📕 Part 1: Street Markets

This episode's vocabulary

Wet market (noun) - especially in Asia, a market where fresh meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, and sometimes live animals are sold to the public.

Hygiene  (noun) - the degree to which people keep themselves or their environment clean, especially to prevent disease.

Standard (noun) - a level of quality.

Open-air market (noun) - a public marketplace where food and merchandise is sold.

Regulation (noun) - an official rule or the act of controlling something.

Stick out (phrasal verb) - to be very easy to notice.

Conducive (adj.) - providing the right conditions for something good to happen or exist.

Novelty (noun) - something that has not been experienced before and so is interesting.

Authentic (adj.) - if something is authentic, it is real, true, or what people say it is.

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Questions and Answers

M: Do you like street markets?

R: I suppose that depends if it's a wet market and if the various hygiene standards are being met, to be honest with you. And the weather too. There aren't many open-air markets in Russia like there are in Thailand, for example, because the climates are different.

M: When was the last time you went to an open air market?

R: Uh, actually, well... Oh, God, it was very Russian. I went on a date to one about four months ago, but it was an open-air market inside a giant building. So it was a very air conditioned open-air market. Um, the food was decent, though. Nothing too spectacular or fancy. But I had a very nice burger and Angus steak burger, actually, which is a kind of meat from Scotland. And I think the other half of the equation had sushi.

M: Would you prefer a street market or a supermarket in a foreign country?

R: Oh, a supermarket, for sure. There they have more regulations, more choice, greater stability to go with the variety that they have. Um, so overall, it's just a better shopping experience in terms of food buying, I think.

M: How popular are street markets in your country?

R: Well, in the summer there are quite a few, especially in the square. But beyond that, there aren't many that particularly stick out in my mind. I suppose as in Russia, it's due to the climate and the health and safety standards. So there are very few kinds of food that you can prepare without breaking or violating the standards. And then on top of that, it rains a lot, and so it doesn't really make it very hygienic either. It's quite unhygienic, actually.

M: Do people in your country usually go to open-air markets?

R: Well, none of present because of the lockdown, but even before that I don't think it was a thing really. Maybe in London where the climate's more conducive to it, or South Coast in general, it's much warmer relative to Scotland, to the north, where Scotland is. Um, I think sometimes they go for it just for the novelty in the summer. But it's not something, it's not a regular culinary experience, I suppose, is what you might call.

M: What benefits do street markets have over retail shops?

R: I'm not sure, actually. I don't think they do have any. Um, maybe it feels more authentic if you're getting food that way and maybe there's entertainment to accompany it. I think like in Thailand, for example, they sort of put on a show while they're preparing the food and that adds to the atmosphere. But in Scotland it doesn't really happen. You don't really associate the people that prepare your food with, like, this atmosphere. Um, it's much more of a, we would see it as a foreign thing.

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Discussion

M: Thank you, Rory, for your answers.

R: Hopefully they were tasty.

M: They were indeed. Yum, yum, yum. So street markets, yeah. We can have street markets, we can have flea markets.

R: Bur flea markets are not the same as street markets.

M: No, no, but they're kind of markets. Right? And you can talk about flea markets when they ask you about street markets. Why not?

R: Don't get them confused, though.

M: No, but you should know what street markets are. Sorry, flea markets. So it's a market with second hand furniture, decoration, clothing, or like vintage items, like old items at a low price. Yes. So you can have originality at a low price. And flea is an insect that lives in human hair.

R: Well, if it's a human flea.

M: Human flea. Yeah, you can, dogs can.

R: Fleas are quite particular about the kind of blood that they drink. Did you know?

M: No, I didn't.

R: Well, they, for example, rat fleas will not drink human blood, for example.

M: Wow. That's an important piece of information. Street markets, open-air markets. We even have floating markets in Thailand.

R: What is that?

M: Floating. You go to Thailand, there are boats and from boats they sell you all sorts of things. Floating markets. Yeah. And, Rory, you said a wet market.

R: Yeah. Wet market is where the food is prepared. Like, basically, they kill the animal, they butcher it in the same place as they prepare it for consumption. You see this a lot in China.

M: India, China?

R: You see it a lot in China. You can see videos of it. I don't think it's really videos that you're going to enjoy, but if you want to see what wet market looks like then Chinese wet market on YouTube. You can see there. It is not nice.

M: Well, you can talk about open air markets. And for example, you talked about Thailand and in Thailand. Oh, I worked in Bangkok for a month. And there is this Chatuchak monster market. It's the weekend markets. It's massive. It's like a universe. And it welcomes around 200000 people each day on the weekend.

R: Nice, it's huge.

M: It's massive.

R: It's more people than in most parts of Scotland.

M: And you can get like anything you want there from. Well, they call it a souvenir hunter's dreamland. So Chatuchak, yeah. So make sure that you do know some names or you can say I'd like to visit this market in Morocco.

R: I didn't name any markets.

M: No, but in London there are some famous markets.

R: Camden.

M: Yeah.

R: The punks in Camden market. Yeah, they're on the bridge and they'll pose with you and there are beer cans and stuff.

M: Oh wow.

R: It's not very authentic. It's all very put-on now, but it's funny.

M: Yeah. Authentic. That's the word. When you talk about street markets, you talk about local people, you talk about locals and you talk about this authentic experience that you can have at the market.

R: And if you go for an authentic experience at Camden, you can pose with the punks and then enjoy the scent of marijuana wafting from everywhere around you because it is awash with drugs. I remember it fondly. Oh my God, we took students there in 2015. You couldn't do that now. Wow. Oh, those were the days. Anyway...

M: Spectacular. Yes. So these are like authentic experience, like a real experience, like local colours. And you can talk about bustling, vibrant atmosphere.

R: Unless there are health and safety standards. Those affect your atmosphere quite significantly.

M: Yeah. Hygiene, hygiene standards.

R: Yes. So health and safety or hygiene standards are things that are put in place by governments to protect people from food that is not well prepared, or to stop you from taking children to Camden Market. I'm just, like I'm looking back on this now and I just realised, like how much of a bad idea it was.

M: And then like, if you have a choice between a supermarket or street market, you can talk about supermarkets having a greater stability. Right, so they are...

R: They have a greater stability. Yes.

M: In terms of variety, I'm not sure.

R: Supermarkets? Depends how big the market is. But generally, supermarkets will have more kinds of cheese than a regular market, then an open-air market.

M: Yeah, but again, it depends on how big the market is.

R: It could be a cheese festival. And then if you have a market cheese festival, there'll be lots of kinds of cheese. I really want cheese now.

M: I'm hungry. Let's go home.

R: For the benefit of the people listening to this in March, we are recording this at quarter to 9 on the 19th of February. And we're very hungry. We've been recording for about five hours now.

N: Yes. And we're still fresh, yummy and delicious.

R: Well, we're not fresh by any standarts.

M: Retail shops. We talk about street markets and retail shops. Well, just usual shops, you know, retail shops. And when you talk about markets, you should talk about vendors. So, Rory, who are vendors?

R: Vendors are the people at the stalls in the markets. The stalls are the places where they sell the food from.

M: Yep. So market stalls and vendors. People like sellers, people who sell stuff. So let's imagine that you go to a street market. So what would you rather buy? Exotic...

R: Pillows, I'm sleepy.

M: Exotic crafts, antiques, collectibles, animals, socks, boxer shorts or second hand goodies?

R: Oh, my God. None of them. I have enough rubbish in my apartment as it is.

M: Food? What about food?

R: Oh, food, I'd like to buy food.

M: OK, yeah. Rory would go for food.

R: I like food.

M: Yes. So these things are usually sold at the markets like flea markets, open-air markets, any kinds of market. So you can just mention like what you'd like to buy or what you usually buy there. And at the markets you usually bargain. Rory, do you bargain?

R: No, you well, you bargain or you haggle.

M: Haggle.

R: Haggle. You haggle over the price, which is when you negotiate what the price is with the people there.

M: Yeah. You just say, oh it's like one hundred dollars. No it's fifty dollars. Thirty dollars. And then you buy like for sixty dollars.

R: Exactly. In some countries this is a tradition. I don't think Western people do it very well because they just expect to pay for the price. It can be quite insulting if you don't haggle with certain cultures.

M: Are you good at haggling?

R: I haven't had to haggle. Oh, my God. We had to do it in Haiti. You were supposed to haggle with the merchants that sell various kinds of jewelry. In this art comune. There's a, to explain there's different communes, different communities in Haiti, which is an island in the Caribbean, close to America. And yes, I accidentally offended this very large Haitian man by not haggling with him because he wanted that. And I was just like, can I not just give you the money?

M: Oh, so you wanted the lazy way, right?

R: I just, I just wanted to get some nice things.

M: Look at your European face.

R: I know.

M: Thank you so much for listening. Now, we hope that you can talk about street markets...

R: Using food from our... Using food, using vocabulary from our markets of vocabulary.

M: A market of vocabulary.

R: Indeed.

M: Wow. Bye!

R: Bye!

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