In 2021, one of the world’s most restrictive COVID-19 containment regimes was imposed in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, bringing widespread social disruption. Instances of infectious disease transmission can serve to reveal reality anew. Indeed, among city dwellers the extraordinary coronavirus phenomenon prompted an upsurge in evaluative talk around a range of social, cultural, economic and political topics, bringing frustrations, fears, aspirations and beliefs to the surface, making them available for analysis. With common perspectives shifting rapidly in the contemporary city and with the Fall of Saigon’s 50th anniversary approaching, the opportunity to reassess ‘reality’ in Ho Chi Minh City in light of the COVID-19 pandemic is particularly timely. During fieldwork conducted from 2021 to 2023 primarily in an inner-city alleyway community hit hard by the virus, I joined in the evaluative conversations. In this presentation, I consider ethnographic insights from Vietnam's pandemic ‘season’ (mùa dịch) in the context of other tumultuous events in Vietnam's recent history, offer methodological and ethical reflections on doing face-to-face ethnographic fieldwork during a pandemic, and consider the value of serendipity in contemporary ethnographic practice.