Saigon Street Vendors in 1950

Where else can you buy whatever you need without having to step inside a building?

The clang of a door closing behind you, the hum of an air-conditioner or a furnace depending on the season, parking spots, cash registers, and orderly queues: much of the world takes these aspects of shopping as a given. Yet, in Saigon, one doesn’t have to fuss with formal shops to purchase many of their daily needs from produce to newspapers, noodles to nicotine. These photos taken by American Carl Mydans for LIFE magazine in 1950 present sidewalk vendors in much the way they are today. 

Virtually everything the photo collection shows being sold is still available on the city’s boulevards 70 years later, with some differences in brands offered and fashions sported by customers. Take a look below:

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