Petty Traders, Entrepreneurs, and Businesspeople: The Multi-layered Development of Vietnamese Business in Poland
摘要
The chapter discusses the development of the Vietnamese business community in Poland from the 1980s to the present. My main goal is to describe the history, social composition, and economic life of the community in the context of general socioeconomic transformations in post-communist Poland. The first part of the chapter contains a brief chronological history of the community. Particular attention is paid to the emergence, existence, and demise of the Stadium Market in the center of Warsaw and the subsequent construction of the Wólka Kosowska shopping complex. The second part is focused on an analysis of the present-day situation of the Vietnamese business community in Poland, especially in its two main fields of activity: the gastro business and the commerce of consumer goods. The chapter is based on the author’s long experience as a Polish-Vietnamese translator-interpreter as well as interviews with community members. The research concludes that the existing model, which may have worked during the first two decades following the fall of socialism, is becoming dysfunctional.