Markets

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Images can’t do justice to the open air market. Smells, sounds, colors. Fruits, vegetables, mushrooms. Eggs, seafood, meat of every imaginable type. If you like sausage don’t ask how it’s made – unless it’s made fresh at the market. You choose what goes in it.

Thai cities have supermarkets and malls. They also have traditional markets. Open air stalls sell everything fresh and cooked a person might want. From blazing hot curry to doughnuts, raw liver to white bread, fresh mangos to fried pork rinds – you’ll find several vendors competing for your business at the fresh air market.

The importance of food in southeast Asian culture can almost not be overstated. The traditional greeting is ‘have you eaten?’ It translates more literally as ‘have you had rice yet?’ People answer honestly. And if someone has not eaten that will be taken care of by the person asking.

Compare that to North American English where ‘how are you?’ is almost always answered with ‘fine’ or ‘good’ regardless of the truth. Make that comparison and you will open a window into traditional southeast Asian culture, the southeast Asian culture of food and the importance of the open air market.