Lê Minh Đức (Bút Sơn) Tô Ngọc Vân (Tô Tử, Ái Mĩ) Nguyễn Thứ Lễ (Lê Ta) Xã Xệ and Lý Toét are a satirical duo which became popular fiction characters in sketches published as caricatures through the columns of the modernist Vietnamese newspapers in Tonkin from the 1930s to the 1940s.

The first satirical cartoon including the figure of Lý Toét was first published by Nhất Linh in his newspaper Phong Hóa ("Customs", or "Mores") after he took over the Hanoi weekly in 1932.

[8] After the victory of the Popular Front in France, freedom of the press also allowed for a more direct political engagement even in cartoons.

The characters also indulged in insiders' jokes, as when they indirectly compared Khái Hưng's weekly column in their own newspaper to "a rash caused by undercooked beans".

While the main protagonists where the duo of Xã Xệ and Lý Toét, others secondary characters also appeared such as Bang Bạnh.

Other famous illustrators of that period contributed to the sketches such as: Ly Toet was "the first sustained fictitious character in any Vietnamese newspaper".

He also wears a traditional Áo ngũ thân flowing tunic distinctive of Vietnamese literati of the time without the turban however.

[14] As dissatisfaction grew among the Indochinese populations against the French colonization, these characters were "a useful mouthpiece for Vietnamese to voice criticism of France and its imperial project".

[16] While the humor is often at the expense of the elder generation, it is also a warning against the dangers of modernity and an expression of the fear and insecurity of certain Vietnamese in face of a changing future, as could also be seen from the Dumb Luck of Vũ Trọng Phụng.