WHERE ARE STREET VENDORS GOING?
Prepared by Trang Nguyen

Street vendor, an integral part of Hanoi’s street life for centuries, is one of the most typical and traditional features of Hanoi. We have been so familiar with the images of women in conical straw hats, balancing twin baskets suspended from bamboo poles. Selling goods from bamboo baskets and bicycles has allowed vendors to feed their family and send their children to school. They live dependently upon the street. However, since 1st July 2008, street vendors are banned from 62 streets of the capital, which means we are not going to see them on the main streets of Hanoi.
Questions to discuss
- Why do you think street vendors are banned from earning their living on commercial streets of Hanoi? Do they deserve that?
- Do you agree or disagree with the ban? Why?
- Do you have any suggestions of how they are going to survive?
Vocabulary
- Vendor (n)
- Người bán hàng dạo, hàng rong trên phố
- Ban (n&v)
- Lệnh cấm, chính thức cấm
- Deserve (v)
- Đáng bị/được, xứng đáng
- Survive (v)
- Sống qua được, sống sót