Inside the Thriving World of Bangkok's Semi-Legal Street Vendors

In the below mini-documentary, a one-time company man in Bangkok narrates his attempt to leave the country's formal business sector for one of its most famous informal ones amid the city's throng of street vendors. Ae sells earrings, and he tried at one point to do so from a brick-and-mortor shop inside a mall. But the rent was too high, he explains.

"The people are on the streets," he says. "So I set up a stall on the street." To his surprise, he was up and running in five days – "no contract, no deposit." Today he makes nearly as much money vending jewelry as he once did in a managerial job.