Hunter killer or gatherer collector

[Bluetongue]

Nearly every Wednesday I go to the weekly market in a town called Soi Dao aka Patong (another one). It’s about a 20km trip. It starts early like before dawn and goes to at least lunchtime. One side of the centre of town is occupied by vendors as well as three or four side sois. It can get pretty packed. Generally my wife wants to go to buy restaurant supplies, I’ll have a few things that I need and almost always some family and/or neighbours and friends want to go too.

I’ve got a Toyota Vigo so it might be only 3 or 4 or up to 6 or 7, in the back if necessary. Now parking can be tricky around New Year type times, there are a couple of paid areas which cost 10bht or there is a large free area. If I head towards a pay area the Thais start complaining that it is a waste of money and it is too far to walk. Even though I would be paying and it’s actually closer to the wet market area where the wife gets all her heavier packages of seafood and meat!

So I’ve parked the car and my passengers are off like starburst shell in 7 different directions no-one can keep up with them, certainly not me as I stretch and lock the car. I head directly for what I know I need, some fish for the dog’s dinners and some treats for them, a couple of things for me, bread maybe. I hunt it down, kill it (ie buy it) and get it back to the car. No sign of anyone but there’s some packages already in the back. Everyone leaves their shopping in the back, thievery has not yet occurred.

So I go looking for the wife, to help her with carrying. Sometimes I find her and bring a load back, sometimes I don’t. If I don’t see her I’ll buy a drink and a snack and wait near the car in whatever shade I can find. I used to wander around the market checking out all the wonderful sights and smells from tubs of bleeding frogs, to big vats of pilar the very pungent brew of fish and I don’t know what that looks really awful, to fresh produce piled high and people everywhere some bustling and some being bustled. Now I get sick of that so I just wait. As an aside, a feature of shopping both here and in Australia I have noticed. In the supermarket in Australia where I honed my hunter/killer skills with years of bachelordom, women seemed to have radar in the back of their heads to see the single male coming and manage to swerve their trolley in front of him and stop it. I swear it happens here also.

So the other feature now is as the various passengers return to the car with their shopping they dump it, wait for a moment, realise that not everyone, if anyone, is there and take off again to buy something else. They often, knowing me, bring me some small treat as a sort of bribe. Usually I don’t want them and give them to the dogs, either there or at home. Sometimes the vendors have a saleng (3 wheeler) come and deliver large items. This can go on for hours until their money starts to run out. If more than one come back at once they might hang around but very unlikely. I vary rarely say anything knowing the futility. Usually the wife knowing my growing impatience will try and rein them in but there is always one who doesn’t hear the call and is wandering somewhere. It’s like the sheep dog trials, where the dog just cant get that last sheep.

The extra stuff they buy is usually impulse shopping not something they set out to do. This makes them gatherer/collectors in my opinion. Finally at about eleven maybe the car is brim full with shopping, especially if they’ve bought rice. Off we go and the conversation on the way home is a purchase by purchase dissection of the morning’s shopping, including prices, comparisons, bargains etc.

The purpose of this thread, none, except to let all the wanna come and live in Thailand hunter/killers out there know that this is more or less the reality of life up country. You have been warned. I used to recognise shopping as a transitory task and a sure way of obtaining the items one needs for daily life and accepted the necessity of it as thus. Here I have learnt to avoid it where possible in the company of others. The wife annoys me when shopping as she struggles to compute various prices for different sizes, not taking my word even though she knows I am right. I’m better off in the shade with the Thai men.

[Kitsune]

Shopping becomes a favorite pastime when you have more money than sense.

Money, possessions, are a tools, not the meaning of life

[Seastallion]

Bluetongue, you indicated that your time in OZ was as a bachelor. It's no wonder you think your experience at the market is uniquely Thai. It's not! Go to any mall in Oz or NZ (and I daresay Canada, US, UK, SA etc), and watch.....you will see men standing outside shops waiting, waiting, waiting. Men that are supportive husbands accompanying their wives, but actually too disinterested to wander the aisles. They just stand and wait near the door. In the case of groups.....it's just the same. Like trying to herd cats.

Nice post though.

[Bluetongue]

Bluetongue, you indicated that your time in OZ was as a bachelor. It's no wonder you think your experience at the market is uniquely Thai. It's not! Go to any mall in Oz or NZ (and I daresay Canada, US, UK, SA etc), and watch.....you will see men standing outside shops waiting, waiting, waiting. Men that are supportive husbands accompanying their wives, but actually too disinterested to wander the aisles. They just stand and wait near the door. In the case of groups.....it's just the same. Like trying to herd cats.

Nice post though.

You are obviously right although I didn't notice the poor sods over there, rarely if ever went to a mall and if I did I was aiming my trolley for that gap between fat ladies to get out.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Bluetongue