Our paper approaches the making of contemporary Hồ Chí Minh City (Việt Nam) through the socio-spatial analysis of leisure practices. This focus allows us to tackle the construction of urban identities and how city dwellers gain access to this post-socialist city. While the wealth accumulated in this new political and economic context is made visible, few academic studies have succeeded to grasp its social use and cultural meaning, particularly amongst the middle and upper classes (Nguyen-Marshall, Drummond and Bélanger, 2012 ; Earl, 2004). The study of leisure reveals the way city dwellers negotiate their desire for more and more individual freedom in a socialist and Confucean society where the collectivity and the family are structural values (Drummond and Thomas, 2003). Our hypothesis is that contemporary leisure practices in Hồ Chí Minh City generate a growing differentiation between public and private spaces, between individual and collective practices and between feelings of promiscuity and intimacy. These spatial evolutions give a measure of the reshaping of the socialist model of leisure since the Đởi Mới (1989). Leisure was first used to promote the modernist idea of universal progress and a heightened degree of state intervention (Harms, 2009). The contemporary advent of private actors and spaces of leisure in the city has deeply altered urban dynamics. This study was carried out using qualitative methods. We interviewed about fifteen young Saigonese people (between 20 and 35 years old) and followed them in the city through their leisure practices (yoga, karaoke and various outings). Interviews were completed with participatory observation in different places of leisure (bar, golf course, amusement park...). The findings inform the relation between the access of leisure, urban mobility and the commodification of urban spaces. These are key in understanding the closing, opening and privatization of places in this post-socialist city.
