标题: 跳蚤市场的起源（挑战你的英语水平） [打印本页] 作者: 儿童团长 时间: 2007-11-14 17:39 标题: 跳蚤市场的起源（挑战你的英语水平） Origin of Flee market
http://www.findafleamarket.com/page7.htm
A flea market is a facility that rents space to anyone that offers for sale to the general public merchandise, products, items, services and all other legal needs of the buying public. These renters are known as vendors. Flea markets are w worldwide business that has been around for hundreds of years and could be considered as a multi-billion dollar worldwide industry that has never been and probably never will be truly defined.
Flea Markets are the incubators and breeding grounds of entrepreneurs that represent the Free Enterprise System and they are the representatives and protectors of an American Way of Life. Flea Markets are the only opportunity available for a person to start a business without a large layout of capital and long term commitments.
Albert LaFarge, author of U.S. Flea Market Directory, says, "Today's American flea market is a modern version of a phenomenon that has endured throughout history in all civilized societies - wherever there is a high concentration of people, there will be market days when they assemble for the exchange of goods and services." The marketplace of the ancient Greeks was known as the Agora; in Rome, the Forum; and in Israel, at the Temples. Each nation has its own name that translates into flea market.
America has approximately 5000 flea markets, swap meets, open-air, farmers, antique and collectible markets and special events, with an estimate of over one million vendors and one hundred million annual shoppers.