Turtle Lake (Hồ Con Rùa)

Ho Chi Minh-staden · Vietnam · Urban site

Saigon's Turtle Lake is said to have been built to pin down a dragon's tail — until the turtle was blown up and the curse slipped loose.

By Saigon's best-known geomantic legend, President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu consulted diviners about his palace in the 1960s and was told it stood on the head of a dragon whose lashing tail lay at today's Hồ Con Rùa — the source of his regime's endless unrest. A concrete tower and a bronze turtle were therefore raised on the spot, meant to hold the tail down forever. When the turtle was blown apart in 1978, people in the city said the seal had been broken, and the roundabout kept its name though the turtle never returned. The place's restless energy is still talked about, and the legend is often read backwards: the dragon had the last word.

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Where is Turtle Lake (Hồ Con Rùa) located?

Turtle Lake (Hồ Con Rùa) is in Ho Chi Minh-staden, Vietnam.

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