Sidewalks, even in the narrow sense, are very open for business and trade.

I met you on that street corner for the first time after the COVID-19 pandemic. That time, you didn't talk much. I thought to myself that you were probably busy with the hot soy milk that customers were ordering. Seeing you doing business so busily, I was happy too. Since then, I remember a few sentences you shared, such as - thanks to the sidewalk, the carton of homemade soy milk sold for a few hours in the evening, helped your family have a stable life.

Last weekend, when I met you again, I saw that in addition to the jar of hot homemade soy milk, you also had a few small tables and plastic chairs to sell a few dozen balut eggs every night. You said that your family life had improved a lot and you were saving up to build a new house. I was secretly happy about your simple but quite stable business.

Perhaps, after the COVID-19 pandemic, my feeling on the sidewalks on the streets is that there are many people who are taking advantage of it to do business and make a living. Most of them sell snacks, fast food, and mixed drinks that young people love.

Right in my neighborhood, many roads were previously called “village streets”, but thanks to the connected traffic infrastructure, trading services have begun to become bustling. Among them, mothers and sisters from the suburban areas gather to sell sticky rice, cakes and all kinds of fruits in the morning and afternoon. I also often pay attention to Ms. Be - who lives in Huong Long ward, but every morning around 5-6 am she is present on the sidewalk of my neighborhood with a basket of sticky rice and corn on the back of her motorbike. Ms. Be's basket of sticky rice and corn only sells to regular customers around 8 am and then runs out. On some slow days, it only lasts until 9 am, when she returns home to help her husband with his wood painting business…

The sidewalks in my neighborhood are different now. There are no shortage of food and drink stalls. There are many stalls, many customers, and sometimes there are long traffic jams. Many people in the area complain about the sidewalks being encroached upon. In reality, there are cases where people take the sidewalks as their own property to do business, trade, or use them as parking lots... But there are also many cases where people think that the streets must have people present and gather to trade to be more bustling, as long as they are aware of cleaning up trash, cleaning the environment, and maintaining security and order.

Currently, many streets in Hue City are still littered with garbage, especially streets near markets and busy commercial areas... Not to generalize, but there are still many people who live on the sidewalks and lack awareness in collecting garbage and keeping the environment clean. Their bad habits are a headache for urban management forces and local authorities.

I have been to many places and heard many urban planning and management experts share about the story of sidewalks. Most of them have a rather "open" point of view when they think that, although the nature of sidewalks is very narrow, they are also very open. The important thing is how each resident behaves in a civilized manner, because sidewalk life has always been a cultural feature that bears the identity of the Vietnamese people.

Article and photos: Minh Van