Here is one of the problems with the local market.
Inside the building are the official, licensed vendors. They pay for their stalls, are subject to regular inspections and are generally dependable and friendly. I've been shopping there for over 15 years and they treat me like a regular, as they should.
I tend to return to the same people again and again. There are at least twenty people selling mushrooms, but I always buy mine from the same woman. She is funny and lovely. She also does me a good deal on asparagus.
Similarly, I've been buying aliums from the same husband and wife team for 15 years. Onions, garlic (including the wonderful single head variety) and shallots).
Unfortunately, my favourite chicken lady* retired, but there are others.
Outside the market building, on the approach roads are all the unlicensed people. They sell pretty much the same stuff, but it can be a little sad to see an old woman setting up her pitch with three onions and a carrot.
Several times a week, the deeply unpopular bullying thugs from the local City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau (chengguan) turn up and move them on - when they are in a good mood. When it gets ugly, they confiscate goods; confiscate vehicles carrying the goods (from bicycles to minivans); beat people up and on occasion kill them, although that hasn't happened in this city.
Anyway, they arrive, the vendors scatter in a panic of greenery, hang out round the corner and wait for the chengguan to go back to their office for a well earned cup of tea, then move back into place.
Here is a favourite spot for unlicensed vendors on the approach to the market. It is under a railway bridge and offers shelter from rain and the blistering sunshine we have at the moment.
Yesterday - 11:22 am.
Today - 10:45 am.
I usually take my camera there on weekends. The chengguan don't usually work weekends, so it's a free-for-all. much more interesting!
By the way, much as the unlicensed people interest me, some of them are desperately poor, Most aren't. I usually only buy from the licensed people. It's just safer. Health-wise.
* I have to be careful with my expression 'chicken lady'. A literal translation into Chinese is also slang for 'prostitute'. A male prostitute is a duck. © 2014 Things You Didn't Need To Know
