One of my least favorite genres of comments on Saigoneer’s social media posts is jokes involving the laggard opening of the HCMC Metro and some random, outrageous year far into the next decades, or even centuries.
They were funny a decade ago when the first rounds of construction delay were announced, but over the years, with every postponement and every joke posted, the mockery gradually grew less funny and more tiresome. Every time we published any metro-related news, they would rear their bitter heads, pushing the blade just a bit deeper into Saigon’s chronic ulcer.
The HCMC Metro has been through numerous delays due to problems with fund reimbursement, structural faults, and the pandemic.
While tired of the jokes, I can somewhat sympathize with them, as they are more than just garden-variety shitpostings — they were the festering symptoms of a sense of public nervousness plaguing Saigoneers. When will it be done? Saigon’s population keeps ballooning and even I was beginning to fear I might kick the bucket before ever riding the metro. While the HCMC Metro was inching excruciatingly slowly towards the finished line, Hanoi already unveiled two lines, Jakarta got its debut line, and Singapore probably built a spaghetti bowl’s worth of MRT routes. I’ve resorted to treating the metro launch like a lottery prize; it will come when it comes, there’s no use in hoping, because the more one hopes, the bigger the disappointment will be.
A view from Thảo Điền Station, one of the most popular stops for those exploring Saigon.
For a while now, it seemed that there would be no end to these overwrought jokes, especially when the metro, even after construction had finished, went into endless rounds of pilot runs. It goes without saying that when the HCMC Metro officially started welcoming members of the public last December, I couldn’t be more relieved, both to finally experience my favorite mode of transport right in my backyard and to be freed of the delay jokes for good. During the weeks after the metro launch, it felt like the city was also collectively heaving a sigh of relief, before the mood shifted to giddy anticipation as everyone and their mothers (literally) headed to take a maiden ride.
Bến Thành Station, slated to be a major interchange in the future, is the most crowded stop.
On a weekday afternoon, I decided to commit truancy at work to take a midday train to anywhere. The “anywhere” in this case is the Suối Tiên Terminal Station, based deep in the outskirts of Bình Dương Province and adjacent to the Eastern Bus Station. Boarding the train at Bến Thành Station was a breeze during the free-ride period, requiring only a QR code scan, though the crowd was significant enough to require the presence of several station staff members to direct passenger flow.
While the train runs relatively smoothly, getting to it has been the most irksome process so far.
With every stop, the full passenger car was whittled down to a small handful and there were enough seats for everyone by the end of the line. When the train made an extended stop at the end, I wandered around the platform, taking into the vastness of the sparsely populated land at the border of Saigon and Bình Dương. This horizon will not stay open for long, because in the next few years, residential complexes, shophouses and condotels will pop up like mushrooms empowered by the connectivity that the stations offer. The metro launch is just the prologue of a long chronicle of Saigon’s future.
The presence of the metro has massively boosted real estate prices along the line.
The train is my favorite mode of transportation, and a metropolitan metro network is just like a theme park ride that you can experience every day. The majority of Saigoneers certainly see Metro Line 1 that way: my time on the line was filled with folks who stayed in place even from one end to the other and back. Families with strollers and cherubic toddlers who can barely walk. Gaggles of ladies wearing iconic floral pajamas and nón lá. Elderly couples who were content to be able to board the metro before senility could catch up with them.
Only spanning a short 20-kilometer stretch from downtown to the northeastern border of the city, the metro in its current state is helpful in improving the daily commute of just some Saigoneers. For the rest of us, me included, we’ll have to settle for the theme park novelty it provides, but at least for now, we can marvel at the mostly grayed-out full map installed at every station, dreaming of a day when every city resident can leave their house, walk a few steps, and be seated on a train zipping across town to any location they desire.
I am sappy and really enjoy the look on older Saigoneers when they get to experience the train.
This is certainly the case in Singapore. When I left the island nation in 2013 after four years there, the local MRT network had four full metro lines; in 2025, two more have been added, with numerous new stations and extensions of existing lines. The North-South Line, coded in red, was Singapore’s first-ever metro route, whose first five stations became operational in 1987 — so Singaporeans have had nearly four decades of enjoying their urban railway infrastructure and forming a well-established public transport culture.
In Singapore, riders stand on the left on escalators, leaving the right side for those who are in a hurry and wish to walk. Seats closest to the door are reserved for the elderly, pregnant and disabled. It’s courteous to let people inside get out first before getting in yourself. Train rides are often so quiet you can hear nothing but automatic announcements and the gush of wuthering wind pressing against the tunnel. None of these behaviors exists yet when it comes to the HCMC Metro, but compared to their almost four decades of reinforced cultural norms, Saigoneers’ mere one month with our new train set seems like child’s play.
Metro culture is still something Saigon needs to work on.
Practicing basic courtesy and following rules are the crucial first steps toward growing a healthy metro environment. Metro culture, however, is not limited to just public etiquette: the introduction of train rides will potentially free up hours of our days for other enriching activities instead of being stuck in congested, polluted, stress-inducing commutes. The two half-hour blocks you spend on the metro every day are now a new garden of freshly tilled soil to cultivate your mind. Daydream, write poetry, look at trees, listen to a whole album uninterrupted, catch up on a podcast, read a book, do homework, sketch strangers, watch your crush’s Instagram stories, text your mom, make up mnemonics to memorize station names, or even catch up on some sleep — anything but ride a motorbike in shitty traffic.
So far I've listened to music and read a chapter of a book on the metro, things that would be impossible on a bike.
As the Saigon Metro is still so fresh, I haven’t noticed any whimsical activity but sheer enthusiastic glee and a palpable sense of disbelief from other passengers. A middle-aged lady next to me took a picture every time the train stopped at a station. A young man behind me came all the way from Vũng Tàu to ride the train and was video-calling his girlfriend the entire time, pointing out every recognizable building he spotted. Everybody was too busy just existing in this incredulous nowness to think of what book to read or forming a routine — it’s almost too cute. One thing that stands out about Singaporeans’ attitude about their MRT system is that nothing stands out. The train is as normal as a utility pole, a park bench or a telephone booth. They’ve been living with it for so long that the train network is just infrastructure, not a frustratingly delayed dream project decades in the making.
Operating and adjusting to a metro line is still a constant effort for Saigon. Service has been halted twice due to heavy rain, and some ugly behaviors from passengers have been reported, but once the novelty wears off and ridership has had time to stabilize, I for one am looking forward to observing and contributing to the formation of a metro culture that’s uniquely Saigon’s.
