Southeast Asian Market: Finding A New Home
By Brendan Murray
Everyweekend from early April through late September
over 70 different vendors travel to FDR Park in South Philly to sell a variety of traditional Southeastern Asian delicacies ranging from food, clothing, and produce.
A large portion of the vendors are immigrants who have primairly come from Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. Some are even refugees fleeing from the Secret War in Laos and genocide in Cambodia inflicted by the the Khemer Rouge.
Pressed sugarcane lies on the ground following the process of making sugarcane juice, a popular drink at the market. Piles can get as tall as people walking by towards the end of the day.
Despite this, the market has become a safe haven for those wanting to share their culture with those who are unfamiliar, and build a strong community where they feel at home.
The Southeast Asian Market has grown to hosting over 200,000 annual visitors, sampling a range of authentic Southeast Asian foods, not commonly found across Philadelphia. In a study done by economic consultant Urban Partners, the market creates a direct economic impact of at least $5.75 million.
A Vendor sells a variety of different produce ranging from Alpenliebe candies, a popular asian snack. Alongside velvet tamarind and gorakhmundi, a native plant to Southeast Asia, commonly used as a medicine to fight swelling, indigestion, and headaches.
The market hasn’t always been this popular, originating from a Lao lady selling papaya salad out the back of her car in the 1980’s, it spread to a few more vendors popping up by the 1990’s. Park officials and police officers soon began to take notice, questioning the legality of the operation, kicking many out.
is a
custodial worker who reminisced on spending time visiting the market on the weekend with his family. He sees his time working at the market as giving back.
“At a certain point it becomes blissful, everyone’s just having fun, everyone is hanging out, they’ll stay after hours, like the market closes at seven, but people stay around to share food, share music, share stories and stuff like that. There’s a lot of storytelling between a lot of the elders if you speak the language they’ll talk to you and tell you stories about everything and anything they can.”
Harry
Cambodian
A Vendor advertises a variety of teas for sale. Che Thai is a drink with lychee bites, jackfruit slices, chewy jellies, and coconut milk. Sam Bo Luong is a dessert tea containing seaweed, lotus seeds, jujubes, longans and pearl barley. Tra Thai is commonly known as Thai Tea containing black tea and condensed milk.
Customers Andrew and David enjoy papaya salad and shrimp tempura. Andrew is visiting David from New Orleans, David insisted on bringing him here due to how authentic everything is.
“I come basically almost every weekend, I think it’s pretty cool, it’s a place where if you haven’t seen a friend in a while you might run into them here.”
- David
The community rallied together working alongside the Cambodia Association of Greater Philadelphia, coming to an agreement with the city to let the market stay.
Even with the deals made by the city, the market is forced to move locations during the season due to parking concerns associated with spring baseball being played at fields in the area. From April to June the market is located closer to Broad St in the Southeast area
of the park, while from July to November the market moves closer to the center of the park near Edgewood Lake.
In 2022 the Department of Commerce issued a $100,000 grant to the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia hoping to find the market a permanent space. Through working alongside the Vendors Association of FDR Park which was founded in 2021, progress has been made finding a space near the old tennis courts.
Naroen Chinn ( left) founder of Mekong Essentials stands with Pheng Sengh (right) president of the Vendors Association of FDR Park.
“A permanent home is important to us because we’ve been misplaced, were hopping from here to there, so a permanent home would be the best thing for us. We’ve been hidden, through almost 40 years nobody knew what we were, who we were, so this is something amazing right now, were coming out to the light and it’s beautiful what the city is doing with the whole sanctuary.” - Sengh
Kayla Sok is the Southeast Asian market manager, one of her roles is to help visitors who are unfamiliar with the market. She walks around trying to help vendors and guests with any language barriers.
“We wanna share our culture, the food, the clothes, what we offer. I know before a lot of people were scared to try certain foods, but this is it, you come here, you get information, we share the knowledge of what’s in our food, and then you get to eat the food.”- Sok
Kayla Sok got involved with the market herself starting out as a vendor, she became the market manager in 2020 and also works for the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia as a case manager. Her daughter is one of the youngest vendors at age 18 selling authentic food with an American twist, even offering vegetarian options. Her day to day operations vary from the promotion and organization of the market, to boots on the ground work assisting first time customers, and vendors which face problems with the language
A Skater from the nearby FDR Skatepark rides through the market enjoying a Thai Tea.
barrier. She also helps set up and break down the market, assisting some of the older vendors who need help lugging their equipment quite far from their cars to the approved area.
Sok has been involved
in finding the permanent space too, sharing how the vendors
recently came up with the idea of having permanent stalls, in order to maximize efficiency, and have spaces to hold equipment, leaving for easy set up and breakdown. The market plays an extremely important role to the cultural identity of many who participate in the buying and selling
that occurs every weekend in FDR Park. Spanning from multiple generations, those in attendance often take the time to visit the market with their family, something that is enriched within the culture found within many of the countries in Southeast Asia.
Many times you will see
A vendor prepares sugarcane juice by cutting off the ends of the plant before it goes into the press.
Kim travels nearly an hour from Malvern to visit the market and her mother who lives in Philly. She says it’s a nice family outing where there’s food and fun.
grandparents and even great grandparents sharing food with their grandchildren and those around them truly enjoying the space.
With the steps currently being taken by the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia, and the Vendors Association of FDR Park, this
asset to the community will only continue to grow and become more accessible and popular, something that will benefit everyone throughout Philadelphia greatly.
Finding a permanent home is the first step of many to get the market recognized and truly seen in
Vendors sell desserts like shaved ice which have many variations across Southeast Asia, like Thai namkhaeng sai and Indonesian es campur.
Lamar and Moniqua come to the market often over the summer because they live nearby in South Philly.
“You don’t get to see this a lot, this is how it would be somewhere else, they’re bringing their culture and introducing it to us. This is how they would set up their market.” - Lemar
attendance.
the public spotlight for how important it really is. Creating the permanent home gives an opportunity for the experienced vendors to put their roots down, and build upon what they have already created within the market ecosystem. The ease of operation would really allow for the vendors to just bring their ingredients. While at the same time the permanent space would give those who want to try selling at the market an easy
way in to get started. Through this, a community of people who have been persecuted for so long can feel comfortable finding a location where they are welcome to share what makes them happy. Along with that, those who are previously unfamiliar with certain cultures and cuisines, have a great spot to try new and cheap food, and build new relationships.
A vendor finishes setting out her last order of steamed vietnamese pork buns called banh bao.
A father wipes soft serve ice cream off his daughters face, bought from the Mister Softee truck in
