The two articles that we read on food buying habits in Vietnam, one in Hanoi and one in Saigon, both discussed the rise of supermarkets and how that has been and may continue to effect markets and everyone involved in sales there. From this information I formed a research question from which to do an observational study in two Saigon markets. My initial question was “How old are the shoppers in the markets?”. This question is important because if the majority of shoppers are older generations who are accustomed to shopping at the market, when they pass away the following generations may be partial to the supermarkets because they are cleaner, more modern and in ways, more convenient and markets, outdated. The article on food buying habits in Hanoi surveyed shoppers and found that one of the biggest complaints about markets was the lack of reliability on the quality of goods and the opposite for supermarkets (Jensen 2007). Neither article discussed the age of shoppers at either location. If my hypothesis is correct, sales made at the market will decrease overtime and therefore affect everyone on the commodity chain who depends on sales at the market. It would especially affect the vendors because it would be more difficult for them to find somewhere else to sell their products, whereas the farmers or any of the middlemen could take advantage of sales at the supermarket. I hypothesized that most shoppers would be women who are mid-twenties and older because it is usually the mothers who do the shopping for the family, while the husbands are at work during the day. Specifically I was looking to learn if there is a greater majority of older shoppers than younger shoppers.
Fortunately but also unfortunately we arrived at the market right after the afternoon rest when there were very few shoppers. This was fortunate because it was very calm and not too crowded so it was easier to navigate in the narrow isles and focus on observing, which even so proved to be difficult with so many things drawing my attention. This was unfortunate because there were few to no shoppers to observe. The first market we went to, Tan Dinh market, there was no one buying anything and most vendors were asleep. This made my research question impossible to observe.
So I shifted my focus to who was in the market, the vendors. My hypothesis of shoppers seemed to apply to the vendors as well. Almost every vendor was a woman older than twenty. Most were middle aged (50-60) but there were also younger women and some elderly women. I would think that my hypothesis that older shoppers in the market would result in fewer shoppers as time went on applies less to vendors because stalls would be passed down to children and less likely to fall away with time because it is a part of their income as opposed to just a choice of shopping location. At the second market, Thi Nghe, the only difference I observed was that there were far more men selling goods, but no difference in the age of men or women. Perhaps this difference is because Thi Nghe is smaller or perhaps the location or maybe because it was later in the day more men were finished with work and were at the market with their wives.
Although I did not get a clear answer to my initial question I gained many things from this exercise. I learned how to develop a research question that was feasible, relevant and interesting. I gained experience in observational research, which turned out to be more difficult than I thought. It was challenging to focus on what was worth observing and ignore what was distracting and unimportant. I also learned how to adapt to the situation when it is not what I expected it to be and learn to consider more carefully the timing and smaller details of the situation based on my research question.