Saigon · AI-staged scene
Scroll to follow the bánh mì vendor.
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Explore the story ↓02 / The story
From street calls written as musical notes to voices played through loudspeakers. Dates refer to the respective documents, observations or publications.
· 01 / 04
A call fades. Its melody can be preserved.
In Hanoi, students at the Indochina School of Fine Arts and their teacher Ferdinand de Fénis recorded street trading through drawings and musical notation. The École française d’Extrême-Orient dates the illustrated booklet to 1929. The notes offer a glimpse of how individual calls sounded.
· 02 / 04
Decades later, the trail leads to Saigon’s night-time vendors.
A report from Saigon follows the vendor Hưng. He used to ride a bicycle and call out himself. For his night rounds on a second-hand motorbike, he acquired a cassette player and loudspeaker to play his recorded sales call.
· 03 / 04
From sound, look to the street: goods travel with their sellers.
A study published in a 2018 journal issue describes food sold on Hanoi’s pavements and by mobile vendors on bicycles and motorbikes. One example is Lan, who sells pomelos in the neighbourhood where her sister-in-law lives.
· 04 / 04
Today, a familiar voice can still tell you who is coming down the alley.
Tuổi Trẻ profiles two vendors in Ho Chi Minh City. Đàm Văn Thái calls out during his bicycle rounds in the northern Vietnamese accent his regular customers recognise. Lê Văn Núi advertises his soy milk using a recording.
03 / The sound archive
A call. You stop. Choose a voice and hear a street turn into a marketplace.
Whose call will you follow?
01 / Original vendor call
“Bánh mì nóng đây, bánh mì đặc ruột đây.”
Hot bánh mì here, dense-crumb bánh mì here.
A bread vendor announces his bánh mì early in the morning through a horn loudspeaker on his motorbike.
SieuAmThanh · CC0 1.0
Bánh Mì Nóng Đây, Bánh Mì Đặt Ruột Đây
MP3 preview from the source
04 / Two cities
Two documented glimpses of street trading, from Hoàn Kiếm Lake to the alleys of Saigon.
Northern Vietnam · Hoàn Kiếm Lake
Around the pedestrian area at Hoàn Kiếm Lake, Nguyễn Duy Linh observed people carrying their goods on foot or by bicycle. Some snack vendors transported stoves on bicycles or handcarts; others set up small tea stalls beside the lakeside benches.
How much space does a mobile stall need?
Southern Vietnam · Ho Chi Minh City
According to Tuổi Trẻ, Đàm Văn Thái sets out from Tân Thới Hiệp on his bicycle at dusk. In the alleys, he advertises his rice cakes in his northern accent. He tells the reporter that he deliberately keeps this voice because others from his home region also live in the city and miss the flavours of home.
How do regular customers recognise a familiar call?