Essential Trade

My husband doesnt have a head for business, complained Ng?c, the owner of a childrens clothing stall in B?n Thnh market. Naturally, its because hes a man. When the women who sell in Ho Chi Minh Citys iconic marketplace speak, their language suggests that activity in the market is shaped by timeless, essential truths: Vietnamese women are naturally adept at buying and selling, while men are not; Vietnamese prefer to do business with family members or through social contacts; stallholders are by nature superstitious; marketplace trading is by definition a small-scale enterprise. This book looks through the faade of these timeless truths and finds active participants in a political economy of appearances: traders words and actions conform to stereotypes of themselves as poor, weak women in order to clinch sales, manage creditors, and protect themselves from accusations of being greedy, corrupt, or bourgeois even as they quietly slip into southern Vietnams growing middle class.