The quintessential image of wartime Saigon often centers on the figure of the bar girl: a young Vietnamese woman, dressed to captivate in a halter top and mini-skirt, offering cigarettes, liquor, or even her company to passing American GIs, all in broken English.
What brought her to the city? How did she navigate life in this chaotic, wartime hub? From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, much of South Vietnam’s economy and society pivoted around the American military presence.
By 1965, with U.S. troops pouring in, a sprawling black market sprang to life, fueled by an intricate network of suppliers, dealers, transporters, and hustlers that spread throughout southern Vietnam.
At the center of it all was Saigon—a city transformed into a bustling crossroad of war, commerce, and survival. American bases were ringed by bars and brothels.
At the end of the Vietnam War, estimates placed the number of prostitutes in South Vietnam between 300,000 and 500,000, with up to 80 percent reportedly affected by venereal disease.
These women often gathered in bars frequented by American GIs, as well as by Vietnamese soldiers and locals, offering a range of services.
Many of these women became pregnant, resulting in a generation of Amerasian children who faced harsh societal rejection, often called bui doi, or “dust of life.”
American military authorities, concerned about the spread of disease among troops, conducted medical checks on these women, although there was little oversight regarding their ages.
Fear and suspicion of Vietnamese prostitutes ran high within the ranks; they were often stereotyped as “dirty” or even suspected of being enemy operatives.
Bizarre rumors, such as the myth of Vietnamese women possessing “vagina dentata” (teeth in the vagina), spread through the camps, alongside tales of incurable venereal diseases.
Some claimed these myths were seeded by military officials to discourage soldiers from seeking out these women, while others believed they arose as urban legends among the troops.
Either way, they reflect the anxieties many American men held about Vietnamese women—uncertain of who could be trusted and wary of threats to their own safety and power.
The presence of so many prostitutes and the tense relationships with American soldiers even prompted U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright to criticize South Vietnam as having become “America’s brothel.”
One of the well-known “recreation centers” in the Saigon area was the Pleiku brothel, featuring twenty rooms that were whitewashed and comfortably furnished.
The women working there were selected based on their looks, personality, and English skills, with a matron under contract to the Pleiku Administrative Council supervising them closely.
For a ticket costing 300 piastres (about $2.50), an American GI was allowed up to three hours with any of the women.
Each day, between 100 and 300 soldiers visited the establishment, passing through a sandbagged guard post where they had to present and stamp their ticket under the watch of a Vietnamese soldier.
Fifteen percent of each woman’s earnings was withheld to cover operational costs, but popular and industrious workers could make between 8,000 and 15,000 piastres ($66 to $125) a month—a respectable income in wartime Vietnam.
After the war, the Vietnamese government implemented a rehabilitation program aimed at helping former prostitutes reintegrate into society.
Alongside this, a national HIV/AIDS education initiative was introduced to address public health concerns.
However, as economic development surged in the 1990s, a new wave of women from impoverished rural areas entered prostitution, this time catering to an emerging class of professional clients.
(Photo credit: A. L. via Flickr with permission / Upscaled and enhanced by RHP).