Ho Chi Minh’s traditional markets ready for Lunar New Year season
WHOLESALE and retail markets in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City are busier than ever with the Lunar New Year, or “Tet”, holiday only weeks away.
District 1’s famous Ben Thanh, one of the city’s oldest markets, is seeing more than double the average number of people on normal weekends.
About 3,000 stalls began preparing for the year’s biggest business season last month, stocking thousands of Vietnamese items, including food, garments, footwear and handicrafts.
Cao Trung Tin, deputy head of the market’s managing board, said that traditional Vietnamese silk and cotton clothing, handicrafts and foodstuffs like fried seafood, which can be stored for months, are favoured by locals and tourists.
“We attract more than 7,000 Vietnamese and foreign visitors a day during the month before Tet,” he said.
Historic market
Ben Thanh market began when street vendors gathered together near the Ben Nghe River in the early 17th century.
It was established by the French colonialists after they took over the Gia Dinh Citadel under the Nguyen Dynasty in 1859.
In 1912, the market was moved to a new building on a land of more than 13,000sqm located on what are now the streets of Phan Boi Chau, Phan Chu Trinh and Le Thanh Ton.
Clothes including ao dai (the traditional Vietnamese long dress) made from domestic fabrics like silk and chiffon are the favourite products of foreign and loca l v isitors.
“My shop offers Vietnamese clothes from just 150,000 dong ($7) to 350,000 dong.
“Ao dai in traditional materials are 500,000 dong for females and 700,000 dong for males,” said Nguyen Mai Anh, a garment shopkeeper who speaks English, Chinese and Japanese.
“My customers, particularly Japanese and Korean visitors, like Vietnamese designs because they are traditional and the price is reasonable,” she said.
Anh hopes that her income “will triple compared with previous months” in the runup to Tet.
In Ben Thanh, customers are free to bargain but many vendors offer fixed prices.
Wholesale markets Binh Tay in District 6 and Soai Kinh Lam in the Cho Lon (Big Market) in District 5 are also busier than usual.
About 1,500 shops at the 90-year-old Binh Tay market sell a variety of quality goods, including art objects, souvenirs, clothes and traditional Vietnamese dried foodstuff and medicinal herbs.
Shop owners allow their regular dealers from the provinces of the Mekong River Delta to postpone payments after Tet, which begins on February 5.
“My shop offers traditional sugared products or mut – made from kumquat, lotus, coconut, squash or sweet potato – made by farmers in southern provinces. Traders from the north and central regions began ordering early this month,” said Hoa Lam, a Chinese-Vietnamese shop owner.
His shop offers competitive prices of 120,000-190,000 dong per kg, which are fiveseven per cent higher than last month.
Shops offering vang ma (votive paper) are also busier as Vietnamese burn the paper items during Tet to wish departed loved ones or forsaken spirits a happy and lucky year.
Rows of miniature paper replicas of consumer goods such as houses, motorbikes and other luxuries are bestsellers.
Binh Tay market was built on 25,000sqm of land in 1928. It was designed by a French architect who mixed traditional Chinese and East Asian architectural styles.
It reopened recently after renovation, at a cost of 104 billion dong.
At Soai Kinh Lam market, 500 shops offer clothes and handmade accessories.
The market has seen 3,000, or double the normal number of Vietnamese and foreign tourists, on the weekend, according to the market’s managing board.
“I began my business career here when my mother turned over her business to me five years ago. Our profit has fallen by 25 per cent compared to before 2010, when there weren’t many shopping malls,” said shop owner Hong Quang Minh, who developed his family business for 20 year at Soai Kinh Lam.
Minh said Vietnamese, particularly young people, like silks imported from South Korea, China and Thailand, while foreign visitors often buy traditional Vietnamese clothes and handmade bags and shoes.
Minh said that tourism development had brought more foreign customers to the market over the past few years.
“We know that Soai Kinh Lam is not only a brand name but a cultural symbol of Cho Lon,” he said.