Who are the legendary founders of trade in Vietnam?
Chu Dong Tu and Tien Dung are the hero and heroines of one of Vietnam's most beautiful love stories. A temple dedicated to them stands alongside the Red River dike downstream from Hanoi and about five kilometers downriver from Bat Trang Ceramics Village. Chu Dong Tu's Family was so poor that he and his father shared a single loin cloth. When his father died, Chu Dong Tu buried him in the loin cloth even though his father had told Chu Dong Tuto to keep the garment for himself.
One day, Princess Tien Dung, a daughter of the 18th Hung king, went boating on the Red River, escorted by her maids and soldiers. Chu Dong Tu was fishing naked. Seeing her boat coming down the river, Chu Dong Tu ran up the bank and dug a shallow hole to hide under the sand until the regal boat passed. Tien Dung found the scenery so entrancing that she ordered the boat's skipper to anchor alongside the river bank and told the servants to build a changing room from poles and cloth. The princess entered the makeshift shelter, undressed, and started to rinse herself with cool river water.
As fate would have it, the place Tien Dung had chosen to bathe was over Chu Dong Tu Hiding place. Her bath water splashed on the ground and washed away the camouflaging sand. Startled by the naked young man at her feet, Tien Dung demanded an explanation.
Chu Dong Tu recounted his story.
"I'd vowed never to marry," Tien Dung said, "but now that I've met you through this strange twist of fate, I can no longer counter Heaven's Will." Son, Chu Dong Tu, and Tien Dung became husband and wife. The king was furious. He disowned his daughter as soon as he heard of her marriage to a pauper. Tien Dung remained in her husband's village and traded the regal goods from her boat for the couple's daily necessities. Every day, Chu Dong Tu fished while his wife went to the market. In This way, the couple scratched together enough to live.
One day, a trader stopped at their house and described a wealthy southern port town overflowing with goods. The couple decided to set sail in that direction.' From that point on, they traveled from one seaport to another, buying and selling. The temple to Chu Dong Tu and Tien Dung in Binh Minh Commune, Khoai Chau District, Hung Yen Province stands amid bamboo in a lovely riverside landscape that reflects the lovers' story and their trading voyages to distant lands.
Where can you find one of Vietnam's oldest markets?
Hanoi was a market even before 1010 when King Ly Thai To declared the site the capital of Vietnam and called it Thang Long (FlyingDragon), a name of Chinese origin. Subsequent Feudal dynasties referred to the location by different names, including Dong Kinh (Eastern Royal Capital) and Hanoi (City Inside the River). These names are also based on words of Chinese origin.
Nevertheless, ordinary people continued to refer to Hanoi as Ke Cho (Market Place), a name of Vietnamese origin. The Ly dynasty (1009 - 1225) divided the capital into two parts: the citadel and the market. The market, then located outside the citadel, had sixty-one trade guilds producing and selling goods for household and agricultural use. These guilds later concentrated along thirty-six of the city's streets, which still retain their guild names.The word "hàng" - "wares" in those names is loosely translated as "street."
The Thirty-Six Streets often appear in folk poetry (ca dao), such as this verse in six-eight meter (a six-wordline followed by an eight-word line): Basket Street, Silver Street, Hemp Street, Sail Street, Tin Street, Shoe Street, Tray Street, Bucket Street, Writing-Brush Street, Bamboo Street, Lime Street, Paper Street, Silk Street, Street Continue and you'll reach Leather Street. Historical records suggest that the Thirty-Six Streets evolved during the Ly and Tran dynasties (1009 - 1225 and 1226 - 1400 respectively). Nguyen Trai (1380 - 1442), a Vietnamese scholar whom UNESCO has recognized as “a great man of culture," mentioned the thirty-six guild streets in Du Dia Chi (On Geography) and named other streets such as Yen Thai, Nghi Tam, Thuy Chuong (now Thuy Khue), and Thinh Quang - which appear on recent Hanoi maps.
During the 18th century, Thang Long was a large Asian trading center. Merchant ships anchoring side by side at the Red River Wharf Supplied the trading posts belonging to foreign companies. People crowded the streets on market days, which were the first and fifteenth days of each lunar month.
A Vietnamese writer once saw a shoulder pole hanging on a wall in the home of a Vietnamese woman living in a foreign country. The woman had hung it to remind her of the days she once carried goods to a village market in Viet Nam. The bamboo strips that once supported the heavy baskets swaying beneath the pole had worn their two ends smooth.
Did men ever go to the market?
Traditional markets were more than centers of commerce. Since the women (including beautiful young girls!) were both the buyers and sellers, young men often meandered through the markets to check out the prospects, as this ca dao notes:
Wise men seek wives in crowded markets
Wise women seek husbands in large military units.
One famous tale recounts how poet-statesman Nguyen Trai (1380 - 1442) was strolling through the market when he noticed a young woman selling rush mats. The vendor's beauty captivated Nguyen Trai that he is said to have addressed her with this quatrain in a seven-word meter:
Where are you and your mats from?
Stacked, single-are any still for sale?
What age have you reached this spring?
Are you married yet? How many children?
Much to his amazement, the beautiful vendor responded with her own extemporaneous quatrain:
I'm here from Tay Ho selling mats
You needn't ask whether I've sold out
My spring years have just reached sixteen
I've no husband-, you ask about children!
Nguyen Trai took the pretty vendor, Nguyen Thi Lo (1398 - 1442), as his wife. Although this story may be apocryphal, the details of the couple's death are historical. Nguyễn Thi Lo's beauty, charm, and literary talent also enchanted King Le Thai Tong (life: 1423 - 1442; reign:1433 - 1442), who often visited the couple. The king died suddenly the day after such a visit. Nguyen Thi Lo was accused of regicide. She and Nguyen Trai were executed in 1442. In 1462, King Le Thanh Tong (King Le Thai Tong's youngest son, life: 1442 - 1497; reign: 1460 - 1497) rehabilitated the couple's reputations. Nguyễn Trai's home at Con Son Cong Hoa Commune, Chi Linh District, Hai Duong Province about seventy kilometers east of Hanoi is a national heritage site.
What about modern markets?
People still go to markets to meet others, to buy and sell, and for entertainment.
Markets all across Vietnam have become livelier since the introduction of the market economy in the late 1980s. Previously, the central government planned and subsidized the economy, with government-owned trading companies controlling the distribution of the scarce goods that were available. Vendors at that time lacked a suitable environment for developing private businesses. Then, during the 1990s, the concept of the market shifted dramatically. Today, although women with shoulder poles and baskets still dominate village markets, urban markets include networks of professionals with business degrees who connect with each other through computers and mobile phones, stretching their range far beyond the physical shops and supermarkets they occupy.
