Buddhism -- Burma; Burma -- Religion; Burma -- Social life and customs
This trade is almost exclusively done in bazaars. In every town there is
a bazaar, from six till ten each morning. When there is no town near,
the bazaar will be held on one day at one village and on another at a
neighbouring one. It depends on the density of population, the means of
communication, and other matters. But a bazaar within reach there must
always be, for it is only there that most articles can be bought. The
bazaar is usually held in a public building erected for the purpose, and
this may vary from a great market built of brick and iron to a small
thatched shed. Sometimes, indeed, there is no building at all, merely a
space of beaten ground.
The great bazaar in Mandalay is one of the sights of the city. The
building in which it is held is the property of the municipality, but is
leased out. It is a series of enormous sheds, with iron roofs and beaten
earth floor. Each trade has a shed or sheds to itself. There is a place
for rice-sellers, for butchers, for vegetable-sellers, for the vendors
of silks, of cottons, of sugars and spices, of firewood, of jars, of
fish. The butchers are all natives of India. I have explained elsewhere
why this should be. The firewood-sellers will mostly be men, as will
also the large rice-merchants, but nearly all the rest are women.
You will find the sellers of spices, fruit, vegetables, and other such
matters seated in long rows, on mats placed upon the ground. Each will
have a square of space allotted, perhaps six feet square, and there she
will sit with her merchandise in a basket or baskets before her. For
each square they will pay the lessee a halfpenny for the day, which is
only three hours or so. The time to go is in the morning from six till
eight, for that is the busy time. Later on all the stalls will be
closed, but in the early morning the market is thronged. Every
householder is then buying his or her provisions for the day, and the
people crowd in thousands round the sellers. Everyone is bargaining and
chaffing and laughing, both buyers and sellers; but both are very keen,
too, on business.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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