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The Unresolved Witness

I’ve wandered through markets all over the world and I still don’t know how to talk about all of them. Because they are so different depending on what part of the world you are in.

What I do know, is that I love them. I know I prefer them to shopping malls and supermarkets. I know they support local people more directly and make me feel like a participant in a local living breathing alive economy rather than a consumer in the capitalist global machine. But I’ve also seen things in markets that left me disturbed, angry, shaken.

In Cairo, I saw dog fights, and animals suffering in cages, species the West would call endangered. In Mexico, I saw children working beside their mothers, not yet ten years old when they should be in school. In South Africa, I saw the people recovering from the apartheid regime, recovering their traditions by selling their crafts. And still — I go back. Again and again.

Because local markets are more than just a place to buy “stuff”. They’re where the heartbeat of a community can still be felt. Places where people gather. They show you what a culture values — and what it neglects. What it wants to protect — and the shadows of what it exploits.

This is not going to be a clean piece of writing.

It’s been knocking around in my head for a while now. My thoughts on the subject are still fragmented and it won’t land with any conclusions. But I will try to hold the full picture of what I’ve seen, what I’ve felt, and what I still believe about markets. Even when I am thrilled by what I find and broken by what I see.

I’ve also started paying attention to what happens when I’m not in a market — when I’m behind a screen, adding something to an online shopping cart, clicking “Buy Now.” The more I think about what I’ve seen in markets, the more I realize the hidden acts every purchase carry, even when it is so completely invisible.

An “Unspoken Trade”?

Every time we buy something, we’re doing more than making a transaction for material goods. We’re reinforcing a system. Casting a vote by our actions — for Amazon, Lazada, Alibaba, Tesco, Flipcart, Taobao, Rakuten, MercadoLibre, Hepsiburada. A vote for ease, speed, safety, status, warranty, trust, relationship, business… whatever matters to us the most in that moment.

That vote most often goes to the biggest, most polished players: supermarket chains, malls, and online giants. But there are other options still alive in many parts of the world — though often overlooked: the local market.

Every act of buying also carries a weight…

A weight of labor we didn’t see. Of the hands we’ll never shake. Of earth’s resources pulled from somewhere on the planet we’ll never visit — maybe gently and honoring the “mother”, maybe violently and putting other humans’ health at risk. A weight of carbon emissions, of transport, of packaging, of storage. This is a wakeup call to the  realization of our own personal values — of what we choose to support, and what we choose to ignore.

Most of the time, that weight is hidden. The system is designed that way. Modern commerce runs on distance — between buyer and maker, factory and farm, the click to “buy now” and consequences that follow.

That distance isn’t just physical — it’s emotional.

We buy things made halfway around the world, shipped in from places we’ll never see, from economies we don’t understand. We’ve grown used to it. And that distance has a cost to the earth, to our neighbors, to our own sense of what we believe is enough.

The further away the source, the harder it becomes to ask hard questions. Or worse, the easier it becomes not to ask anything at all. Forgetting the people, the land, the labor behind the product.

Distance doesn’t just obscure the truth — it gives us permission to stay in our ignorance.

And sometimes, the most honest choice is to do without — simply because the materials came from too far away, or the making harmed something too close to the heart that we can’t in good faith choose to support. But we click “Buy Now” anyway to fill the moment of emptiness, to feel in control, to bypass the values between our values and our desires.  No eye contact. No conversation. No story. Just immersion in our own attachment to have more. Enforcing the illusion that more is better. 

But there are still other options. Ones that pull us closer together as a connected community.

This writing is about what gets lost when we replace people with packaging, and presence with convenience. When buying becomes a transaction, without a moment of relationship… with only an escape from it.

What’s Changed — Vanishing in the U.S., Surviving Elsewhere

In ‘merikkkah, these kinds of markets are just about extinct. What used to be common — flea markets, corner produce stands, sidewalk sellers — have been zoned out, paved over, priced out by supermarkets, strip malls and “lifestyle centers.”

The few that survive have become curated farmer’s market weekend attractions: with $7 kombucha, $8-per-kg green beans, boutique pickles, and designer dog treats. These aren’t bad things — but they’re no longer essential spaces like they used to be. They’re events, not social and living ecosystems. More recreational, not relational. The soul of the market — as a place to trade, talk, gather, and survive — has been flattened under asphalt and Whole Foods parking lots.

In much of the developing world, the market still holds its ground. Not because it’s preserved for tourists or curated for aesthetics — but because it’s necessary. In cities like Istanbul, Bangkok, Lima, and Cairo, markets are woven into daily life. People still rely on them for food, work, repairs, conversation and making a living for their families. The economy is more immediate, more human-scale, built on local needs, not corporate margins or global trade.

One reason these markets survive is that the forces that erased them in the U.S. haven’t yet completely succeeded elsewhere. In many westernized countries, the machinery of capitalism — real estate developers, corporate lobbyists, and bought politicians — systematically pushed out anything that didn’t fit into their scheme for personal wealth, power, and profit. There’s no place for small, irregular, messy spaces in a culture obsessed with order, profit, and surveillance.  The local market was a threat to that system — too hard to control, tax, predict, or franchise.

The global push for “profit above people” hasn’t fully steamrolled these economies… yet… and there is still some resistance. Markets survive not just out of tradition, but because the people who rely on them haven’t fully let them go — and in some cases, the powers that be haven’t yet found a way to erase them — or haven’t needed to, because they somehow benefit from their existence.

Why They’ve Been Pushed Aside — Fear, Control, and Branding

One-stop shopping didn’t just replace the local market — it did so through fear. We were taught to distrust anything unregulated, unpackaged, or unsanitized. Hygiene. Food safety. Counterfeit concerns. All valid in some contexts, but also powerful tools of control.

Governments stepped in with codes, licenses, and patents. Supermarkets replaced farmers selling their freshly harvested abundance. Packaging and marketing replaced personal relationship. And we were made to believe it was all for our protection.

Then came the branding, trying to make things more personal. Prada, Nike, Louis Vuitton — their logos became shorthand for status, belonging, aspiration and imagined identity. They told us stories about who we are, or who we wanted to be. And the more we bought into those stories, the further we drifted into those false identities of ourselves — and the further away from the relationships with the real people who actually made our goods.

The more our worship of brands grew, the more we became consumed by how we appeared… our own status, prestige and power. The less we cared about engaging with the source — whether our stuff was made by child labor or in the most Bangladesh(y) conditions.

Regardless of the branding, a shadow economy was rising. Not just being built on imitation, but on our desire to appear a certain way.

We began to care more about the illusionary of our own identity, our outward presentation, our commodified selves — the display of wealth and status became the priority. Our value measured by the symbols of wealth and curated images of ourselves: Fake shoes. Fake bags. Fake Botox. Fake hair. Fake implants. It became less about how we are living, and more about the stuff that pretended to show we’re living well. This illusion only masking the real hunger for belonging.

But it’s not all illusion.

Brands earned their power by delivering something real: Performance, reliability, warranty. You buy a Bose speaker because it is some of the best sound. A Toyota vehicle because it lasts. These are reputations built on quality, not just image. In a marketplace full of knock-offs and quick fixes, the brand becomes a shortcut to certainty — a signal you can trust when you don’t have time to test everything yourself.

In the old markets, no one cared about whether your clothing label was real or a replica. They cared if your jackfruit was ripe, if your shoes would last, if your kids were fed and cared for. Trust was built within the community of people. That’s how commerce began — and in many places, it still survives that way.

Discernment in the Age of Branding

In a world saturated with marketing, advertising, logos and lifestyle branding, trust is outsourced. We’ve lost the care to know who made our shoes, whether it was a child, or someone earning next to nothing in unsafe conditions. We rarely ask where the materials came from or about the conditions in which they were extracted. The logo, the advertising, the branding… it’s all part of the message (or the illusion) that tells us everything we think we need to know: quality. prestige. Social acceptance. even identity.

But in the market — the real market — there are no shortcuts. No glossy labels. No QR codes. No curated reviews. You have to pay attention. You use your senses. You ask questions. You do your best to learn…
Who’s honest. Who cuts corners. Who lies.
Whose jackfruit was grown without chemicals.
Whose sandals fall apart after a week.

These open markets require discernment. And somewhere along the way, many of us lost that. Myself included.

We became lazy, didn’t want to do our homework anymore, and traded the trust of our own instincts for the convenience of reputation. We bought trust in the form of advertising, marketing, and packaging. We began to believe that if something wasn’t labeled, licensed, or certified, it wasn’t worth much.
Yet another great illusion.

But brands aren’t always honest. They don’t always guarantee quality — and even when they do, they’ve become symbols of our capitalist culture built on aspiration and appearance. Sometimes they are false promises. Symbols we chase, sometimes desperately. Wouldn’t I look so much more confident and successful if I were behind the wheel of a Mercedes Benz?

Isn’t this why fakes flourish? Not just because they’re cheaper, but because appearance is what matters. You don’t need a real Louis Vuitton bag. Just one that looks close enough. It’s not about quality. It’s about recognition. The costume still works that way.

And sometimes, the fakes are good enough. Sometimes they’re junk. That’s the strange truth. In markets, you can find fakes right next to the most beautifully handmade goods. Machine-stitched knockoffs beside hand-stitched leather. Mass-produced, made in China trinkets beside a families craft passed down generation to generation.

It’s not always easy to tell the difference. But isn’t that’s the point? In a world without packaging to do the thinking for you, you have to look closer. You have to do your homework. You have to decide what’s good. What’s real. What’s good enough. Or when it’s better to do without.

Discernment becomes its own kind of currency.

This is something I teach my students, too: before you buy something, investigate who made it. Don’t stop at the brand or the marketing — look underneath it. Is the business ethical and kind to the land? To its workers? To the animals? Are the materials truly local or imported and “greenwashed” (a new word for me) for consumer appeal? What’s the real cost behind the price tag?

Because marketing has become the language we use to make decisions. A sleek design, a catchy slogan, psychologically tested for consumer manipulation, delivered through a curated Instagram feed. But behind the story is something else entirely.

And often, it’s not nearly as beautiful.

Markets as Social Fabric — Not Just Commerce

Markets were never just where you bought your clothing, vegetables or homemade crafts. They were where people got caught up on life with each other. A community of small-time farmers, artists, cooks, beginner entrepreneurs. A place where the busyness of life stalls a little bit.

You get to run into your neighbor, ask what they are cooking, hear how their sick grandmother was doing. It’s place to ask, to offer, to gossip, to be seen.

Local markets aren’t just economic. They are a social infrastructure. You don’t necessarily go for the lowest price. You go for the feeling of being part of something.

The stallholders know your name, what you like, and how you like it prepared. They notice when you didn’t show up. They ask how you’ve been. They ask you to try something new to get your opinion.

You buy from someone who has a story, and over time, we become part of each other’s story.

Malls can’t ever give you that.
Neither will clicking ‘Add to Cart.’

Conclusion — Still Showing Up

I still don’t have a clean answer for any of this.

Markets aren’t perfect. They can be chaotic, cruel, stunning, human. Sometimes I leave with something I love. Sometimes I leave shaken.

Cairo was like that.

The Souk al-Gomaa got under my skin. Not because it was charming, but because it wasn’t. It was messy, loud, unfiltered. I saw species in cages I didn’t expect to see. I witnessed animal suffering I wish I hadn’t. And yet, alongside that: color, barter, laughter, survival. People hustling to live. People showing up. It wasn’t curated. It was real.

Souk al-Gomaa has stayed with me — because it refused to pretend. And maybe that’s what markets do best. They reflect the truth of who we are, not just who we want to pretend to be. They hold the contradictions: care and exploitation, tradition and invention, nourishment and neglect.

Still, I go back.
I still believe in them — not because they’re innocent, but because they’re honest. They remind me what it feels like to belong to something with a heartbeat.
An economy made of hands and stories, of faces and food, of messiness and meaning.

Not everything needs to be wrapped in plastic, tracked with a barcode, or promised with a warranty.

Sometimes trust in each other is enough.
Sometimes presence is enough.
Being part of something imperfect and alive MUST be more than enough.

So I keep showing up.

And I hope we don’t lose these places.
Because I think they teach things to us,
and know more about us than we realize.

Below YouTube video is the market in Cairo I am talking about… make the choice to watch because some images are difficult to see.