With a large display of bananas before him, the boy was selling them

On the street corners of Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital, it is common to see vendors turn a carrying pole into an instant shop simply by laying it on the ground. There is no signboard, no display case. A bamboo pole and two baskets are enough to make a business. The boy in the photograph was one such vendor, selling bananas. Each basket was fitted with a metal ring so it could be hooked onto the pole, a design that assumes from the start that transporting goods and selling them are the same act. It made me realize, with mild admiration, how closely commerce here is tied to movement.

The bunches of bananas hanging from the pole were more numerous than I expected, too many to be contained neatly within the baskets. In Southeast Asian markets, timing is everything. Ripeness determines value, and once a day passes, that value can collapse. Bananas do not wait. In Japan one speaks of “bargain selling,” but here there is no time to bargain with hesitation. Time itself does the pushing. If sales slow, the solution is simple: lift the pole and move elsewhere. Mobility is the greatest strength of this trade.

The boy rested his hand on the pole, a faint crease forming between his brows. He looked as though he were calculating how to sell everything before it was too late, or deciding where to go next. Of course, that may have been my imagination at work. Perhaps he was thinking about dinner, or tomorrow’s weather. But standing there, with bananas aging quietly in the heat, it was easy to believe that his thoughts, like his business, were never entirely still.

Yangon on Google Map

Comment via

日本語