During Ramadan in Brunei, people gather at afternoon markets to buy food and drinks for the meal that ends the day’s fast. The government newspaper Pelita Brunei reported from the Gadong Ramadan stalls on 12 July 2013, describing a market continually busy with visitors shopping for iftar. Cakes, grilled foods, rice dishes and cold drinks are concentrated in one place, and much of the shopping takes place during the short period before sunset.
A separate visual record shows that this was not simply an undifferentiated crowd. A 2018 Brunei community magazine published a photograph captioned as people queueing at a drinks stall beneath the covered Ramadan bazaar. Customers were waiting for the same point of service and receiving their orders in turn. Pelita Brunei’s reporting independently confirms the date, place and purpose of the market: Gadong was one of the country’s principal Ramadan shopping sites, visited specifically for food and drink to break the fast.
This was not a ration line created by scarcity. It was an everyday purchasing queue shaped by a religious calendar. Families and friends would eat after sunset, so many shoppers arrived during the same afternoon window, chose a stall and waited while the orders ahead of them were prepared. The foods and the rhythm of the day were distinctly Bruneian, but the small act at the counter was widely familiar: noticing who came first, holding one’s place and waiting for a desired drink to be handed over.