WESTMINSTER — Every Saturday is market day for Thanh Tran.

The term loses some of its meaning when translated from Vietnamese, because the 65-year-old Anaheim woman does more than merely shop for groceries on this designated day.

Her routine starts at a food stand for an early morning breakfast of sweet, sticky rice and jasmine tea. It ends in the evening with dinner at a storefront restaurant that specializes in \o7 pho\f7 , the rice noodle soup that is as popular among Vietnamese as hamburgers are among Americans.

Between breakfast and dinner, Tran idles away the hours browsing through shops specializing in Chinese teas and herbs, bakeries, fabric marts and, yes, supermarkets on the stretch of Bolsa Avenue that is Little Saigon.

"I don't come to buy things," Tran said one Saturday afternoon, standing in front of a pastry shop, sipping iced sugar cane juice. "I come to see people, strangers mostly, who come . . . to do ordinary, everyday things, but in an environment where, because of the familiarity of faces and language, we never feel out of place."

For Tran, as for the vast majority of Vietnamese living in Southern California, the Little Saigon area of Westminster has become a cultural magnet--a place for all things Vietnamese, from the food they eat to the sundries they need, to simply mingling with people who speak their language.

A Los Angeles Times poll found that almost half the Vietnamese in Southern California--47%--consider Little Saigon their community's "most important" business, cultural and social center, while another 23% rated it "important."

The Times poll of 861 Vietnamese residents, conducted from March 28 through April 19 in Southern California, has a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The Times Poll is directed by John Brennan.

Of the people surveyed, 5% said it was not important at all, and only 2% said they had never heard of Little Saigon.

"And I'm surprised that those 2% even exist," said a 39-year-old Fullerton poll respondent who asked that his name not be used. "If Vietnamese from as far away as Vietnam, France and Australia know about this section (of Westminster), how could the ones here not know? Little Saigon is a big chunk of the history of Vietnamese in America."

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It is a history that is still recounted with pride, and more than a little incredulity, by city officials and ad-hoc planners responsible for Little Saigon's unambitious beginning.