We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2015
Since the early 1980s, many people in Hà Nội have taken to the pavement to sell goods and services. They include many former state employees, and they do so for basic livelihood and to supplement income. These needs came hard and fast in the mid and late 1980s, the years of hyperinflation and economic restructuring. The biggest blow to the economy then was the drastic reduction of the state sector, which had provided most, if not all, the employment in Vietnam. Here went a four-liner that slightly exaggerated and teased:
On one end of the street, a senior colonel pumps tires
On the other end, a lieutenant colonel sells black beans dessert
Thought he was a stranger but turned out a friend as we went near —
Our brigadier presses a horn to sell ice-cream.
People in Hà Nội were joined by roaming vendors (hàng rong), who came into the city from the villages to peddle farm produce, especially after 1988. In addition, though mainly in the older parts of the city where housing space for each family was tight, many Hà Nội residents reluctantly did their personal, family, and business chores on the pavement, including activities such as washing, cooking, recreation, and storing and displaying goods. A journalist of the Hà Nội Moi (HNM) newspaper criticized a typical scene he saw, whereby the pavement, a public space, became a yard for many families:
Around the [submerged] water tanks on the pavement many thoughtless and shocking acts take place that hardly show the refinement of Tràng An [an old alias of Hà Nội] people! Foreign guests walk by and are very surprised because they have never seen, in the capital of any country in this world, a stranger method to keep water. People even turn the pavement around the water tanks into their own private yard and do anything they want without a thought for others. They brush their teeth; wash their faces in the morning. They wash rice and vegetables at noon and in the evening. In time, they also do their laundry and bathe right there – first the children, then the adults …[…]
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
