What the journey of a pair of shoes reveals about capitalism
And how Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, is changing
In a remote village in Borneo, Fatimah wonders what shoes to wear to her cousin’s wedding. For as long as she can remember, buying footwear meant an hour-long, wooden boat ride to a market. That changed a few years ago, when mobile phones arrived. Now, almost every day, she scrolls through Shopee, a shopping app. It connects her—and the 130m Indonesians who use it every month—with merchants thousands of kilometres away, and causes packages to appear, as if by magic, at her door.
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This article appeared in the Christmas Specials section of the print edition under the headline “Following Fatimah’s sandals”
Christmas Specials December 23rd 2023
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- How five Ukrainian cities are coping, despite Putin’s war
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- What the journey of a pair of shoes reveals about capitalism
- A short history of tractors in English
- Millions of Chinese are venturing to the beach for the first time
From the December 23rd 2023 edition
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