At 1 a.m. on September 24, 2023, a 55-year-old woman joined the queue outside Đông Phương bakery on Cầu Đất Street in Hải Phòng with her entire family. Hundreds of people were already sleeping on newspaper or mats along the pavement. The shop limited each customer to three boxes, while she needed twenty boxes as gifts for business partners and relatives, so additional family members became additional purchasing places.
Before dawn on September 19, customers formed two lines to receive order numbers. Another thirty or forty people reportedly arrived every five to ten minutes. Professional buyers charged 40,000–80,000 đồng per box to wait and purchase for others. Because the bakery used no preservatives and the cakes had short shelf lives, customers could not simply stock up far in advance. This queue is distinctive because traditional taste, purchase limits, and perishability turned family members and paid waiting into resources. What was being exchanged was not only mooncake. It was the ability to spend the night and convert waiting time into access.