At Least My Purse is Lighter

By Christyna Fong

Photos by Christyna Fong

Whenever one goes overseas, it is absolutely crucial that we immerse ourselves in all aspects of foreign culture. And the one culture that is universal no matter where we go is the one where we fork out money in return for an overpriced souvenir that will probably sit on a shelf as it gathers dust, yet one we will never throw out because it reminds us of a time where we left our cares and inhibitions on a plane as we stepped onto foreign soil.

Shopping in Vietnam is a haggler’s paradise. The initial prices are always sky high, but a little bit of haggling is enough to make a newbie feel like a seasoned negotiator. T-shirts that originally tagged at 100,000 VND  (RM 14.60) can successfully be bargained to the price of 40,000 VND (RM 5.80), while two cute little knock-off backpacks can be haggled down to 110,000 VND (RM 16) each; the usual magnets and key chains can be bought at the most unbelievable prices. At this rate, it would be ridiculous not to get souvenirs for friends and families!

Rows of shops selling everything a tourist would want!

The key is to always bargain 50% - 70% off the original price. If the vendor refuses to negotiate with you, just walk away. Half the time they will call out to you to come back to their stalls in immediate effect, and you will get to enjoy the fruits if you labour at a price much lower than you would have settled for. Even if they don’t, one can take that as a benchmark of how low the price of the object would go and therefore look for the next stall that has what you wanted to buy. Chances are they are selling it at every other stall.

Some souvenirs. Tintin on lacquer is extremely popular here!

In Saigon, we are living in Ben Thanh District. It is a place crawling with tourists, but with tourists come shops, and with shops come shopaholic tendencies in all of us. Ben Thanh Market is the place to get a shopping fix. During the day, they have an indoor market, housing innumerable stalls that sell everything and anything you can imagine. The stalls are like mini shop lots, cramped next to each other so close that people can smell what their neighbours had for dinner yesterday. The close proximity seems to mimic the houses here that are wall-to-wall of each other.  One could very well get lost in Ben Thanh Market, but there’s just so much to see and buy that you wouldn’t even feel uncomfortable like you usually would in a foreign land. It’s like one big adventure, and every turn of the corner presents you with the golden opportunity to part with some hard earned dong.

Ben Thanh Market

The night market is also an exciting place to be. Reminiscent of the pasar malam we have back home, the stalls form lines on both sides of the road, selling the same items; yet one never tires of seeing the same ornaments, handbags, baju kurungs (I kid you not), singlet with the Vietnamese star or  ‘iPho’ t-shirts- iPho as in a pun on iPhones but with Vietnamese beef noodles called Pho Bo. Geddit?! Ah, capitalism. You always know how to crack me up!

The night market located outside of Ben Thanh Market.

Night and day markets were present on our Mekong trip as well. An overnight trip, which was unfortunately, very short meant that I did not have to take a look at the shops. Others, however, say that it is comparable to the shops at Ben Thanh.

For the shopper that is looking for something a little less touristy, Vietnam features a plethora of international brand names that adorn brightly lit sidewalks. There is a place that we never manage to go to but always pass by, which is, according to our local student guide, the street known as ‘Fashion Street’. Shops after shops of tops, bottoms, skirts, dresses, shoes and bags tease us each time we drive pass by it. It is popular with the locals, and if I ever find my way back to Saigon I would definitely want to spend a few hours getting familiar with local fashion trends.

As for the bookworms, keep your eyes peeled for the book stores. They sell a wide variety of English titles and they’re around 60,000 VND (RM 9) each. ‘Why so cheap?’,  I hear you ask. In stereotypical Asian fashion, the books are counterfeit! Some counterfeit books are so cheap they look like the real thing. No need for e-readers anymore, I’ll just get me a ciplak (fake) copy of that new self-help book everyone is raving about! 

One piece of advice though- never buy things at the shops that sell their goods at a fixed price. It is of the same quality as the ones at the stalls where you can haggle, and definitely more expensive than what you could get.

The long and short of shopping in Saigon is that it can easily be billed a shopaholic’s nightmare. Look at me- I need to buy a new bag because my things can’t fit into one luggage bag anymore!

The spoils of (haggling) war!

Christyna Fong, 21, is taking her Degree in Arts with a suicidal Writing and Communication major. She can be a bit floozy and start using words like floozy. I also suspect she might be bipolar (bear!).