“From childhood until middle school, I was constantly the target of teasing and given many unpleasant nicknames because of my appearance, which made me very sad and stressed,” Viet Anh told Z News.

At the end of 2021, while studying online at home due to the pandemic, Viet Anh decided to make a big change and prove that he could become the best version of himself. With the support of his family, mainly through self-exercising at home and controlling his diet, he allegedly lost 38 kilograms in just 6 months.

But losing weight was only half the battle. Around the time he started losing weight, he also discovered mewing, and he credits the viral technique of properly positioning the tongue on the roof of the mouth to improve facial structure for giving his face a more angular look.

While definitely impressive, Nguyen Viet Anh’s transformation has been contested as fake on social media, and looking at his before pictures, it’s easy to understand why. He went from having a squarish face to an angular one with a chin so sharp you could cut yourself on it.

People have been speculating that the 26-year-old underwent plastic surgery to achieve his new look, but he vehemently denies it, claiming that it was all a result of weight loss, mewing exercises, and a change of fashion style.

Thanks to his good looks and 1.82m height, Viet Ahn now has a lucrative modelling career, and also became the image ambassador of Phenikaa University in 2025, where he is studying Biomedical Engineering. This year, his main goal is to be among the top 25 contestants in the Mr. Tourism Vietnam 2026 competition.

“I believe that with enough effort, anyone can become a better version of themselves,” Nguyen Viet Anh said, adding that he hopes his radical transformation can motivate others to follow in his footsteps.

Every year, in the months of March and April, cassia trees in the central highlands of Vietnam are invaded by an army of yellowish caterpillars that love nothing more than to feed on their leaves. Once fully developed, the larvae leave the tree tops and crawl down the leaves to form cocoons, before turning into butterflies and flying away. But before this final transformation occurs, cassia caterpillar gatherers pick the caterpillars and pupae one by one to use in a simple stir-fried dish that can be a little hard to stomach.

Once collected, the larvae are kept alive for 4-6 hours to allow them to naturally purge their digestive tracts. They are then thoroughly rinsed, blanched in boiling water, seasoned with salt and pepper, and cooked. Although some preferred them grilled, or pan fried with animal fat, the most popular way of cooking these critters is to stir fry them.

Once cleaned, the larvae and pupae are tossed into a hot pan with lard, sautéed with minced garlic and onions, and seasoned to taste. When nearly done, finely chopped lime leaves are added for extra flavor. The finished dish has a golden, crispy exterior and a delicious flavor. The texture is crunchy on the outside and creamy inside, somewhat similar to silkworm pupae but more flavorful and less greasy.

Because of the short yearly season, cassia caterpillars and pupae fetch a decent price, around VND 200,000 – 250,000 per kilogram ($8 –  $10) in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, and even higher in other provinces, VND 350,000 – 400,000 per kilogram ($14 – $16), rivaling seafood prices.

Though tasty, with a rich, nutty flavor and crisp texture, the unconventional dish has been known to cause itchiness similar to that of an allergy in some people.

For more weird foods, check out Yin and Yang Fish,  the hair-like Fa Cai, and Godzilla Ramen.

The unnamed man was admitted to the Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Vietnam’s Can Tho Province when he came in with symptoms of pain and swelling in his left eye. The 24-year-old patient told doctors that he had been experiencing the symptoms for about three weeks but they had gotten worse in recent days. He had previously sought medical help at another facility in his hometown, but after assessing his vision and checking for foreign objects, they prescribed medicine that proved ineffective. This led the man to the Can Tho University Hospital, where doctors once again confirmed that he had 10/10 vision, with no signs of eyeball injury. However, the left eye did appear swollen and there was a small pus discharge from the corner of his left eye. A subsequent CT scan showed that he had a 9-cm-long foreign body lodged in his eye socket.

Photo: Juan Encalada/Unsplash

A quick examination revealed that the mysterious object appeared to be a wooden chopstick that had penetrated from the soft tissue outside the left orbit, through the upper wall of the maxillary sinus, and destroyed the lateral nasal wall. Asked if he had any idea how the chopstick may have gotten stuck in his left eyeball, the shocked patient could only recall a “collision” with a friend on an alcohol-fueled night of partying around the time his pain and swelling began. However, he did not explicitly recall having a wooden chopstick pierce his sinuses or the pain associated with such a brutal incident.

Photo: Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy

The doctors managed to safely remove the wooden chopstick from the 24-year-old’s left eye socket by performing a Caldwell-Luc operation and performed a paranasal endoscopy to ensure that no other foreign bodies remained to cause an infection. In this case, the chopstick was not clean, as it had been used to consume food, so a thorough cleaning of the wound was essential to the patient’s well-being.

The patient was extremely lucky that the wooden chopstick missed his eye, but doctors warn that such injuries are very dangerous and should be handled by medical professionals as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, in this particular case, the man was oblivious to his injury after consuming too much alcohol.

Photo: Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy

Believe it or not, such incidents are not as rare as you may think. A few years ago, we wrote about a Taiwanese woman who had plastic chopsticks embedded in her skull for a week before noticing that something was wrong, and a couple of years back, we wrote about another Vietnamese man who had a chopstick lodged in his skull for five months without even knowing.

34-year-old Nguyen Vu Hoang Anh has long been known as one of the best cake artists in Vietnam, but while his stunningly realistic fondant flowers and flawless tiered cakes have always been impressive, it was his signature aristocratic dress cake that earned him a lot of attention and praise on social media. Made using a layered sponge cake base held together with buttercream and chocolate, the insanely detailed cakes are covered with a layer of colored fondant hand-molded into the shape of European-style aristocratic dresses inspired by the Baroque era.

Nguyen Vu Hoang Anh started working on dress-shaped cakes a few years ago as sort of a personal challenge. An expert at shaping fondant into flowers, plant leaves and even cartoon characters, Hoang Anh quickly learned that he needed more than cake-making skills to create realistic edible dresses, especially elaborate gowns like those from the Baroque era.

“To create a realistic dress, I had to research everything from the way the fabric pleats, how to fold the hem, trim the waist, sew buttons, and then adapt the techniques to the material used to make the cake,” Hoang Anh said.

Making fondant look like soft fabric is not the easiest thing in the world, so Nguyen Vu Hoang Anh usually spends between 3 and 5 days to complete one of his iconic aristocratic dress cakes. Every little detail is handmade, from the creases on the dresses to the tiny accessories and the finishing paint job. It is this laborious process that weighs heavily in the final price of these edible masterpieces.

“The average price of each cake shaped like a noble dress ranges from 3.5 million VND ($140) to 5 million VND ($200), depending on the complexity and design,” Hoang Anh told Danviet. “This is a handmade product, every small detail is meticulously done, so the price is higher than regular cakes.”

 

For more unique cake designs, check out Caroline Eiksson’s gingerbread sculptures, the awe-inspiring creations of Renat Agzamov, and the architectural wonders of LeNovelle Cake.

There is no questioning the crazy popularity of bubble tea not only in Asia, but around the world. There is just something about the tapioca pearl-infused milk tea that has most people coming back for more, so it’s easy to understand why many businesses try to tap into this popularity to attract new business. The latest example is Yu Tang, a Vietnamese restaurant based in Hanoi that recently launched a new dish that combines milk tea, tapioca pearls, thick noodles and slices of cooked beef. Inspired by Taiwan’s popular milk hot pot, the new dish has been drawing a lot of attention online.

Yu Tang’s newest dish consists of a mix of vegetable broth, black tea and fresh milk served with noodles, tapioca pearls and corned beef. The taste is reportedly as bizarre as you can imagine, so much so that some Vietnamese content creators struggled to describe it. Some claim it is very similar to milk tea but without the drink’s characteristic sweetness, while others simply said that the texture of the tapioca didn’t really suit the dish.

“The overall flavor is not impressive or special,” vlogger Duc Anh commented. “The noodles are not as disgusting as many people imagine, but they are tasteless. The flavors of each ingredient do not really connect with each other.”

The Vietnamese restaurant launched its new bubble tea beef noodles on September 29, advertising it as a unique combination that you can only experience at their location in Hanoi. The intriguing combination and the venue’s aggressive marketing campaign worked, and despite the mixed reviews, the new dish has become the talk of Vietnamese social media.

If you happen to be in Hanoi and want to try bubble tea beef noodles, stop by Yu Tang and be ready to spend 98,000 VND ($4) per serving. You can also get a 20% discount if you check in at the restaurant on social media.

On July 27, a 31-year-old Indian national was brought to the emergency room of Viet Duc Hospital in Hanoi with severe abdominal pain. Through moans and screams of agony, the unnamed man told hospital staff that he had inserted a live eel into his body through his backside shortly before he began experiencing excruciating abdominal pain. The Vietnamese doctors on duty had seen a lot of things in people’s bodies, but a live eel was new, even for them, so they didn’t believe the patient at first. However, X-ray imaging and ultrasound exams showed a horizontal radiopaque skeleton in the man’s abdominal cavity which turned out to be an actual live eel.

The hospital quickly put together a team of endoscopy experts and anaesthesiologists to perform a colonoscopy and remove the foreign body through the man’s rear, but they were unable to reach the slippery marine creature, and with the man’s pain intensifying by the minute, doctors had no choice but to perform surgery on the man’s abdomen. They were shocked to discover a live eel approximately 65cm long and 10cm in circumference.

“The eel had bitten through the patient’s rectum and colon to escape into the abdominal cavity,” Le Nhat Huy, Deputy Director of the Colorectal and Pelvic Floor Surgery Centre at Viet Duc Hospital, told reporters. “Eels can survive in anaerobic conditions for a long time and have the ability to bite through the gastrointestinal tract.”

After removing the eel and a lemon that was blocking the Indian man’s rectum and checking for other foreign bodies, doctors sutured the perforation in his colon and also performed a colostomy to prevent feces from passing through the newly sutured perforation.

As for the reason why the man inserted a live eel into his body, it remains a mystery, but doctors suspect it was to experience “intense sensations”. One thing is for sure, though, he is definitely not the first man to do it. Only a few months ago, we wrote a similar story about a man who had been admitted to the Hai Ha District Medical Center in Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam, with severe abdominal cramps. Doctors there found a live eel that had bitten through his abdomen.

49-year-old Nguyen Ngoc My Kim is known as “the seamstress who never sleeps” in her home province of Long An, a nickname she gladly accepts because it apparently suits her. Every time Miss Kim’s reputation attracted the attention of the media, she confirmed that she hadn’t slept in several decades, adding that the complete lack of sleep hadn’t affected her health at all. However, the Vietnamese seamstress has always been quick to point out that she wasn’t born with the ability to function without sleep, she conditioned herself to stay up late ever since she was a little girl. At first, she would lose sleep because she loved reading late into the night, and later, when she started working as a seamstress, she worked late in order to complete her orders. At one point, she didn’t feel the need to sleep at all, so she didn’t.

Every night was like that, I sat in front of my sewing machine and did not dare to sleep because I was afraid of not being able to keep up with orders,” Nguyen Ngoc My Kim told reporters. “The first few times I worked through the night I encountered many difficulties. Not only did I fall asleep constantly and made many mistakes while sewing, but I constantly felt tired and dizzy, and I even had a few traffic accidents.”

“However, after staying awake for months, then years at a time, my eyes and my body got used to the lack of sleep. From then on, I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to,” Kim added.

Nguyen Ngoc My Kim’s decades-long insomnia has yet to be medically verified, but it’s more than a viral rumor. She claims that it’s mostly because people can see her working all day and all night long, because she is always at her sewing stall in Long Cang commune, Long An. The light is always on, and the door is always open, so people can just walk right in or just watch her work if they want.

“At first, few people paid attention to my lack of sleep,” My Kim said. “Later, many of them started noticing that I was always at my stall working. Seeing that the rumors were true, they spread the word, and before long, I became famous for my ability to stay awake continuously.”

News that Ms. Kim hadn’t slept in 30 years recently went viral on Vietnamese social media, and the seamstress once again found herself overwhelmed by visitors coming from all over the country to meet her and check if the rumors were true. She doesn’t mind, and the door of her stall in Long Cang is always open.

Apparently, Vietnam is the land of sleepless people, as Nguyen Ngoc My Kim is at least the third person we’ve featured from the Asian country with the ability to shun sleep completely. Last year, we wrote about Tran Thi Luu, who claimed to have been awake for over a decade, and about Thai Ngoc, an 80-year-old farmer who said he hadn’t slept in 60 years.

On June 1st, a blind dating cafe in Ho Chi Minh’s District 1 went viral for a controversial reason. According to multiple reports, Mina Cafe features two different rooms for men and women, separated by a glass wall. The controversy lies in the fact that the wall is advertised as a mirror when in reality it is only a mirror from the women’s side. The men’s room is dark and they can clearly see the person on the other side. Basically, the blind date part is only valid for the women, as the men can freely admire their potential partners like items on display.

Mina Cafe went viral in Vietnam after a popular TikTok user posted a video about it, showcasing the experience from a man’s perspective. Apart from the one-sided window, viewers also criticized the fact that men’s seats are considerably lower than women’s, which some claimed offered a better view of their privates. The fact that only men are required to pay for the various packages offered by the cafe, while the women get free drinks is also considered unfair.

Confronted about the controversial practices, the cafe owner, a woman named Lina, said that they had “created this model to give men the right to proactively pair up. It’s up to women to agree or not.” Shea added that although the cafe’s social media pages had been taken offline because of the recent negative feedback, she had no intention of closing the dating cafe because nothing illegal was going on.

Asked if women are informed about the one-sided window separating their room from that of the men, Lina said that her staff does its best to inform patrons, but they sometimes forget, and some of the girls don’t always understand the situation. Still, she admitted to ignoring the issue until the recent controversy.

Following the general outrage of the public and the extensive media coverage of the scandal, the Mina Blind Date Cafe has become the object of a police investigation.

 

On March 20, a 34-year-old man was admitted to the Hai Ha District Medical Center in Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam, with severe abdominal cramps. Since the patient was in too much pain to be questioned about his symptoms, the hospital staff conducted an X-ray and an ultrasound which revealed a foreign body in his abdomen, as well as intestinal perforation and peritonitis. Doctors decided that the best course of action was to conduct surgery, remove the suspicious object, and try to mitigate the damage to the man’s intestines. Upon opening up the patient’s abdomen, doctors were surprised to find that the foreign object was a 30 cm live eel.

After removing the eel, doctors proceeded to remove the necrotic colorectal segment of the intestines, a delicate procedure with a high potential for infection due to the proximity to the rectal area. Luckily, the operation was a success and the patient was stabilized. He reported only mild abdominal discomfort after the procedure, but he is still under observation at the hospital.

Asked how the large eel could have wound up in his abdomen, the 34-year-old man could not provide a clear answer, but doctors believe that the slippery animal crawled from the anus to the patient’s colon, bit through the intestine, and entered the abdomen. But what truly shocked the hospital staff was that the eel was still alive inside the man’s body.

This bizarre case and the photo of the eel being removed from the patient’s abdomen are eerily reminiscent of a xenomorph bursting out of a human host’s stomach in an Alien movie.

Ever wake up with a soar throat and a scratchy voice? Of course, you have, but you probably never thought it was more than a mild cold. A 53-year-old Vietnamese man suffering these symptoms thought the same thing until he started spitting blood, at which point he realized things were worse than they appeared. At first, he tried identifying the cause himself, by opening his mouth and looking in the mirror, but he couldn’t see much apart from what looked like a brown mass in the upper part of his throat. The man panicked and immediately sought professional medical assistance; that’s how he learned that he had a leech attached to his throat.

When the man arrived at the National Hospital of Endocrinology in Hanoi complaining of throat discomfort and occasionally spitting blood, doctors performed an endoscopy that revealed a 6-cm-long leech attached firmly to his throat, firmly below the glottis near the trachea. Such discoveries are not unheard of – another Vietnamese man made news headlines in 2019 for the same reason – but they are considered extremely rare.

Leeches usually manage to enter the human body due to a lack of proper hygiene. In this particular case, the 53-year-old patient told doctors that he had sustained an injury to his hand while handling a mouse trap about a month prior. A fervent believer in Shennong herbal medicine, he went out and picked medicinal plants, put them in his mouth, and chewed them into a paste that he applied to his wound.

His hand was fine, but doctors believe that by putting the unwashed leaves in his mouth, he allowed a tiny leech access to his body. They are usually tiny, but by constantly feeding on blood, they can grow very fast.

To avoid such situations, doctors advise people to avoid contaminated water sources and dirty leaves while out in the wild.