With thanks to Vuthy Guilleminot - Paris for her translations of the Vietnamese.

Up till today (end 2005) Parker/Hasbro haven't issued their capitalist Monopoly game in this communist country. 
However (always unknown) inland publishers make their own versions with a clear glance at the capitalist game and an appeal to everbody's yearn 
for prosperity. Because of a long union with China the Chinese language is still important in Vietnam, reason why even these very poor "board" 
games are bilingual.

Edition: CÒ' TÂN TRIÊU PHÚ (the new billionaire game)
Publisher: Green cup ? - ±1997
Dimensions of the box: 15.5 x 24.0 cm
                 of the board: 42.5 x 42.5 cm
The game:
The game board is not much more then a 3 times folded sheet of paper on which the colorbars are badly printed in their spaces. It is but a threecolor print reason why they used screens over the colors of the streets of the 3^rd and 4^th side. 
Like in the neighbouring countries Thailand and Burma the cover of this set also shows a Monopoly playing group of 4 children on a maxi game board. The "cat-like mascot character" shown on the lid also appears as token as well as 2 little girls and a boy.

The streets are those of the largest city of the country: Saigon. In the mid of each side are resp. the busstation Chó Ló'n - Taxi - the busstation Sài Gòn as well as the ferry Thü Thiệm.
This time it's a girl sitting in Jail. She is shooted that way by a rather young policeman with a raised pistol and a whistle in his mouth. On the Free Parking space is talk of payment of 2000 d.
The property deeds, the 15 Cơ Hội (Occasion) and 15 Khí Vận (Chance) cards as well as the banknotes have to be cut out before use. The 10 banknotes have the denominations of 100 - 200 - 500 - 1000 - 2.000 - 5000 - 10.000 - 20.000 - 50.000 and 100.000 đ(ong). They all have an illustration of the "cat-like mascot character".
It is not clear why there are 2 bags each with 2 dice, 4 tokens, 20 houses and 6 red hotels. The houses in one of the bags are green, but beige in the other.

The price of this set amounted to about US$ 0.50 in September 1998.

The property deeds, the 15 Cơ Hội (Occasion) and 15 Khí Vận (Chance) cards as well as the banknotes have to be cut out from the sheets. The property deeds are on 4 small sheets (3 white and 1 brown) each with 9 streets. The 4 busstation properties are slightly smaller with the text side in yellow.
The 9 banknotes have the denominations of (8x) 5 - (8x) 10 - (8x) 20 - (12x) 50 - (12x)100 - (4x) 500 - (4x) 1000 - (3x) 2.000 and (3x) special notes 2.000. The denominations from 5 to 100 are illustrated with various Disney characters.

I had 4 sets available to compare. It struck me that the tokens, houses and hotels were so different per set:

1. Tokens:
   a. 4 flat hard plastic colored figures with names on their backs, resp.: Lêona - Đai - Karl     and Tarzan.
   b. 3 flat soft plastic Disney figures: Donald - Micky and Pinocchio plus 1 hard figure: Karl.
   c. 3 flat soft plastic Disney figures: Donald - Micky and Pinocchio plus 1 hard figure: Karl.
   d. 3 flat soft plastic Disney figures: Donald - Micky and Pinocchio plus 1 hard figure: Karl.
   

2. Soft plastic houses and hotels consisting of a mixture of colored parts: 
   a.  20 houses of which 2x dark blue, 7x light blue, 1x light purple, 2x green, 3x blue green, 2x yellow, 2x red and 1x pink. 
        6 hotels: 3x pink, 2x yellow and 1x green.
   b.  20 houses of which 2x dark blue, 1x light blue,1x light purple, 1x dark purple, 1x green, 1x blue green, 7x yellow, 3x orange and 3x pink. 
        6 hotels: 1x pink, 2x red, 1x dark blue and 2x blue green.
   c. 19 houses of which 1x dark blue, 3x light purple, 1x red, 3x green, 7x yellow and 4x pink. 
        6 hotels: 1x pink,1x red,  1x orange,1x dark blue, 1x light blue and 1x blue green.
   d. 20 houses of which 2x dark blue,1x light blue, 5x light purple, 5x red, 2x green, 1x orange, 1x light pink, 1x blue green  and 2x pink. 
        6 hotels: 1x green,1x red,  1x dark purple,1x dark blue and 2x blue green.

Only both small (11 mm) Chinese dice with rounded corners are the same in all 4 sets: dark red with black pips except for the one big white dot and the 4 in white dots.

The price of this set amounted to about € 0.50 in October 2005.

Edition: Monopoly Saigon
             A Game for Friends & Facilitation Temptation 
             & Tea Money with recognizable Memories 
Makers: 2 expats in Saigon - 2007
Dimensions of the box: 26.8 x 38.0 x 50.0 cm
 of the 2x folded board: 51 x 51 cm
The game:
This game was invented by 2 expats, people that are sent abroad by their company for a certain time, in this case Saigon, Vietnam. Like often happens foreigners in a country have frequent contacts with eachother and the moment someone has to chance station or is going back home it will be reason to think up a pleasant farewell present.

In November 2007 they devised this game for friends that had worked for the luxury Park Hyatt Saigon hotel. The address of the hotel is Lam Son Square 1 and is situated in the centre of town. So the hotel itself became the most expensive property on the board. The adjacent  Start-space is called after the restaurant Square One of this hotel, a funny pun in English, because the expression "Back to square one" stands for begin once more. 
For the first few games they made the game board of two, on wood laminated, pictures and a box of solid cardboard, covered with book-linen, with a picture of the first side of the board on de lid. On the Chance and Community Chest cards certain experiences and anecdotes are mentioned from the years the friends had spend in Saigon. So all these games are single copies, specially made for a certain acquaintance leaving the country again. The moment it appeared there was so much interest for their games a series of 500 boxes was made, becomming available in the spring of 2008. It then appeared there was an excess of cards, reason to later on produce another 300 games.
Since then Monopoly Saigon is a favourite souvenir with the expats of Saigon, reason why it is in English only, with for these people very typical places, expressions and similar, as they occur on the spaces and in the instructions of the cards.
Part of the proceeds the makers intend for charity in Saigon.

The box has a white lid (35 mm high) with the 5-pointed, yellow star of the Vietnamese flag under the black monopoly bar. Under that is the first side of the game board.
The "Official Rules for Saigon Monopoly" are printed inside the lid. Very practical, because only so they cannot get lost. 
There are 3 interesting points in these Rules, viz.:
1. The well-known houserule the money to be paid for fines etc. to be put in the Jackpot, destined for those landing on the Free Parking corner.
2. One of the 3 possibilities to go out of the Jail is by bribing each player with 5.000 VND (= Vietnamese Dong)
3. In case of dispute Vietnamese Law applies!
The innerbox is 48 mm in height so that the lid obviously hangs on it. It is both, internally and externally red and has 5 holes of white cardboard to store the attributes.

The game board is extremely heavy and sound. The playside is red with the yellow star in the middle, so clearly an image of the Vietnamese flag. Its' back is black.
The word monopoly, in a black frame, is diagonal over the midfield with on top the space for the People's Committee cards and under it that for the Cơ Hội (Opportunity) cards.

From Square One all spaces are respectively: 
Pham Ngu Lao (Backpackers' area): Allez Boo - People's Committee - Sinh Café
Pay Tax over your assets 
Ben Thanh Market
Ton That Thiep (Popular street in the centre of town): Gaya - Cơ Hội - Fanny's Ice Cream - Temple Club
Prison Con Dao
An Phu (district 2, living area, popular at expats): Thao Dien Compound - Water Company (moet Power Plant zijn want hier staat ook de lamp) - 
                                                                            Mekong Merchant - APSC Superior Compound
Airport Tan Son Nhat
Phu My Hung (district 7, also popular at expats): RMIT University - People's Committee - Sky Garden - Franco Viet Hospital 
XE Om free parking (Free Parking for )
Nguyen Hue (district 1, tourist area): Fahasa - Cơ Hội - Rex Hotel - City Hall
Temple
Le Duan (street with large buildings): Diamond Plaza - Reunification Palace - Water Company - Cathedral Notre Dame
Go To Prison (with a picture of a policeman on a terrace!)
Dong Khoi (expensive shopping street): Mojo - Khai Silk - People's Committee - LÓpéra
Post Office Buu Dien
Lam Son Square (centre): Cơ Hội - Highlands Coffee - RED Invoice en Park Hyatt Saigon

At bit more explanation at some properties:
* Thao Dien = a street being flooded twice a day caused by low and high tide, see the picture on the property deed!
* Khai Silk = an expensive silk shop
* Mojo = a little coffee bar where friends of the first game gladly stayed
* Highlands Coffee = a well-known chain of coffee bars in Vietnam

The property deeds (55x85 mm) all have a picture of the object. For that purpose the makers personally went by car to take pictures of all places.
Although the mortgage value is also mentioned on the frontside the backside of the cards is destined for the mortgage data.
The wording on the property deed of the Power Plant is good now in contrast to that on the board. Indeed this has been rectified in later editions.
The property deed of APSC Superior Compound shows BP Compound, the former name (British Petrol), still used by the expats.

The yellow Cơ Hội- and red People's Committee cards (55x85 mm). On the backside of these cards is a pattern of recurring mini images of the cyclo, that is always so present in the street scene. There are 21 cards of each with very typical instructions in fact only to be well understand by the expats, like:

The money consists of 7 simple but nice banknotes, issued by the Vietcombank. 
"For the first editions we scanned the local money, " the makers explane, "but because this is not allowed and even pictures of Ho Chi Minh may not been used, we made very neutral little banknotes (45x90 mm). In the middle of the star on these notes a cyclo is shown again." The 7 denominations are resp.: 200 - 500 - 1.000 - 2.000 - 5.000 - 10.000 and 50.000 VND. 
Although the numbers are large, their value is very poor, because 10.000 VND ~ € 0,50! 
This also means the prices of the properties, although the amounts will be very familiar to you, are very unrealistic: the cheapest street costs 6,000 VND ~ € 0,30, while the most expensive street costs 40,000 VND, i.a. € 2,-!

The 6 tokens are very nice and original: 3x Vietnamese Anh (girl) and 3x Em (boy). The colors of these dolls can differ per set because they have been purchased in random colors.

The houses and hotels are as very special as well, although most probably all is not gold that glitters.  The "houses" are gold colored coins, socalled. lucky money, in Azian countries thé symbol for richness. For thee "hotels" we have chosen for the very nice Chinese Wedding Hats.

Both dice are of Chinese manufacture, so with the large red dot for one.

A very special gain for a collector!