In this roadside convenience store, what is classified as something that “must be refrigerated?” That depends upon what one considers the purpose of a refrigerator to be. Here, one can see the refrigerator in use for its designed purpose as it regulates the temperature of items that must be preserved (yogurt drinks, soy milk), while refrigerating other items’ to maintain them at the cool temperature at which Myanmar customers most typically enjoy them (Coke, various local sodas, water).

Outside of this planned-for role, however, there are a few more features of this refrigeration unit that make it desirable beyond its ability to control temperature. Looking at the bottom shelf one notices various beauty products available for sale, such as whitening creams, moisturizer, roll-on deodorant, etc. The two and a half year old daughter, a member of the household within which this shop is located (and napping at the moment), after seeing became interested in these products after seeing her mother them herself. Interested even to the point of wanting to experiment with the merchandise herself. While the beauty products used to be stored in the glass display case in front of this fridge that faces the street, the daughter had figured out how to gain access to the case before long (the sliding glass doors did not lock). In order to keep the goods safe from the toddler’s ambitions and still display them to potential customers, the refrigerator (with its included lock at the base of the glass door) provided a natural “secure display case”.

On the second shelf from the bottom notice the white bags of sugar. Here, both the refrigerators’ coldness and its vacuum seal come in handy protecting the sugar not only from the toddler (who would no doubt enjoy some were she to get her hands on it) but from ants. Although impractical/dangerous to use the more traditional strategy of ant-proofing a piece of furniture or storage equipment on this refrigeration unit, its design protects its contents from enterprising colonies hoping for a big break.