But in her own line she has no objection to publicity. I have said that nearly all women work, and that is so. Married or unmarried, from the age of sixteen or seventeen, almost every woman has some occupation besides her own duties. In the higher classes she will have property of her own to manage; in the lower classes she will have some trade. I cannot find that in Burma there have ever been certain occupations told off for women in which they may work, and others tabooed to them. As there is no caste for the men, so there is none for the women. They have been free to try their hands at anything they thought they could excel in, without any fear of public opinion. But nevertheless, as is inevitable, it has been found that there are certain trades in which women can compete successfully with men, and certain others in which they cannot. And these are not quite the same as in the West. We usually consider sewing to be a feminine occupation. In Burma, there being no elaborately cut and trimmed garments, the amount of sewing done is small, but that is usually done by men. Women often own and use small hand-machines, but the treadles are always used by men only. As I am writing, my Burmese orderly is sitting in the garden sewing his jacket. He is usually sewing when not sent on messages. He seems to sew very well.
Weaving is usually done by women. Under nearly every house there will be a loom, where the wife or daughter weaves for herself or for sale. But many men weave also, and the finest silks are all woven by men. I once asked a woman why they did not weave the best silks, instead of leaving them all to the men.
'Men do them better,' she said, with a laugh. 'I tried once, but I cannot manage that embroidery.'
They also work in the fields—light work, such as weeding and planting. The heavy work, such as ploughing, is done by men. They also work on the roads carrying things, as all Oriental women do. It is curious that women carry always on their heads, men always on their shoulders. I do not know why.
But the great occupation of women is petty trading. I have already said that there are few large merchants among the Burmese. Nearly all the retail trade is small, most of it is very small indeed, and practically the whole of it is in the hands of the women.
Women do not often succeed in any wholesale trade. They have not, I think, a wide enough grasp of affairs for that. Their views are always somewhat limited; they are too pennywise and pound-foolish for big businesses. The small retail trade, gaining a penny here and a penny there, just suits them, and they have almost made it a close profession.
This trade is almost exclusively done in bazaars. In every town there is a bazaar, from six till ten each morning. When there is no town near, the bazaar will be held on one day at one village and on another at a neighbouring one. It depends on the density of population, the means of communication, and other matters. But a bazaar within reach there must always be, for it is only there that most articles can be bought. The bazaar is usually held in a public building erected for the purpose, and this may vary from a great market built of brick and iron to a small thatched shed. Sometimes, indeed, there is no building at all, merely a space of beaten ground.
The great bazaar in Mandalay is one of the sights of the city. The building in which it is held is the property of the municipality, but is leased out. It is a series of enormous sheds, with iron roofs and beaten earth floor. Each trade has a shed or sheds to itself. There is a place for rice-sellers, for butchers, for vegetable-sellers, for the vendors of silks, of cottons, of sugars and spices, of firewood, of jars, of fish. The butchers are all natives of India. I have explained elsewhere why this should be. The firewood-sellers will mostly be men, as will also the large rice-merchants, but nearly all the rest are women.
You will find the sellers of spices, fruit, vegetables, and other such matters seated in long rows, on mats placed upon the ground. Each will have a square of space allotted, perhaps six feet square, and there she will sit with her merchandise in a basket or baskets before her. For each square they will pay the lessee a halfpenny for the day, which is only three hours or so. The time to go is in the morning from six till eight, for that is the busy time. Later on all the stalls will be closed, but in the early morning the market is thronged. Every householder is then buying his or her provisions for the day, and the people crowd in thousands round the sellers. Everyone is bargaining and chaffing and laughing, both buyers and sellers; but both are very keen, too, on business.
The cloth and silk sellers, the large rice-merchants, and a few other traders, cannot carry on business sitting on a mat, nor can they carry their wares to and fro every day in a basket. For such there are separate buildings or separate aisles, with wooden stalls, on either side of a gangway. The wooden floor of the stalls is raised two to three feet, so that the buyer, standing on the ground, is about on a level with the seller sitting in the stall. The stall will be about eight feet by ten, and each has at the back a strong lock-up cupboard or wardrobe, where the wares are shut at night; but in the day they will be taken out and arranged daintily about the girl-seller. Home-made silks are the staple—silks in checks of pink and white, of yellow and orange, of indigo and dark red. Some are embroidered in silk, in silver, or in gold; some are plain. All are thick and rich, none are glazed, and none are gaudy. There will also be silks from Bangkok, which are of two colours—purple shot with red, and orange shot with red, both very beautiful. All the silks are woven the size of the dress: for men, about twenty-eight feet long and twenty inches broad; and for women, about five feet long and much broader. Thus, there is no cutting off the piece. The anas, too, which are the bottom pieces for a woman's dress, are woven the proper size. There will probably, too, be piles of showy cambric jackets and gauzy silk handkerchiefs; but often these are sold at separate stalls.