Uncertainty and market moralities

Life at the market is plagued by intense competition, rivalry, and distrust. Ironically, trust is more tenuous among Vietnamese fellow countrymen than between them and members of other ethnic groups, even though co-ethnic networks are their vital source of support, information, and social security. In a volatile and highly competitive market environment, secrecy is key to traders’ ability to survive and thrive. If the word gets out that someone's business is doing well, its stability will most certainly come under threat: the công owner will immediately demand a rent increase and rivals will seek to outbid them to secure the công or start trading the same wares. If someone is struggling, suppliers will stop selling them merchandise on account and moneylenders will be more likely to refuse requests for loans. Yet trust is vital in a context where the commodity chain is also a credit chain running from the original source of textiles and accessories to textile and accessories retailers, garment factory owners, garment workers, garment wholesale traders, and then garment retailers at the market. Garment retailers rarely pay for their stock upfront, but rather in installments or even at the end of the sale season. Therefore one must trust and be trusted by one's partners along the commodity chain in order to establish and develop a business.

The distrust for Vietnamese compatriots is so deep and routinized that it has become a new modus operandi for market traders, informing their choices and practices in every aspect of their transnational life, from business conduct to intimate relationships. A similar observation has been made among Chinese market traders elsewhere in Eastern and Central Europe (Pieke et al., 2004, p. 33). While intra-ethnic misgivings could be explained by the fact that Chinese and Vietnamese migrants’ social interactions rarely go beyond their respective ethnic bubbles (hence the greater chance of friction) due to a lack of local language proficiency, the time-intensive nature of market trade, and the ethnic segmentation of the market in both spatial and mercantile terms, they are often seen by my research participants as something deep-seated in the Vietnamese ‘culture’ and integral to what they see as Vietnamese personhood.