Hai Thuong Lan Ong Street

The living floors above the shops preserved the layout of the old trading block: below, families kept goods and made deals, while above, they lived. At the end of the nineteenth century, sixteen two- and three-story houses rose at this intersection. The street bears the name of a Vietnamese physician who never worked here; his name linked the trade with the memory of healing and books.

The sacks by the entrances, bundles of roots, and cutting tables belong to a wholesale market for medicinal raw materials. A shop may weigh out several ingredients and make up a prescribed mixture, but a substantial share of the goods from here goes to other sellers and healers throughout southern Vietnam. Here, the words “thuoc bac,” northern medicine, refer to the Chinese medical tradition. The raw materials themselves arrive from both China and Vietnamese provinces.

Hoa traders—Cholon residents of Chinese descent—shaped the street's occupation. At the end of the nineteenth century, they received goods delivered by canal and built warehouses nearby. At the intersection of what are now Hai Thuong Lan Ong Street, Chieu Quang Phuc Street, and Phung Hung Street, the traders built a block of sixteen houses. Families lived above the shops, while below they kept goods and made deals.

At first, all kinds of things were sold here. Yet Hoa households traditionally kept a stock of remedies in case of illness, and demand from Vietnamese customers grew. Some families concentrated on medicinal raw materials, and others followed: it was advantageous for an individual trader to work where a customer could assemble a complex prescription from several neighbors. Suppliers, herbal experts, and wholesalers came together at one intersection. Children inherited the shop, processing methods, and their fathers' connections. The trading block became Cholon’s largest pharmacy street.

The street received its present name when this trade was already established here. Hai Thuong Lan Ong was the pseudonym of Le Huu Trac, an eighteenth-century Vietnamese physician. In his youth, he served in the army, but after his brother’s death, he returned to his mother and refused to take up arms again. He then fell seriously ill himself. The healer Tran Doc cured him, and Le Huu Trac stayed with Tran Doc for more than two years to study medical books.

He became a physician, teacher, and compiler of a major compendium of healing knowledge. Le Huu Trac tested Chinese theories in local practice, took Vietnam’s climate into account, and included plants available in the south in his prescriptions. The pseudonym “Lan Ong” means an old man who lives without pursuing office and fame; behind that name lay decades of healing, teaching, and recording prescriptions.

Families of pharmacists still trade in the old two- and three-story houses by the intersection. Below, they cut and weigh raw materials; living floors remain above the shops. The traders built these houses for goods hauled up from boats; the physician after whom the street was named never worked here. Medicine connected them: his books gave the street its name, and family warehouses preserved its trade.