Local Markets

On New Years Day morning, on our way out to Tahsang Village, we stopped at the local market in Kumphawapi.  We needed some offerings and food for our visit to a special Monk near the village where my Mother-in-Law was born. 

 

At the local markets, just about anything can be purchased - clothing, hardware, prepared foods, flowers, plants, DVDs, CDs, meat, seafood, turtles, eels, snakes, frogs - basically if it is alive or was once alive, it is for sale. Local people and people from outlying villages shop at these local markets.

In all villages there are small, very small, markets where villagers can buy certain necessities such as cooking oil, sauces, soap, shampoo, canned mackerel, soda, beer, whiskey, snack foods and sometimes eggs and a few vegetables. These markets supplement villager's shopping trips to the local markets.

Local markets are located throughout towns and cities in Isaan. In rural areas, there are markets set up alongside the road where people gather to sell and buy. Some of the markets are temporary setups on specified evenings of the week (night markets).

Duang Buying Some Live Eels to Bring to Monk

Local markets are a combination of indoor permanent facilities and temporary outside facilities. The indoor facilities are large dark open sided buildings or a series of connected buildings with corrugated sheet metal roofs. Inside there are rows and rows of fixed raised tables where the vendors set out their goods to sell. Outside facilities consist of a low raised wood rough platforms typically covered with plastic tablecloths upon which the merchandise is displayed along with a small spring scale to weigh the goods.

A large umbrella protects the goods and vendor from the elements. Sometimes there is a small plastic chair or aluminum lawn chair for the vendor but quite often they sit atop the platform along with the goods.  

We were shopping at the local market because the food is cheaper than at the big international stores, and most importantly the selection for the types of foods that the Lao Loum people eat is much greater there.

Fresh Food Being Cooked Over a Charcoal Fire

Shopping in the local market is not just the matter of going in, grabbing what you need, paying for it and getting out. These local markets in Isaan also are centers of gossip and social interaction. People end up meeting their friends and relatives at the market so they stop and talk. The vendors also join in and ask questions about family matters. The simple task of selecting vegetables to buy also requires an involved conversation - to ensure the best quality, best price and most likely most importantly of all be perceived as a "kuhn jai dai" - a good person, someone with a good heart.

Part of the Fresh Fish and Seafood Section of the Market

Dried Fish For Sale

Pig's Heads At A Station of One of the Pork Vendors

Scattered throughout the interior of the indoor portion of the Kumphawapi market there are large charcoal grills where fish and meat are cooked. Large metal ducts take the smoke and fumes up and out through the sheet metal roof. Cooked products are lined along the counter for sale. In other areas people use propane gas burners to cook sweets. The sweets are typically corn or rice with coconut as well as sugar added. I particularly enjoy the corn kernel- shredded coconut waffles fresh out of the waffle iron.

Fresh Fruit, Mangosteens, 25 Baht a Kilogram ($0.38 a pound)

Another Fruit Vendor, Everyday Is "Wear What You Want Day" At The Talat Sao

Inside the market the aisles are very narrow as well as crowded. We had arrived around 7:30 A.M. so it was the height of the morning market rush.  In addition to buying items for the day and days ahead, many people were buying their breakfast. You need to be careful walking because the concrete floors are not level, have abrupt changes in elevation, and are in various states of disrepair. Lighting levels are low inside the market with illumination provided by a small number of exposed fluorescent tubes and bare light bulbs. Interestingly, many of the bare light bulbs are now the eco-friendly fluorescent type. An occasional cat or street dog will also wander by to further complicate navigating through the market.

A Stall Selling Dry Goods and Some Goods that are Wet in Bottles

Some of the vendors, typically those who are selling canned goods have updated their booths with small TVs or stereos. This provides some entertainment and distraction for their children or grandchildren who accompany the vendors.

Typical Thai Desserts Being Made For Sale

Soup's On!

Between the sights, sounds, and smells, a stop at the local market is always entertaining as well as interesting.  There is also no telling what you may learn about just anyone, too.  I have written several times before that there are no secrets in Isaan.  The local market specializes in ensuring that and for free!

Duang Headed Out of the Talat Sao in Kumphawapi

 

Fresh Plaa-Muck

 

 

New Years Day is celebrated in Thailand as well as Chinese New Year, Thai New Year (Songkran) and various Hill Tribe new year celebrations.

All the New Year celebrations are times for families and friends to come together for eating, drinking, singing and dancing.  These occasions are also times when special merit making, as opposed to merriment making, can be earned through offerings as well as special religious rituals.

Just as there are special foods associated with specific holidays such as Easter, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, New Years Jan 1 is a time for many people in Thailand to eat plaa muck, which you most likely know better as squid or calamari.

On our way out to Tahsang Village on 1 Jan to gather up the clan to go see a special Monk, we stopped at the market in Kumphawapi to pick up some items for the trip as well as offerings to the Monks.  We had gotten up early at 5:00 AM so we arrived at the market around 7:00 A.M.

It appears that the recent opening of the Tesco-Lotus Superstore just down the road from the traditional Kumphawapi market has not adversely affected the talat sao (morning market).  The market well well stocked and it was just as crowded as when I first encountered it 6 years ago.  I find that reassuring because just as I believe in local solutions for local problems and conditions, I believe that the more a community can be self-sufficient the better served its members will be.  Keeping the profits of groceries in the community is more beneficial and more market responsive to the local community's needs than shipping it off to large urban centers or worst of all - offshore multinational corporations.

After we had finished our shopping, which will be subject of a separate blog, we returned to our truck parked across the street in the large vacant lot next to the banana seller's stall.  I heard an announcement from a truck's P.A. system and asked Duang what it was all about.  She told me that the man was selling "plaa muck" (squid).  I looked and saw about three cars from our truck, a man in the back of a pick up truck filled with several plastic coolers.  I wandered over to check it out.

Fresh Live Squid For Sale - 400 Miles from the Gulf of Thailand

The vendor had opened one of the plastic ice chests and with a wood stick was stirring up the water in it.  The water exploded with black liquid and the frenzied movements of white withering squid appendages - the cooler was filled with live squid.  Live squid - beautifully formed, firm and with bright yellows eyes - 400 miles, 8 hours from the Gulf of Thailand!

Duang caught up with me and as I took photographs, she translated my questions and the vendor's replies.  The man and his wife had gone to the docks and purchased the squid right off of the boats that night.  After loading up their plastic containers, they drove 8 hours through the night to Kumphawapi.  Although New Years in January is an official one day holiday, many people take 5 days for their celebrating.  The squid vendor will remain in the area and return to his home in Bangkok after five days.

Stirring the Squid

The man had installed a series of battery powered aerators and pumps to keep the squid alive.  Similar arrangements are also used in the market to keep the fish, eels, and prawns fresh and more importantly alive.  It doesn't get any fresher than being alive.  There is no concern about purchasing bad seafood when it is still wiggling when you leave the market.

The man tended the squid while his wife handled the customers.  There was a simple spring scale on the back of the tailgate and the money was kept in a pouch secured around her waist. Customers selected their squid from several that had been removed from a large cooler and displayed in a plastic tray.  The vendor's wife weighed the selected squid on the scale, placed them in plastic bag and collected the money from the customer.

I was very impressed for many reasons.  The first reason was the realization that although I was 400 miles from the ocean I was able to buy fresher squid than most of my friends who live near the water back in Connecticut.  I could buy it not because of any technological advancement that Thailand has over the USA but because of an individual's initiative to meet a market's needs.

The market system of Southeast Asia, for me, represents a paradox.  Although the markets do not have much in terms of commercial refrigeration and advanced packaging, I believe that the food is actually fresher for the consumer.  Without widely used refrigeration and packaging, the food has to be fresher.  Any spoilage would be obvious to the consumer who can handle the items, inspect the items, and smell the items before purchasing.

I was secondly impressed with the ability of a person here in Thailand with some initiative to create a business.  I can only begin to imagine the permits and licenses required if I were to decide to create a similar business back in the USA such as driving up to Maine and filling up ice chests with lobsters to then keep alive and drive to New York City (roughly 400 miles) to sell in some parking lot. For a start I know that there would be business license(s), commercial plates required for the truck, health permit(s), tax permits, and God knows what regulations to be followed for transporting live seafood.

Here is Thailand as well as countries such as Vietnam, Laos, China it is very simple for a person to set up a family business.  It is all left up to the individual's imagination and initiative. As the Nike slogan says ... They "Just do it".

In the USA if you were to hire a teenager every week to care for your children while you and your spouse went out for an evening or two, you, to properly follow the law, would have to consider the babysitter to be your employee.  As an employee, you would have to have a taxpayer number, make Social Security contributions (old age, and health) on behalf of your employee, withhold the employee's required Social Security contributions, withhold Federal taxes from your employee's wages, withhold state taxes from your employee's wages, contribute to unemployment insurance for the employee, report all kinds of information to both the State and Federal Government. You would also be responsible for maintaining all kinds of records.  Oh - you are also responsible to first determine that your babysitter has the legal right to work in the USA.  Now is that any way to run a country or to encourage people to start businesses or even to hire any one who has not established themselves as a business?