Ước gì mình lấy được ta,
Để cùng buôn bán chợ xa, chợ gần
(Oh, how I long to wed thee, my dear,
To roam and trade in markets far and near)
These opening lines from the timeless poem Hà Nội như động tiên sa (Hanoi, a fairy cave from heavens fallen) capture the vibrant essence of Đồng Xuân market in Hanoi. Crafted not by a single author but shaped through generations of oral tradition, this beautiful verse describes a world that is sadly fading as younger generations abandon traditional shopping habits for modern convenience.
Revisiting those opening verses reveals how traditional Vietnamese society organized entire lives around participation in market commerce. Markets hosted far more than mere buying and selling. They encompassed intricate social etiquettes, as evidenced in this classical poem:
Anh về hái đậu trẩy cà
Để em đi chợ kẻo mà lỡ phiên
Chợ lỡ phiên tốn công thiệt của
Miệng tiếng người cười rỡ sao nên
Lấy chồng phải gánh giang sơn
Chợ phiên còn lỡ, giang sơn còn gì?
...
(You go gather beans, pick eggplants too,
Let me haste to market, lest the session I rue.
Miss the market, and effort turns to dust,
People's laughter and scorn—who could trust?
Wed a husband, bear the weight of a land,
If the market is missed, what's left in hand?)
Here, the traditional market emerges as more than a trading post. It functions as life's very heartbeat. These verses capture a woman's urgency to reach the market, where missing a session could mean both economic loss and social shame.
Traditional markets in Vietnam carry the weight of centuries, as ancient as social judgment itself. A 17th-century document describes bustling commercial activities across eight major markets in Thăng Long (the old name of Hanoi): Cửa Đông, Cửa Nam, Huyện, Đình Ngang, Bà Đá, Văn Cử, Bác Cử, and Ông Nước. The Red River's network of smaller tributaries flowing through Thăng Long provided convenient waterways for merchants from surrounding provinces and distant lands to access these urban commercial centers.
These marketplaces typically consisted of diverse stalls and booths, each specializing in different commodities. Vendors selling related items clustered together, forming sections dedicated to specific trades. Food, clothing, and household goods constituted the three main categories found in any substantial market.
The legendary 36-street quarter in central Thăng Long functioned as one enormous marketplace, with each street dedicated to producing and selling specialized products. Streets earned their names from the goods they traded: Hàng Bạc (Silver Street), Hàng Gà (Chicken Street), Hàng Đào (Peach Blossom Street), Hàng Bông (Cotton Street), Hàng Chiếu (Mat Street), and dozens of others that still bear these commercial appellations today.
Yet across Vietnam's rapidly developing cities, these storied market streets face an uncertain future. For many pedestrians navigating the streets of major cities like Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, the steady replacement of traditional markets by convenience stores like Circle K, Winmart, and supercenters represents progress. To some, this transformation offers a utopian vision: people driving to big-box stores on weekends instead of walking to neighborhood markets, accessing cleaner food at fixed prices without the need for bargaining (mặc cả). It's an urban dream for those who complain about the noise, smells, and occasional chaos of traditional markets. In Hanoi's Old Quarter, rising rents force traditional vendors from historic Hàng streets, replaced by trendy cafes and souvenir shops catering to tourists rather than locals. Ho Chi Minh City's Bến Thành Market, while preserved as a tourist attraction, no longer serves as the authentic community hub it once was. Smaller neighborhood markets throughout the country, from Chợ Hôm in Hanoi to countless local wet markets in provincial towns, struggle against the convenience and perceived cleanliness of air-conditioned supermarkets.
After several years living in this supposed "modernized future" of convenience stores and supercenters, however, I've come to realize what we're losing. Walking from my rented house in the endless suburban sprawl of Canada, I can't find even a fast food restaurant within three kilometers. After a half-hour bus ride, I finally arrive at a supercenter. Walmart sits on one side, food court in the center. The dynamics here differ drastically from those at Ngô Sỹ Liên market near my parents' house in Hanoi. There's no real conversation with sellers or fellow shoppers. You simply navigate a giant warehouse where goods occupy predetermined locations, complete an automated checkout, and exit without meaningful human contact.
Yet we cannot live without interactions with our own kind, however mundane they may seem. The simple act of greeting a neighbor each morning or gossiping with strangers in the informal atmosphere of a traditional market fulfills an essential human need. This realization hits me most acutely after long work weeks, when I find myself eagerly boarding a bus to Chinatown, seeking something reminiscent of Đồng Xuân, Châu Long, Long Biên, or any random wet market from my Hanoi childhood. My friends in the Vietnamese community in Berlin share this sentiment. They tell me "Dong Xuan Centre" serves as their primary destination for food, haircuts, and the perfect place to introduce international friends to a steaming bowl of phở.
In our rush toward efficiency and modernization, we risk losing something irreplaceable. Traditional markets represent more than commerce; they embody Vietnam's social fabric, its rhythms of daily life, its capacity for human connection across economic and social boundaries. They preserve not just economic traditions but linguistic ones: the art of negotiation, the subtle social cues of respect and familiarity, the regional accents and expressions that standardized retail environments cannot accommodate.
When these markets disappear (and they are disappearing, one closed stall at a time), they take with them centuries of social rituals, and community bonds that no modern shopping center can replicate. Future generations of Vietnamese may find themselves like overseas diaspora communities today, desperately seeking fragments of this lost world in ethnic enclaves and cultural centers, trying to recreate what once flourished naturally in every neighborhood.
Perhaps the question isn't whether traditional markets can survive Vietnam's modernization, but whether Vietnam can afford to lose them entirely. In twenty years, when the last neighborhood market closes its doors for the final time, will we recognize what we've traded away for the sake of convenience? Or will these verses from Hà Nội như động tiên sa become mere museum pieces, romantic reminders of a social world we chose to abandon?
The choice remains ours, for now. But time, like the morning market session, waits for no one.