markets in the area. In the market every vendor has a different way of presenting what they have to sell spread out on newspapers on top of tables or stocked in baskets. Butchers hang their meat and chicken so it can be handpicked and cut per the customer’s needs. In one section of the market, animals are live; duck, chicken, fish and crab are ripe to get picked and plucked. There are sections of fresh herbs and spices are in abundance where garlic is grated on site. Trinh notes it is customary to not buy food by its weight. Instead she buys according to how much money she wants to spend. In American terms, it would be like asking for a dollar’s worth of basil or five dollars’ worth of crab.
The air in the outdoor markets is fragrant with lemongrass, fresh fish and fresh earth. The vegetables are directly from the farm, having been picked that morning, with their roots still covered with soil. “The market is very beautiful, bold in its color and variety and it makes you feel full of energy and alive.” Trinh paints a picture that goes beyond the images of food and recounts the sounds, the noisy clatter of merchants bargaining with customers, so many people talking at once in different clusters and at different stalls, jam-packed from one corner of the market to the other. Talking about it now, Trinh remembers being used to it and how much she loves the local farmer markets in America, but in Vietnam the market is so much a part of everyone’s everyday life and is bigger, vivid