They say a person dies twice: once when their heart stops beating and a second time when people stop mentioning their name. If we alter this phrase a bit to include the last time one’s image is seen, Saigon’s beloved cô Mía may soon be receiving last rites.
A standard sugarcane juice cart featuring cô Mía. Illustration by Rồng Phạm.
Reading this, most Saigoneers will have already pictured cô Mía’s retro perm hair, frilled collar and coy smile. But when was the last time you saw the image in person?
The origin of the painting featured on nước mía carts across the city has already been lost to time, so there is no way of knowing if the inspiration behind it has passed away (or was never even a real person). But back in 2018, when we first published an article about the search for her identity, it felt like her face graced carts all around the city. A perpetual walker, I remember seeing her everywhere, from hẻms in far-flung districts to city-center side streets. So when we needed to snap a few photos for a project this month, I thought it would be no problem.
But it has been a big problem. I pass more than a dozen nước mía carts on the walk into the Saigoneer office and yet not a single cô Mía. Most of the carts feature simple, mass-produced stick-on lettering with uninspired fruit. A few of the metal surfaces had a photo of a wildly 2000s-style woman with swept bangs drinking nước mía. But where is our beloved cô Mía?
Our Saigoneer scout team scoured the city, and finally turned up a few, most of which were horrendously faded, the colors gasping for breath in the harsh sunlight. It seems a common storyline of artisanal craftsmanship being forgotten in favor of quicker, cheaper mass production is playing out right before our eyes. Some solace can be found in a single cart we discovered with freshly painted cô Mía that confirms some people still consider her face worth the time it takes to put on, but surely her heyday is behind us.
Getting older involves saying goodbye to the ones we love, and while the loss of adored artists, entertainers, athletes and politicians is painful, there is something all the more tragic about the collective loss of one that could be immortal if only people cared a bit more.
