Walk on the Chinese market (50 photos) Bashny.Net

Continuing the theme of "Journey to the Chinese supermarket».
Writes all the same author, Grigory Potemkin:

I was lucky: I live in Xiamen - one of the most beautiful cities in China.

Xiamen - a city-island in the south-east coast. Only 55 kilometers along the circumference and only 2.5 million inhabitants. Very little by Chinese standards.

It is a city where there are no traffic jams, where the clean streets, where each other are dozens of skyscrapers and business districts sparkle unwashed glasses. Where clean air and where there are no factories. It is an advanced metropolis. Very comfortable and modern. But not without a Chinese flavor.





In our city there is one amazing place - the Chinese market. The market sold primarily until-still-living products. Caught in the market, you realize that you have got a completely different world. The place is ambiguous. And get here is very simple: you just have to roll with one of the central streets and go about 300 meters through the old quarters.

So, the question is about this market. We begin ...

"Alive" market Xiamen is located in the heart of the city, in the old quarters. These neighborhoods are surrounded by walls of skyscrapers, business centers and elite residential complexes. But surely quarters remain in place, knowing that no one will touch them. This face of the old city. They are inviolable. This is a huge time machine. Getting to this place, the transfer of an entirely different reality, 200 years ago.

The market covers an area of ​​three to four square kilometers. He lives among the infinite web of streets in most of these old neighborhoods. Traders are on the sides of streets and sell their goods directly to the hands or with improvised "windows", constructed from the basins, buckets and wicker baskets. In half of the cases "assortment display of goods" is located directly on the ground. And traders squatting, talking with buyers from the bottom up.



Prices in the market is 30-50% lower than in stores. (You can haggle). This product is always fresh. The choice is huge. Here are the three pillars on which rests the popularity of this market. Here an incredible number of people!

The market is divided into several thematic sectors: vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, seafood, poultry and most nightmarish sector - live animals.

So, in order.

Vegetables and fruits. It is a few streets along which the trays with fruits and vegetables. The choice is huge. Coconuts, bananas, pineapple, persimmon, kiwi, grapes, tangerines, pomelos, apples, plums, papaya, mango, pear and dozens of names. With vegetables the same story. There is everything from cauliflower, corn ending. But just go, ask how much it costs, and buy - not enough. No! It is necessary to haggle. And the long, loud and tough! You will fold. Required. From 10 to 30 percent, depending on how are your convincing arguments. And it's not in the money saved. Well, how much can you save money on buying a pound of cauliflower? 5 mao (2 rubles)? The thing is feeling better deal, which invariably occurs after a trade.

After passing the sector of fruits and vegetables, fish hits the streets. Under rusty sheds each other are hundreds and hundreds of trays, which are traded with fish. Sea and river. Caught in the wild and farmed. Live and cooled. Large and small. Expensive and cheap. Hundreds of varieties of fish are on the shelves, overlaid with ice, or rage in plastic basins and buckets. Sumptuous smell here!



This lovely Chinese woman weighing the fish head. It is very common in the hands of local market traders scales. Simple and brilliant, like many Chinese inventions. Robust stick, on the one hand that the corresponding risk is hung plummet. At the other end hung fish head. Weights offset left or right on the scale allows you to set the exact weight of the head! The procedure takes seconds. Weight Measurement - program. What?



In addition we are used to fish with the head, gills, fins and tail, then there are many varieties poluryba-half snake.



I do not know what they are called, and I do not know how they taste. But they are very, very popular with the local population. And trays with live giant worms an increased hype. This picture looks a little scary, but buyers are safely put their hands in a basin of swarming worms and pulled out three or four copies.



Then these long sea snakes move and hiss in their bags, among other products.



If you buy a fish, it is not necessary to carry it home and cleaned in the sink (otskrebaya then with tile stubborn scales within the next week). At your request, it can be cleaned in the market. Right in front of you. This service is free.



Personally, I normally am in the process of cleaning fish. I can cut the fish head and pull out all the insides without any internal ethical controversies. After the fish - it's not the animals.
But in the market, this procedure looks like something is terribly special. Perhaps because of its industrial scale. Here gutting dozens of tons of fish every day.



Specially trained people sitting near trays with fish and, wielding a metal brush to remove scales and sharp curved knife, fish guts at an incredible rate. His face blankly. A foot in rubber boots - knee-deep in blood. As, however, as well as the hands. He throws another batch of fish guts into a fetid pile of brown, the size of a desk, and adopts the new buyer next "client". Such "cutting centers" in the market - dozens! Watched? Let's move on soon!



After a quarter of the fish you get a quarter of seafood. Shellfish and brine, squid, octopus, lobsters, lobsters and other sea creatures unseen. It looks incredible. Something draws its beauty, something scares. Something I want to pick up and take a closer look, and something to watch from afar.

But the Chinese, who are around me, shout loudly and traded with the sellers, deftly picks lobsters and crabs without fear of their hefty claws, and they fill in their bags.



Quarter with seafood - one of the most interesting in this market. It's not so scary, like everywhere else. And some kinds of marine life are striking for its beauty.



I must say that there is less and people. Prices for some types of seafood over high by local standards. And afford to buy in this part of the market can not all.



For example, a pound here this handsome costs 70 yuan. If I had to bargain, it would be worth 50. But still expensive. For visitors to this market - it's expensive.

Frankly, lobster such incredible colors I had never seen before!



There are common lobsters. Price is lower, but not essential.



Shells and shellfish, which can be bought on the market - a great many. All of them are sorted into the bowl and kegs. Small shells, the size of a tablespoon, are quite inexpensive, and they are incredibly delicious. I never cooked them at home, but tried several times in restaurants.



I used to think that all the same shells - shells and seashells. Now I understand that there are dozens of different kinds.



This is no ordinary shrimp! Externally, they are very similar, but it's not shrimp. This is something else. They fidget in the air with their sharp claws. Basin, where is this living creatures, makes a rattle and squeak. A Chinese man who sells these sea creatures, convinced me that they are extremely delicious. Obviously, he read distrust on my face, and then took one of them and broke in half, showing a gray translucent flesh.

- Very tasty! - Said the Chinese and suggested I try it raw meat right.

I refrained. Then he raised it to his lips and sucked loudly content. I smiled tightly and swallowed. A Chinese man showed me the thumb of his right hand and said cheerfully: "Good! Good! »



Immediately sold and toads. They sit in their red grids and doomed croak. Lighten up and look at the sad eyes of passers ankles. Occasionally they are attempting to jump somewhere, but it is impossible to make the grid more than a centimeter. And they continue to sit and wait. Toads wise. They all understand.



You watched the movie "Alien vs. Predator"? So now I know with who drew the main characters of this film. Nothing like I had not seen before. And if I saw it swim in our seas would not exactly. Well, that bathing season has ended. I would not want to step on something like that when you're splashing in the water.



In fact, this divine creature called the trilobite. And I found out that they catch it in our sea and not far from the beaches.



And this is the trilobite more. That's how tempting it looks inside.
What is there is edible and what is not - it is not clear uninitiated layman. But the Chinese, who sold trilobites, convinced me that it is incredibly delicious. This delicacy! Besides, it is very healthy!

Want to try? Only one hundred yuan - a thing!



Immediately sold the turtle. Different. Dozens of species of turtles. Living in the south-east of China, start to get used to the fact that the turtle can be purchased at any eatery, but the turtles of this size I have not seen anywhere else. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure that this is the turtle. Maybe it's something else. But striking dimensions. This instance - the size of a household heater.



Go ahead. These gizmos we call simply and clearly: phalluses. No one knows what they are called in Russian (then do this sometimes have problems), but can be ordered at any restaurant seafood. Tasty!



In our market phalluses sold - a great many. From miniature to giant! Any, as they say, the taste. These, for example, very large. Every - one and a half kilograms. And these smaller, but too big ...

It's hard to describe what it's like their taste. It can hardly something to compare. But I do not buy them for one reason - I do not know how to cook them. Would long ago have time to meet with Chinese chef and learn the secrets of the national cuisine. One day it will happen. But as I look at it and just pass by.



One of the favorite local Chinese delicacies - it's such PIROZHENKO jelly marine worms inside. Every morning at low tide along the coast are dozens and dozens of poor people with buckets and spades. Sometimes they stop and dig a shallow pit. This they collect special oblong shells, which at low tide buried in the sand. Further, these shells are broken up in half and there are retrieved here are worms. If they pour jelly turns vkusnuypirogek! (According to the Chinese, of course). Chinese old people buy them with pleasure. Young people ignore - not glamorous.



But in the meantime, we move on. And on the horizon Vleeshal.



Before entering the Chinese Vleeshal sit with sanding disc. They sharpen knives. Here is the most popular instrument. It looks like this. With one hand, Chinese rotate the crank, which through a simple system of gears spins emery disc, second hand holding a knife. The procedure takes two minutes and costs two yuan.



If the trader need to sharpen the knife so that it cut the hair in half, it gives him here to this Chinese. It is another way sharpening. And he does not just knives sharp and incredibly sharp.



And this man sells knives. And I must say that his goods here more than appropriate and disagrees with a bang. He rolls his cart along the market streets and loudly clanks one blade on the other, with shouts something guttural voice in the local dialect - minanhua.

People come up to him and after an emotional trade and screams coming back for their stalls, holding a new hatchets.



So Vleeshal.

They begin with the chickens. Dead chickens are dense piles on the shelves, boxes, buckets, baskets, and even on the floor. Thousands upon thousands of them. Very much. Affect not only the chickens themselves, as their number. In the dead chickens is not unusual. Chinese chickens are no different from Russian. Their eyes are not already. No growth below. But in China, in addition to our usual white chickens, there are chickens negros. Same only black. How is it? Something like this.

They have the same flesh, the same mental faculties and the same value. Just a different color.



Immediately sold chicken paws on weight. One of the favorite treats Chinese. Chicken legs I walk around the side. They scare me. But the Chinese are buying them by the hundreds. There are a million ways to prepare them. And often you can meet Chinese youth, such simple guys and girls from ordinary families who sit in the evening on the front lawn, drink beer, and then they - kulechek with marinated chicken legs. They grind their joints and spit and nails in front of him on the grass. Such is the snack to beer.



Pork sold already in split and cut into portions. The choice is huge. Counters are endless. No sanitary and veterinary certificate from the seller does not. Why?

Next - harder!

Generally speaking, all that will be described later, will be very tough. Therefore, if you have a heightened emotionality, better not read. I am now seriously. Then again there is a section about how to sell live birds. There's generally all fiercely. Stay here and assume that the Chinese market tour ends at this point.



But those who are confident in their emotions ... moving forward.



Vleeshal - very long. The people here - the darkness. Trade is brisk. Hawkers do not have time to chop meat. Among the pieces of meat are sold as tails, hooves, snout, ears, tongue and inside. All this is bloody piles on the shelves. Quentin Tarantino would definitely like it here.



But we move on through the crowd ... But the goat and smiling at us his crooked smile.



And we go out in the quarter, which sells all living things. This is mainly birds and small animals like rabbits.

Birds sitting in their cages or nets and nervously fluttering, uttering plaintive chest sounds.



Geese tied by the legs, clap their wings on wet asphalt. Terrible picture. But the local buyers are taking it pragmatically. This commodity. Future soup or steak.



Immediately sold and pigeons. They also eat. Fry.

- Mom, what we have today for lunch?
- Roasted doves, son!
- Ahh ... These are the ones that you hacked in the bathroom? There's still blood on the walls.
- That, my good. Go and wash your hands. Five minutes later the table.



Rabbits look remarkably serene. They sit in their cells and continue to gnaw the cabbage. Rabbits silly. I think they do not realize.



I said it would be tough, but now - the trash!

Do you think that buying this mother with her young son? Do not rush. I'll give you time to think.

That's right! She buys Sparrows. Svezheosvezhevannyh sparrow.

The boy chooses sparrows, which he likes. Saleswoman skillful movements decapitates accidents birds and removes them from the skin. Mom said carcass and prepares detail. Everything in business!



In fact, to live skinned sparrow (although it seems to me that this quail), the saleswoman takes no more than seven seconds. It makes it so exhaust the movements that you realize that in life it is sent to the next world than a thousand sparrows. Currently there are no buyers, it processes them one by one and adds the carcass over the cell. Blood drips on live birds, and they panic. But that's nothing.

Skinned as sparrows continued for some time to move. They clap their wings-entrant and plucked feet. Some of them even try to escape. But how far it escape without a head?

I, a grown man, look at that, to put it mildly, difficult. And I perebaryvat itself only in order to make shots. But Chinese boy it easily. He stands beside and pokes a finger in all new victims.



What's this? This advertisement Chinese doctor - a specialist in diseases of large nails and various fungi. If someone nails rotted, it can cure them right there on the market. "Cabinet" the doctor is just between a woman, Burke sparrows and pigeons cells.

With your nails all right? Nothing bothers?



There is also a flower shop and. Correctly. Thought of the stomach - and think about the soul! Ah, the Chinese, they are so romantic!



I sometimes deeply affects how these can be combined incongruous things. But here in China, somehow different. Somehow easier, I suppose.



This girl is selling sugar cane juice. Quite an interesting drink. What it does: it takes a stalk of cane, clears his special knife to peel and puts the stem into the machine. The machine grinds it, separating the juice from the pomace. After that, the juice is poured into cups and bottles and sold.



This seller CDs. He sells video and audio. Very pirated video and audio. One disc - 5 yuan.
- Buy well - he tells me. - It is a place of passage. Previously, I was standing on the waterfront, but there is less people, and the police all the time. And here is good. I like it here anymore.



And this is a Chinese worker. He worked and then tired. To eat and decided to take a nap.








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