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A Brief History Of The Vietnamese Plastic Stool | Vietcetera

vietcetera.com · 796 words · saved by 1 readers

Plastic stools have become a defining image of Vietnam’s culture - tiny, portable seats that turn sidewalks into cafés or food stalls.

In Vietnam, the low plastic stool is everywhere. On sidewalks, in living rooms, at street food stalls, next to motorbikes, under tree crowns. It appears so frequently that many stop noticing it - until foreigners ask: “Why are tables and chairs so small in Vietnam?”. Before the plastic stools, there were ngồi bệt The posture of sitting in the ground came long before the plastic chair existed. Vietnamese culture has a long-standing habit of sitting on the ground, with the use of woven mats called chiếu for various daily activities. This posture, known as ngồi bệt (sitting flat on the floor…

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