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We’d snack on lychee or longan on the drives back until we had to throw away the fruit seeds before returning to the U.S.

The bargain buyers drifted out of a popular Little Saigon fruit shop with tote bags full of pale brown longan and hairy red rambutan, barely glancing at the dirt-smeared face of Duc Tran.

He said Vietnam expects to begin exporting longan to Japan in September, followed by other produce such as grapefruit, avocado and rambutan, while opening its market for Japanese grapes.

Worakanya Panyaprasertkit, a longan exporter in Thailand, said a shipment of her fruit was stuck at the border with Vietnam for 60 days.

Weeks later, a farmer, frustrated by the government’s failed promise to subsidize longan crops while the pandemic kept borders closed to exports, posted a video of tons of his annual harvest going to rot.