Qingping market

I love this country and will be so sad to leave. The people and places and food are all amazing - for as nice as it will be to go home and be given a napkin in a restaurant or have hangers for my skirts, I will miss China.

Yesterday Jason took us to Qingping market in the old section of Guangzhou. It's primarily a medicine/herbal market and a pet market. 

I learned that you can get just about anything on a stick or in dried form: sea horses, lizards, snakes, giant mushrooms, fish bubbles (not entirely sure what those are, still - there wasn't an easy translation), scorpions, squid, chicken kidneys...

   

Mostly the medicines are sold to pharmacists (or the Chinese equivalent) who are willing to spend the time boiling and making the teas and pills and whathaveyou. Jason informed me that most people don't have the time or inclination to make the remedies themselves; they buy them premade.

In the pet portion of the market we encountered vats of live scorpions (for eating), a moving bag (turtles? snakes?), cages of birds, some dogs, and a lot of fish.

  

Jason asked Olivia what pet she liked best, and whether we had any. I then made a strategic mistake.

"Do you have a pet, Jason?" He got a funny look on his face and said, "When I was seven, I had a dog but someone stole him and ate him. After that, no more dogs."

Dude. What do you SAY in response to that? 

 

Comments

[Webhill]

Fish bubbles = air bladders??

[Jill Defelice]

I am loving your blog (only just found it this month) as I live in Guangzhou and share your adventures in a very real way. As you know it is a city that constantly confounds and amuses. We are writing a story on the street markets next month for the GWIC Gazette and I was wondering if we might use (and credit) a couple of your Qing Ping market photos. (wow, they still have lizard on a stick, huh?)
Hope you are enjoying your new life. :)