This is a repost from two posts in April 2007 on my former blog. This topic is so fascinating that I even created a lens all about the Chinese Wet Market. It’s something of a virtual field trip to buy vegetables and meat along with me at my neighborhood market. The photos there are all newly taken.
After you get used to shopping an an open air market (literally vegetable market in Chinese), you are never satisfied with supermarket produce again. Why? It’s cheap and fresh!
This is pumpkin here in the front. The shape is different, but the flavor is the same.
In this picture above you can see how the vegetables are weighed to calculate the price. There is a weight that is suspended from the wooden pole. Wherever the weight balances along the pole indicates how many jin the veggies weigh. The pole has notches on it to signify one, two, three jin, etc. A jin is also called a catty in English. But I’ve never heard anyone use that word. I’ve only seen it written in various literature. It’s approximately one pound or half a kilogram.
Warning — those with a weak stomach may be troubled by the next section of pictures. For those of us who live here in China, these images are normal, daily scenes. But if you find meat disgusting, please select another entry to read here at my blog.
Here are the meat stalls.
Selecting meat with a daughter’s help.
A friendly meat vendor.
Yes, every stall has bare light bulbs hanging at head height. It’s hard to see the faces of the vendors, but you can see the meat. (That’s important!)
You can see that in a market, there are multiple meat vendors. These stalls all sell pork. Beef is fairly rare. In fact, I’ve never seen it at the two markets I frequent.
I’ll bet you’ve never seen a toddler this close to a butcher knife!
Safety means something totally different here in China.
Continuing our tour of the open market…..
Besides meat and vegetables, there are many other things we can buy at the market.
These are blood cubes. I believe one is from chicken and one is from pig, but I’m not totally sure about that. I’ve never bought it. I have eaten blood before. But I didn’t like it. It’s not something that I ask for.
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Hi, I'm Jimmie, and this is my online collage -- a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but mostly homeschooling with a loosely Charlotte Mason style. You're welcome to poke around and leave a comment if you desire. 
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Oh what fun to see your markets! They are pretty similar to ours sans tofu and of course pork and blood (because of the religious laws). When we take people to our markets they are amazed that the meat just hangs there with no refrigeration or packaging. This is how people have lived for centuries and not got sick. Hygiene and safety (like you mentioned) has a totally different spin on it here
So, why did you call it a “wet market”? . . . I’ve never heard that term before. Maybe you answer that question on the lens.
Thanks for the info on exactly what a jing is. I never have actually taken the time to figure it out beyond what it “da gai” feels like to me.
Here in Tw, we have blood cubes from ducks and pigs. The pigs blood is darker–almost black–while the ducks blood is more of a reddish brown. Never heard of or seen chicken blood cubes.
What a great lens!! That’s fantastic, Jimmie!!
I read on the lens about your guesses as to the origin of the term “wet market” . . . .so it is called a wet market in Chinese too? Or is that only an English thing? Do you know??
Here this kind of meat and veggie market is called by the time of day (ie. morning market or evening market). Other markets like flower, fruit, jade, and so on are called by their product names.
VERY INTERESTING . . . thanks for sharing.
P.S. after I pushed submit I realized I left off the apostrophes to make my pigs and ducks possessive in the last comment. Shame on me . . .
@ short– You are so right! We survive! And the people here are certainly surviving as well! Our bodies are amazingly resilient. Isn’t in interesting that allergies come from LACK of exposure to germs and viruses? We’re almost too healthy for our own good.
@ Amanda,
You are probably right about the blood. I don’t ask too many questions about it. It’s pretty distasteful to me.
Great post. I am really enjoying your new blog (liked the other one too actually!). When I lived in Africa we mainly used open air markets and like you say, it is amazing how ‘safety’ has a very different meaning in such cultures. I totally agree with your comment on allergies and as a result I refuse to make my home TOO clean and I encourage my boys to play in the dirt!! Not come across ‘blood cubes’ before -sounds yucky!
God bless you!
Sarah
This has been an education!! The only thing I have to compare this to, are our farmers markets, but I’ve NEVER seen meat hanging out in the “open air” like that. It’s amazing!
We’ve over civilized ourselves into allergies and sickness in our efforts to avoid those exact things. We have all forgotten how our ancestors lived.
Not much beef, eh? Interesting.
And “blood cubes”?? Ew.
the meat stalls did make me cringe a little…thanks for the heads up.
I would pass on the blood cubes– ewww! The fresh veggies look AMAZING. It would definitely encourage me to eat healthier, that’s for sure. Do you buy your meat at the market too? Can you count on it being pretty fresh or do you really have to be cautious as to not get a piece that will make you sick?