The Official and the Commercial

With my work with refugees or anyone visiting my country, I often ask about first impressions. To get beyond surface impressions of burgers and traffic I usually pose the question this way; "So you know you are in the United States when you fly over land or get off the plane. You know this cognitively, but then there is a time when you really realize with your full body and mind that you are in a new place. Have you had this experience?" This question usually gets at the heart of values and underlining assumptions.
So, if I were to answer the question myself about my first impression of India I would have to tell the story of my first few minutes in the airport. So, of course, I knew I was in India when I got off the plane and saw lots of Indian looking people, attendants in the bathroom, directional signs written in Hindi. But, the point where I really said to myself, "this is it, you are in India" was right after left customs. After presenting my passport and answering the usual questions of the boarder guard I walked forward to be right in a duty free shop. At no point had I decided to go into a duty free shop, in fact I thought I was still in the official/governmental portion of the airport. It was almost like I was transported from officialdom, where paperwork and uniforms are the norm to a land filled with duty free whiskey and beautiful women in smart dresses.
Well I wasn't transported, but the reason it seemed like it was because there was no wall or distance separating the customs counter with the duty free shop. Usually in the U.S airports are built so that there is a clear zone of commercialism and officialdom. For those Americans, imagine walking out of the security gauntlet directly into a store selling those inflatable airplane pillows and luggage.
Also, I thought which business owner gets this extremely favorably placed store. Did the business person have to pay high rent or was he or she just very well connected with the local government official who was responsible for building the airport. Is this official/commercial boundary-less duty free store a manifestation of how business and politics merge in India?
But need there be boundaries? Perhaps this idea that there ought to be a boundary between official space and commercial space is an American or Western notion. Perhaps even the categories of official and commercial are cultural constructs I am imposing.

Intercultural Tip: Be mindful of surprises within new cultures. Let these surprises provide an affective impetus to explore your own culturally constructed categories.