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Although technically illegal, sex work is widespread in Vietnam. Almost inexistent in Vietnam from 1975 to 1986, a booming prostitution followed the opening of the country, when the social yoke was loosened inducing a freedom of movement and to a more or less successful adaptation to the market economy. Even though this phenomenon was more easily perceptible in Saigon, Hanoi did not make exception. The following lines result from notes taken on the spot, this investigation was conducted in the capital city from 1994 to 2001.

The Vietnamese national language (quốc ngữ), in use today, uses the Latin script. Albeit the Romanized script of the quốc ngữ seems fitted to the use of the Internet on a large extent, for many of them, Vietnamese users seem lost when looking for foreign places or great names in history that they only know by a poor and erratic translation in their own language. Foreign place names or family names were added to the language’s lexicon without any proper intent of normalization. Finding a standardized transcription is on the way, in a slow and necessary process.