Everyone has their place, but paths do cross in the market. You wouldn’t know it at first, but the Pakse market is where Southeast Asia intersects. The Lao sell vegetables and herbs on the outside, the Cambodians sell used clothing down one corridor and the Vietnamese sell everything else you’d need in the middle. I’m not sure if the gold shops are Chinese or Vietnamese.
Maybe it’s in small markets like this that the invisible hand works in the most peaceful ways. Maybe there’s a peaceful equilibrium established through petty trade. In the old days, not all people were in it just for silk or salt. Some probably just wanted a good excuse to get away from home, hang out, see the sights and have some fun. Of course there are plunderers, predators, exploiters, conquerors, imperialists and colonialists in the picture too, but in Pakse in think they ignore the small market. They’re busy with bigger things.
Here in this market, we have three major ethnicities literally rubbing shoulders in a hot and crowded place. Wouldn’t this supply the right chemistry for a race riot? What does it really take to make people fight and do nasty things to each other?
Here, everyone has their own products so there are no fights about undercutting cucumber prices. Everyone seems to have their own territory staked out and it’s rented so there aren’t territorial wars. People are paying, not praying so there’s no reason to get hot and agitated about religious differences. Language is neither a barrier nor something to wave a flag about so why fight about that either?
Maybe these are simple observations made in a good mood. There are ethnic complexities that I really can’t/won’t touch here.
