Bogyoke Aung San Market (; formerly the Scott Market) is a major

bazaar A bazaar or souk is a marketplace consisting of multiple small Market stall, stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, Central Asia, North Africa and South Asia. They are traditionally located in vaulted or covered streets th ...

located in Pabedan township in central

Yangon Yangon, formerly romanized as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar. Yangon was the List of capitals of Myanmar, capital of Myanmar until 2005 and served as such until 2006, when the State Peace and Dev ...

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

. Known for its colonial architecture and inner

cobblestone Cobblestone is a natural building material based on Cobble (geology), cobble-sized stones, and is used for Road surface, pavement roads, streets, and buildings. Sett (paving), Setts, also called ''Belgian blocks'', are often referred to as " ...

streets, the market is a major tourist destination, dominated by

antique An antique () is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely to describe any object that i ...

, Burmese

handicraft A handicraft is a traditional main sector of craft making and applies to a wide range of creative and design activities that are related to making things with one's hands and skill, including work with textiles, moldable and rigid material ...

and

jewellery Jewellery (or jewelry in American English) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment such as brooches, ring (jewellery), rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the ...

shops,

art galleries An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...

, and clothing stores. Bogyoke Market is a popular

black market A black market is a Secrecy, clandestine Market (economics), market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality, or is not compliant with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the set of goods and services who ...

location to exchange currency. The market also has a number of stores for local shoppers, selling medicine, foodstuffs, garments and foreign goods. Moreover, it is the best place to make photo shoots with the ancient building. The market always closes on Monday.

History

Scott Market was built in 1926, late in the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

rule of Myanmar, and although it is commonly believed to be named after

James George Scott Sir James George Scott (pseudonym Shway Yoe, 25 December 1851 – 4 April 1935) was a Scottish journalist and colonial administrator who helped establish British colonial rule in Burma, and in addition introduced football to Burma. Life He wa ...

, the British

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

who introduced

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

to Myanmar, it is named after the Municipal Commissioner of the time, Gavin Scott, a Scottish colonial official who was nearing the end of a 30-year career of involvement in administering the city.A History of Rangoon by B.R. Pearn, American Baptist Mission Press, Rangoon, 1939, p. 284. According to the ''Rangoon Gazette,'' Scott himself was not very keen on the idea, but the Rangoon Corporation rejected a second proposal - to name the market "the Municipal Zegyi" - and voted unanimously to name it after Scott, a tribute from his municipal colleagues in honour of his lifelong contribution to the development of the city. In 1940, a young Burmese nationalist called U Ba Hlaing proposed to change the name of the site to Mingala Market, the word ''mingala'' meaning "auspicious" in the

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

language. Against a background of growing demands for Burmese independence from British rule, he argued that "public institutions in Burma should have Burmese names". The late Mr Scott, he said, "had done nothing for the benefit of Burma" and was merely an

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British Raj, British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 3 ...

bureaucrat paid a "fat salary" like so many others who had reached the end of his career. According to the report in the Rangoon Gazette, this sparked a heated debate within the Rangoon Corporation's Public Health and Markets Committee. One former colleague pointed out that Scott "had done more for the development of Rangoon than any other person", while another Burmese colleague who had worked with him, U Kyaw Zan, said he was "not only a very fine officer, but one of the nicest men one could meet". In the end, the proposal was defeated by three votes to two. Much later, after Burmese independence in 1948, the market was renamed after Bogyoke (General)

Aung San Aung San (, ; 13 February 191519 July 1947), known honorifically as '' Bogyoke'' Aung San, was a Burmese politician, independence activist and revolutionary. He was instrumental in Myanmar's struggle for independence from British rule, but he w ...

. A new wing of the market was added across Bogyoke Market Road in the 1990s. The market structure is listed on the

Yangon City Heritage List The Yangon City Heritage List is a list of man-made landmarks in Yangon, Myanmar, so designated by the city government, Yangon City Development Committee. The list consists of 188 structures (as of 2001), and is largely made up of mostly religious s ...

Gallery

File:Scott Market.JPG, Scott Market in 1890s Jewellery Market, Yangon, Myanmar.jpg, A jewellery market row inside the market File:Bogyoke Aung San Market Map.JPG, Map File:Bogyoke Market Jwelly.JPG, Jewellery File:Bogyoke Ang San Market Yangon.jpg, Textiles

References

External links

Bogyoke Aung San Market with plenty of pictures and videos
Yangon Shopping malls and markets in Myanmar Tourist attractions in Yangon Jewellery districts {{Myanmar-geo-stub