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 or sidewalk, often cross-legged or squatting), is deeply ingrained and predates the arrival of plastic stools.
This cultural comfort with low seating is still visible today. In Hanoi’s Old Quarter, on Hang Chieu Street, mats are still sold for everyday use. In Saigon, young people gather for cà phê bệt, sitting directly on pavements to drink coffee and talk for hours.
An urban solution
When the French came, they urbanized Vietnamese cities, dirt roads were replaced by concrete sidewalks. Pavement made cities cleaner and more organized, but it also made sitting on the ground uncomfortable, dirty, and illogical .
People had to adapt. Early solutions included low wooden planks, bamboo platforms, and small benches, just high enough to stay off the ground. But old materials did not work perfectly in the new conditions: wood rotted in the rain; benches were heavy. It caused inconveniences for vendors since lifting and moving for setups was not easy.
During and after periods of war and economic disruption, particularly the "subsidy era" (mid-1970s to mid-1980s), private vending was often restricted or operating in a legal gray zone. Thus, vendors avoided investing in anything fixed or heavy. This fostered a psychology of favoring small, lightweight, and easily movable set-up.
This mindset still lingers today. Even now, many “pop-up restaurants” still use plastic stool since street vendors know they may need to clear a sidewalk in minutes when there is urban order management.
Plastic enters daily life via Đổi Mới period
In 1986, Vietnam’s economic reforms (Đổi Mới) reopened private enterprise and triggered a boom in domestic manufacturing. Plastic production scaled rapidly in the late 1980s and 1990s. Factories like Nhựa Duy Tân (Duy Tan Plastic) began mass-producing household goods - including the now iconic plastic stool.
It is important to note that plastic stools did not become common in Vietnam until the early 1990s. Prior to that, street vendors and households relied on small bamboo chairs and low wooden stools known as ghế đẩu. These stools were handcrafted, durable, and already matched Vietnam’s long-standing habit of sitting low.
The plastic stools solved the problems that wood or bamboo never could due to their lightweight, waterproof, stackable, and cheap characteristics. Vendors could carry dozens on a motorbike; rain no longer mattered; setup and pack-down took minutes.
More than just a sitting tool
The plastic stool became part of a larger street ecosystem. Motorbikes transported goods; portable burners cooked food; folding tables served dishes. Everything was mobile and adaptable. More importantly, the stool reinforced how Vietnamese people gather: face to face conversation, space is flexible and always room for others to pull up a chair.
Over time, the stool became a visual shorthand for Vietnamese street life itself. Today, overseas Vietnamese restaurants even import these stools - not for comfort, but because they instantly signal authenticity.
What makes plastic stools perfect also brings environmental problems
Vietnam ranked fourth country with the highest levels of mismanaged plastic waste discharged into water. Roughly 1.8 million tons of plastic waste are generated each year, with only about a quarter recycled, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Broken stools often enter informal recycling networks, but many still end up in waterways, beaches, or open dumps.
Environmental awareness is growing. In newer cafes, plastic stools are gradually replaced with wood, metal, or composite materials - still low, still flexible, but more polished, quietly echoing a return to the old ghế đẩu-era.
Yet even when the material changes, the posture remains. A Western tourist once shared on Instagram: “All of the Vietnamese restaurants have these short little plastic stools, literally just inches off the ground, and the Vietnamese people sit comfortably on them, but not so easy for Westerners! I didn’t realize my squat training would come in handy to be able to sit and eat my dinner and be able to get on and off the miniature stool.”
Uncomfortable as it may seem at first, many visitors still choose to embrace the low stools - for the experience. In that sense, this iconic feature reflects both the practical demands of Vietnam’s vibrant street economy and a deeper social habit: low seating and gathering close patterns.
