Bangkok's many thousands of street vendors are not just basic, poorly-paid noodle-sellers. There are some smart entrepreneurs too.
Street vendors are a very common sight on the streets of Bangkok. Many thousands are registered with the Bangkok Municipal Authority (BMA) and they add to the gaiety and colour of the city. Traditionally, street vendors have sold ready prepared meals, including staples such as noodles in soup, tom yam gung and fried rice or else fresh fruit and vegetables, fish or meat. Often women, they are required to work long hours for modest income and their prospects for improving their lives seem to be slim at best. However, they were also rewarded by camaraderie with their colleagues and the opportunity to meet and interact with regular customers, while enjoying the bustle and change of life on the streets of one of East Asia’s great cities.
More recently, especially since the economic crisis of 1997, these street vendors have been joined by a newer breed of operatives. Many of those who were made redundant by the Financial Crisis assessed their options and decided that, rather than return to their provincial hometowns and seek some kind of work on the land, they would prefer to remain in the metropolis and put their entrepreneurial skills into play. This they would do by opening or operating their own market stands. However, rather than the existing low-margin items then being sold, they would identify new products which would provide better profits and help them meet their business plans in just a few years. These new vendors did not see the city streets as a permanent career but a means of acquiring some savings which can then be used in a larger venture.
The result has been impressive: there are street vendors who have organised international networks to bring innovative and new fashions from Seoul directly to the Bangkok streets, others who contract with local factories to manufacture under their own brand names and, also, vendors, who offer the very latest fashions in fruit smoothies and fancy cups of coffee at low, street level costs. The successful vendors are those who keep closest to their customers, physically as well as intellectually. That is, they make sure that customers go right past their stalls because they know that Bangkok residents have little time and are unwilling to walk even a few extra steps during the heat of the day. If that means they must occasionally break BMA regulations as to where they are able to stand, then they are prepared to put up with the occasional argument with a police officer. They are also prepared to contend with the shadowy mafia figures who seek extortion money from them, accompanied by threats of violence. This is not always an easy life.
