This Little Piggy Went to Market



Something I've noticed during my wanderings of the cities in China is that markets are very different.  I know, Eureka!, right?  Whether indoor or outdoor, ragtag vendor or shopping mall, markets are parceled off to one sort of product being sold.  One street might be an entire street of toys and candy--and children flock the area between school hours.  One street I saw in Zhengzhou was entirely of police equipment shops.  There were 30 hole-in-the-wall shops selling vests and shields, flashlights, sirens and walkie-talkies.  Strange.  Two days ago, here in Guangzhou, we went to the "Pearl Market" which was really an entire nine-story mall of nothing but jewelry shops.  Each shop sold one kind of jewelry.  There was the pearl store, the silver store, the jade store, the crystal store....you get the idea.

Yesterday, I took a walk over to the mainland of Guangzhou--a short hop over a pedestrian bridge--to find the Medicine Market.

View of the highway I crossed over.  You can see another pedestrian crossing like mine in the distance.

I immediately found myself in the middle of a bustling market area.  People everywhere were doing business, walking, zipping around on bicycles, and yelling.  Several times, I saw a circle of people sitting or squatting, playing cards (see above picture on the left).

Right at the bottom of the walkway stairs were cloths set out with exotic animal parts on them.

Look closely and you'll see this guy's selling a tiger paw.

Most vendors sold a variety of dried mushrooms.

This one had bags of rattlesnakes.  Dead ones, of course.

I was able to strike up a converstation with the shopkeeper selling these deer legs.  He told me people make soup out of them, and many people believe they will heal your legs.  He also told me, in his opinion, that, "it was gross." 

Some shops were indoor, larger, and cleaner-looking.

Some just had their wares set out on the sidewalk.  I have no idea what this stuff is.

Above the streets and shops are homes.

The buildings are pretty delapidated.

I saw lots and lots of dried seahorses. 

Some kind of dried sinew or skin or animal product.

Don't forget your lizard on a stick!

Another home behind the shops.  Laundry hangs everwhere in Guangzhou. 

A bag of frogs.  It's funny to me that they're stretched out.

Alligator/Crocodile, um....product?

This guys obviously didn't like me taking his picture!  Ha ha!  He was selling bags of tongues.  He had a tray of tongues that he was massaging oil into. 

Eww.

Tails?

Past the medicine market area, is the pet market area.  (I think the two are so close together because the lines of useage tend to blend together...if you know what I mean.)

There were fish stores, fish tank stores, fish food stores...very specialized.  People were sitting in the street with cardboard boxes full of puppies, kittens, hamsters, etc.

I noticed that the cats and kittens were fed bowls of rice with bits of chicken or seafood mixed in.  I have seen cats tied up outside stores and homes in the various cities.  It strikes me as weird to see a cat calmly sitting on the end of a leash.

These cute puppies had their ears bound.  The majority of dogs you see as pets are small--presumably for space limitations.  It makes me laugh to see dogs riding around in bicycle baskets.  I guess you can't do that with a great dane.

So now you know all about shopping for medicine and pets in China.  Or medicine for your pets.  Or pets for your medicine.