Monday, November 15, 2010

The Original Free Market


Beijing is an international city and my neighborhood is full of foreigners, but one of the only places where I continue to get strange looks is at an outdoor market. This is where the Chinese shop and where watching a laowai negotiate the price of peppers is something of a novelty.

Supermarkets might feed the stomach and shopping malls can feed the ego, but only an outdoor market feeds all the senses. Outdoor markets arent just about food or goods - they are, after all a sort of precursor to the all-in-one store.

There is also an undeniable social element. Vendors give a face to your food.
This isn't to say that an item, whether it's a grapefruit or a Gameboy, has any greater mark of authenticity or quality just for being there. The open-air market is full of guarantees from the mouths of hucksters, not written or disclaimed in the fine print, so there is an implicit tradeoff of authenticity of goods for authenticity of experience.

The hordes of people that can be found in a market place on any given day are a reassurance that this is one cultural staple that is not going to be scratched from the urban landscape any time soon.

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