bikes superfan. He is the only person in the world to have a Seven Million Bikes tattoo!

In this episode we talk about;
- Zion's gender journey
- his trans-activism in the US
- transitioning from a black female to a black man
- woke culture
- why he decided to leave the U.S and settle in Vietna...

The opening guest of Season 7 is Brian Letwin, a New Yorker in Saigon since 2010. Brian is the co-founder and CEO of the Urbanist Network which includes Saigoneer, Urbanist Vietnam and Urbanist Hanoi.

Using his 15 years experience working in digital media both on the agency and publisher side Saigoneer has now been running since 2013.

Recorded in late August when Saigon was still under strict lockdown we try to ke...

“The reason I’m putting on a podcast is because I want to listen. I don’t want to read about the hosts - I want you to tell me about you.” — Adrie Mackay

 Today I'm doing something a little bit different. You're about to hear an episode from my other show, Smarter Podcasting, where my wife Adrie joins me to talk about what she looks for in a podcast 

 So if you ever thought. I could do that, but I don't know how, then ...

Phuong Nguyen is a Vietnamese expat currently located in Paphos, Cyprus. 

She has hosted a Vietnamese podcast since 2016. Occasionally she interviewed Expats living in Vietnam and has some episodes covering expat lives such as being a vegan in Hanoi, Vietnam under the eyes of an artist and expat's life during Tet - Vietnam's traditional New year holiday. 

At the age of 30, she decided to shift her career...