Surprise? In the US, there is also a Vietnamese market called CHOM HOM, a close sight that cannot be found in the “super markets”.
For many Vietnamese people, especially in the Western region, the concept of a squatting market is not too strange anymore. Because just go to the rustic villages, you can come across markets like that anyway.
To put it simply, the market is a place to gather, trade and exchange agricultural products available in the home garden.
The crouching market is close, familiar and spontaneous. The items at the market are also very simple, maybe a few bundles of country vegetables, a few stalks of onions or a bunch of shrimp, a bunch of fresh shrimp that have just been beaten ashore.
The name crouching market comes from the sitting posture of buyers and sellers. They do not have tables and chairs, stalls displaying goods and only temporarily spread an old truck or cloth to display and then squat to sell. Shoppers also squatted to choose and buy.
The squatting market has long become a unique cultural feature of Vietnamese people, from urban to rural areas. It evokes ancient memories and evokes images of the country and people living in harmony and closeness.
Few people know that, in the faraway US, there is also a Vietnamese market. There, in the midst of the flashy land of flowers, the rustic and rural features of the Vietnamese people are still preserved through the images of buyers and sellers squatting on the ground, exchanging a few bundles of vegetables and onions “grown by home”. “.
The seller is sitting on a chair, displaying the goods on a canvas. Buyers squat to choose goods. Who would have thought that this scene would appear in America!?
The images that are very strange to Americans but very familiar to Vietnamese people are the scene of buying and selling “crouching” at a market called Chom Hom of Vietnamese people in Houston, Texas, USA. Bunches of vegetables, stalks of onions, some peppers, eggplants or a few pounds of fish are sold on the ground, next to the road. Sellers sit on low plastic chairs to ease leg fatigue while buyers squat down to choose goods, or else stoop to look at the items they want to buy.
And, more familiar than ever are the sounds of offers and bids, just like a country market in Vietnam that one can’t find in “super markets”.
“Whoever buys cheap vegetables, run well here, sell 1 dong 2 bundles”, that’s the sound of the old lady wearing a conical hat waving to customers to buy vegetables from early in the morning.
The image of Mrs. Giap (over 80 years old), wearing a black shirt, busy selling vegetables, was one of the first people to attend this market.
According to a few longtime sellers, at first, some Vietnamese people who came here didn’t know what to do, so they brought some home-grown vegetables for sale. Then others also feel happy, so they “join”. Since then, the name Chom Hom market has gradually become famous, Vietnamese people who go to church on Sundays and weekends often come here to buy food to cook to find the taste of their homeland.
According to the law in the US, people are not allowed to have a free market on the roadside like this, but the community here has asked the local government to allow the market to be held every Sunday.
It is remarkable that even conical hats and raven-beaked scarves – which are now rare in Vietnam – are found in the toad market in the middle of the United States. They are all Vietnamese, speaking many languages from different regions of Vietnam. Many people go to the market just to have a good conversation in Vietnamese.
A few vegetables, a little fruit or a little food may not bring much profit, but for the Vietnamese here, it is more than enough for a little taste of home, in a faraway land!
Source: Compilation
at Blogtuan.info – Source: Kenh14.Vn – Read the original article here
