tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8573382596442861899.post1693230051500937065..comments2023-11-02T01:55:28.254-07:00Comments on A Canuck Amuck: The Kagoro MarketGlennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17766968264733510251noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8573382596442861899.post-8124605570669240092008-03-03T06:14:00.000-08:002008-03-03T06:14:00.000-08:00The colors are spectacular and the abundance a lit...The colors are spectacular and the abundance a little surprising. We in the so called developed economies constantly hear about starvation and drought in developing nations, and esp in Africa. Yet the lushness of tomatoes and onions displayed with such artfulness tells quite a different story. I do not for one minute question the reality of poverty and need and even desparation, but I do see a marked contrast between our "First World" convictions and the "Not First World" realities. The very fact that there is local commerce on the scale you describe and picture is enough to make me stop and pause. Is it our sense of Western guilt that causes us to think of "the others" as being on the edge of oblivion? is it our smugness as a have economy that dictates our conviction that the other is simply a have not? This is not to deny the difficulties, but it is to question our assumptions and presumptions. We have our own poverty to deal with, and I don't just mean people living on the streets. Our developed "lushness" is filled with waste and depreciation and obsolesence driven by the need to consume. I recall being in a Loblaws looking for yogurt so that I could stock my refrigerator for visiting guests. They requested zero fat no calories fruit-on-the-bottom, etc, etc. I was a bit put off by the precision of the request, but I was totally caught off guard by the wall of possibilities at the yogurt section. I had never seen such a display of over-abundance, and I was literally stopped in my tracks as I began to explore and search, looking for the precise type of yogurt ordered by my guests. I stood muttering to myself, reading the labels in a stage whisper, and only after an inordinate amount of time doing this did I realize people were giving me wide berth -- I was talking out loud to myself like some kind of maniac just released from 999 Queen West. I was stunned into inertia by the array and variety and detail.... all of which, in retrospect, represented a kind of poverty. A poverty of limit, a depleting of reticence, a diminishing of possibility overwhelmed by order of magnitude. My nephew, who works on projects in Africa [Zambia, Tanzania, etc], hosted a group of African coworkers in Toronto one summer. They even spent a weekend up at the cottage. He expressed disappointment that these Africans wanted to get things just like us. Yes, they were overwhelmed by our over-abundance, but more so, they became crazed as instant consumers -- they wanted a piece of the action, the TVs and stereos, CD players and iPods, all the gadgets that we consume without even questioning their need. Their desire overcame their need, just as desire replaces almost all our values in the West. His disappointment was about their fall from grace and innocence: their "purity" coming from a non consumer economy was tainted by their desire to consume once they entered the world of rampant consumerism. Somehow this was a retelling of the fall from the Garden of Eden, where innocence gave way to knowledge of good and evil, without the ability or wisdom to distinguish one from the other. My nephew and I never spoke about this further; we are both busy Westerners constantly on the move. I would like to have explored his reaction deeper. We work and live with assumptions of innocence and guilt, purity and taint. They tend to verge on smugness, paternalistic condescension, and somewhat hurtful innocence of our own. We all need to categorize as a way to "control" and combat chaos. Our assumptions, esp those about others, are our way to ensure we stave off chaos all around us. the poverty stricken African is somehow innocent and possibly purer than we overstuffed Westerners are...a common story found in all our literature as we lambast ourselves while simulataneously ensuring we reach max comfort. <BR/>This is getting too heavy, or too guilt conscious. Let me end with one last thought: the markets in China are just as interesting, diverse, and chaotic in a structured and ordered way. Not quite on the dusty ground, but close enough. Being the "talking monkey" or white ghost has its unexpected charm on occasion, ranging from stares to touch [people sometimes stroke the fur on my arms -- not hair, but fur]. One market I've avoided in all the cities I've visited in China is the bug market. Beijing [a city I dislike anyway] is supposed to have the best. This is where you can go for a midnight snack of deep fried moth larva on a stick. In the ancient city of Hangzhou, I meandered through the even more ancient market [restored and refurbished for tourists and locals alike]. This is where I ate dog meat stew for the first time and lived to tell the tale. This is also where I refused to go to the scorpion stall to choose my live black scorpion to be deep fried and popped into my mouth -- a delicacy the locals were eager for me to try as part of the afternoon entertainment. Unfortunately, I had to disappoint them because I just finished a massive fish lunch at the local resto and was afraid of heaving it all up in public should I try the local scorpion delicacy. My cast iron stomach has its own limits. <BR/>On the chaos note, I suggest we Westerners are deathly afraid of chaos and will do anything to control it and even deny its very existence. I've been in Ontario to recall the earlier days of farmer's markets in such places as Hamilton [once in an underground parking lot], Kitchener [outdoors even in winter], St Jacobs [horse and buggy as well], Kingston [in an outdoor parking lot], and so on. Chaos, in a quaint Canadian sort of way, was endemic, but now it is all gone. Each of these places is neat and clean, with specific "farmer's market" buildings housing the stalls. We have electricity and running water, even toilets dammit. Parking is orderly and to be paid for. Was it TS Eliot who said: man cannot take too much truth [reality, chaos]? or was that Jack Nicholson on the witness stand?<BR/>Keep up the good work and the great stories. VictorAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com