Saigon's newspaper boys

By an unofficial process of great ingenuity that continues to this day, new and used international papers and magazines are picked up by aircraft cleaners soon after touchdown at Saigon's Tan Son Nhat airport. They’re then promptly whisked downtown for immediate sale outside popular international hotels and restaurants where the city's expatriates and foreign tourists gather.

Dong Khoi St has a long history with Saigon’s foreign residents. The French christened it Rue Catinat after a ship that besieged Danang in the 19th century. It was the place to be seen in colonial Saigon with upscale boutiques and cafes. Then nationalist South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem thought Tu Do or Freedom St would be a more appropriate name. Had he lived long enough to see it, the staunch Catholic Diem would have been devastated to see his Tu Do St become the centre of sleaze in the war torn city with its infamous girlie bars serving the onslaught of US servicemen.

When the communists took control of the city in 1975, they chose the evocative moniker Dong Khoi or Total Revolution for the street.

And a revolution of sorts has descended on the strip in recent years as the world’s most famous fashion brands fight it out for floorspace space and an opportunity to connect with Vietnam’s small but consumption obsessed hyper wealthy class - the children and grandchildren of those that  proclaimed the total revolution in 1975. Colonial era shophouses and historic buildings are being cleared to make way for more office space and shopping malls.

Through all the changes of the past two decades, Saigon’s newspaper men and boys have continued to ply their trade. Some operate from makeshift stands, others cruise the streets delicately balancing their wares so that prospective customers get a sense of the breadth of their international magazine and newspaper offerings.  ‘

My main newspaper and magazine suppliers over more than 15 years have been two brothers, Toan and Hoa. I’ve literally watched them grow up.  

For the last few years they’ve been selling from outside Jasper’s restaurant at the corner of Dong Khoi and Ngo Duc Ke Sts. I first met them when they were young boys in the mid nineties - the eldest perhaps in his mid teens. They’re both now married with kids having done relatively well from the newspaper trade.

And they’ve made their own luck. Toan and Hoa have applied their abundant street wisdom to making sure they know what their market needs. They watch out for known Economist, Der Speigel or Le Monde readers and pounce when they emerge from lunch or a nearby office tower. Their larrikin multilingual pitch is very persuasive.

Enjoying the interaction with these two guys, I got into the habit of bringing newspapers and magazines for them from Australia or any other place I was returning from. A recent New Yorker or an Atlantic would normally command a premium on Saigon’s streets so the boys were grateful. Never so grateful however that they’d allow me to leave without a hard sell to buy one of the other publications in their pile.

That’s a big part of their charm. They’re wily, good humoured and super efficient - but never subservient. They’ll taunt you from across the street if they think you’re getting fat and they’ll tease you about a night you emerged from a nearby bar wobbling home. They’ve seen plenty - working on these streets 7 days a week from early morning till late in the evening.

And they’re environmentally enlightened - well sort of. They have no qualms about recycling. You can buy a copy of the IHT before breakfast at Jaspers and then return it for resale straight after - the boys will pocket the profits of course. A single copy of a weekend edition might be resold three or four times.

But if my own habits are any indication, this great street activity may not last another decade.

These days, I only see Toan and Hoa to give them a load of magazines on my visits to Saigon from Australia. And while it looks like business remains brisk for now, I haven’t bought a newspaper or magazine from them for months. The reason is the availability of all the news I need on the Kindle and the iPad.

For a while, nostalgia compelled me to keep on buying papers even though I had a Kindle subscription that was delivering them daily to me without leaving my hotel. That’s stopped now and the fun of that daily hustle from Toan and Hoa has too.