Go anywhere in Vietnam and you'll see products with names like Goldstar, Camay, Marlboro, and Tiger being bought up right and left. But it is the army of Honda Dream motorbikes purchased only in the past few years that have marked the way to the Holy Grail for the world's consumer makers.

If several million Vietnamese have $3,000 to spend on something they don't  really need, the reasoning has gone, then they must have the cash to buy a yard full of other goods. If locals were waiting for the right time to spend the mythical savings kept hidden under their mattresses, the early and mid-1990s seemed to be it.

How much money do people really have? Who is buying the motorbikes, detergents, and dozens of other goods that can be found in the markets today? What is the consumer looking for and will his demands be met?

Answering such basic questions even today remain a kind of expat parlor game, in a country where its government estimates per capita income at $300 per year but $300 leather coats are the rage in Hanoi this season-matched by rumor, second-hand statistics, gut instinct, and a slow-growing body of reliable market research.

Unilever, Toyota, Proctor and Gamble, Coca-Cola and Pepsi are some hallmarks of a consumer market that demands high-quality items and can pay for them, and each   manufactures in Vietnam. Yet some of these companies, each of which grosses billions of dollars per year in worldwide sales, are currently being attacked by the domestic government, in their opinions for misreading the market.

To accurately read Vietnam's consumers of high-quality goods, companies are learning that they must do their own research, if only to see for themselves exactly what a "typical" consumer is. Is this the Vietnam consumer-makers dreamed of?

Hoang Thi Dong lives on Cat Ba Island off the coast of Haiphong. Her modest mini-hotel, Van Anh, is one of about ten on the island and offers 14 rooms, each renting for between five to seven dollars per night. Tourist season for this secondary destination is between June and September. Dong has two grown children living in Haiphong and is married to the head of Cat Ba People's Committee. While her living room doubles as a check-in counter, and she and her colleagues tend to pass the day on their haunches.

What she owns might surprise you. "We bought a Honda Dream ($3,250) four years ago, because we moved a mile from my husband's office to this hotel. At that time I also bought a US brand hi-fi ($1,600). Now we also have two Suzuki Vivas ($2,500 each)." She runs down a list of more recent purchases: three televisions including one 21 inch Sony ($600), another hi-fi, and a laser Karaoke video disc player. "In Cat Ba, many families buy the same equipment, because it's very good quality and durable," she said. She doesn't mention that the appliance that is most frequently used is the eight-inch black-and-white TV, powered by a 15-kw gas generator. Why? Until last year, Cat Ba Island had no electricity. The new provincial generator provides steady power-for three hours each day. Dong's next purchases, she said, will be a $2,000 boat and a second-hand Toyota ($6,000), "to serve our guests."

Can all Vietnamese make such purchases? According to Dong, no. "Rural families will buy second-hand TVs or smaller ones. The gap between rich and poor is very big. But people in the cities doing business are making four or five million dong ($300 or $400) per month, and they can afford such things." She is happy with her life, she says, and doesn't need anything.

Yet it is typical for urban dwellers to say that the opposite is true. "In reality, in a month you buy Tiger beers, cigarettes, you go dancing and sing karaoke, eat your meals out, you buy gifts for people," reasoned a 25-year-old modest, single urban male who drives a Honda Dream and wears a Motorola hand phone on his belt. "So even if you only make $100 each month, you need at least $200."

Or $400, or more; a recent performance by a Danish rock group, "Michael Learns to Rock," drew thousands of Hanoians who parted with up to $50 each for a night's entertainment. In mid-December Saigon Waterpark amusement park opened, drawing 5,000 people in two days at 60,000 dong (about $5) each.

That perceived need is the mating call for foreign consumer makers. In 1993, a study of urban households showed that 11% owned a TV; 9% a radio; and 1% a washing machine, according to Hanoi's Institute for Trade and Economic Development. In the following four years, it seems that everyone bought them. An average of 84% of Hanoians and Saigonese now own color TVs, 71% own radios, and 22% own washing machines, according to a recent study by SRG Vietnam.