Someone told me of a street where I understood there was an open air market. I was expecting something like a roof held up by 4 poles with some small enclosed shops nearby. That concept is common in China. There used to be one beside the college but that emerged as a newly built residential and shopping precinct 15 months ago. When I went looking for the market what I found was a street comprising small shops and multitudes of stalls mainly selling fruit and vegetables. Some adjacent streets were also heavily covered with temporary market stalls primarily selling foodstuffs.
One of the first sights I saw was this man herding his ducks. They’d walked from a residential compound, across the street and were heading towards a narrow alley.
Another unusual sight was these toilet seat covers. Western style toilets are extremely rare anywhere. However, I have seen one or two commode chairs so maybe the covers are for them.
One of the permanent shops provided metal work and these two were involved in bending metal tubing.
Shoe repair shop missing the owner. I had a pair of leather shoes resoled and partly reheeled by a repairman in another part of the city. I only wore them a couple of times before sending them on a trip on the high seas. The repair cost was extraordinarilycheap and they were OK to wear.
The ubiquitous stool. This time it has old tires in it’s construction. Last night I was looking at one of my textile magazines. It showed a photo of textile artwork created by an American who had visited China a twice. She had sewn one of these stools into her picture.
These were being built as part of a larger complex. They look like garages but resemble the tiny shops which are being demolished all over the city to make way for wider footpaths and sometimes car parking.
I have no idea what it says but it was attached to a wooden bench holding a section of bloodied tree trunk which was outside a closed shop. Readily visible Arabic writing is not common in my city although there is a larger Chinese Muslim presence than I had expected.
Sausages of some kind drying outside and inside the shop.
A box of quail eggs.
Probably sweet potato cut into chopstick sized portions.
A small shop selling fruit kebabs.
Peking Duck
I stopped to photograph the 3 duck heads. The stall owner immediately whipped the duck from one of the large vats nearby and laid it down before I had time to photograph the heads alone.
A colourful array of preserved vegetables.
Making plain buns.
1 Dough is broken from the mass in the middle right of the photo, weighed, rolled and painted with something from the bowl. Seeds are sprinkled from the grimy containers at the front.
2 Then it is placed on the hot plate where the other half of the duo turns it fairly quickly.
3 After an initial heating the bun is transferred underneath the hotplate where it is rotated and moved.
4 The finished item. I bought one and while it was OK it didn’t have much flavour. I’ve found others which appeared plainer to have more flavour.
