Category: China’s Great Markets 中国农民市场

China’s Great Markets 中国农民市场

Jinhong Fish Market

China’s Great Markets 中国农民市场 is a collection of anecdotes and photos from the Chinese markets we have visited over the years.

Fish Trap Seller Anshun Sunday Market

Some like the huge Sunday Market in Anshun hardly exist anymore. Others such as Chong’an (Guizhou) and the various Markets in the Yuanyang (Yunnan) area continue to this today, albeit on a different scale and less and less colourful.

Hani Minority in Xiding Market Yunnan

Modernization brings conformity; especially in dress-code. Many young people from China’s myriad of ethnic minorities are forsaking their traditional clothes for the modern fashionable styles that the urban Chinese are wearing and only donning their colourful costumes on holidays and for tourists.

Qing Ping Market Guangzhou

Some of our photos show a China that will not be seen again. Artisans such as basket weavers, bamboo fish net producers, street dentists, and bucket makers are fast disappearing characters from the markets. Once ubiquitous, they are now the exception.

Halal Market Xining Qinghai Province

It’s sad, but inevitable that these trades will vanish; as China races ahead with its modernization, the countryside will enter into that transformation program.

Hotan Sunday Market 2003

We still have several markets to add to the ones we have already posted.

Kashgar Horse Market 1990

Articles:

A Trip to Wase Market: Lake Erhai Yunnan Province

Laomeng Sunday Market, five Minorities At One Market

Hui Minority Market in Lhasa

Menghai Market Yunnan Province (勐海市场) is a large agricultural produce market in Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna province.

Anshun Sunday Market used to be one of the biggest and most spectacular in China.

Hair seller Anshun Sunday Market 安顺市场卖头发的农民

Faces of Chong’an Market is a selection of photos taken at the bustling market of Chong’an held once every five days.

The huge market held in Chong’an every five days is one of the best and most colourful in Guizhou.

Rongjiang Sunday Market is one of South West China’s great markets. It is where the Dong and Miao minorities come together on a Sunday morning for a few hours of shopping mayhem.

Xiding Market Yunnan (西定市场) in the Xishuangbanna Region of South-West is one of the best minority markets to visit in the region.

Qingping Market: the Legend:The unfortunate young girl had passed through Guangzhou’s notorious Qingping Market (清平市场) and seen two kittens kept in a tiny cage.

Hotan is remote. It is one of those end of the world places beyond which begins one of the world’s largest deserts, the Taklamakan

Qingping Market An Urban Legend

Qingping Market 清平市场 Guangzhou (An Urban Legend)

Qingping Market 清平市场

Guangzhou 广州 1991 & 2013

The Urban Legend

Guangzhou Youth Hostel, March 1991, Shamian Island

Qingping Market An Urban Legend; The rumor going round the hostel was about an American tourist who had fled China in tears after only 2 days into her 1 month trip.

The Legend
The unfortunate young girl had passed through Guangzhou’s notorious Qingping Market (清平市场) and seen two kittens kept in a tiny cage. The kittens were destined for the tables of Guangzhou’s restaurants. Thinking she would do the kittens a good turn, she negotiated a price for them. Expecting to save the kittens, she hadn’t counted on what would happen next. The store holder took the kittens out of the cage snapped their necks and handed their lifeless bodies over to her. She freaked out and was on the next express train back to Hong Kong.

Whether this is just an urban legend or a true story any visitor to Qingping Market in 1991 could believe it. The variety of animals waiting to be butchered made it feel like a zoo rather than a normal meat market. I remember Monkeys, Pangolins, giant salamanders, snakes, deer, dogs and even owls. The orangey color of dog meat roasting on spits was a common sight as were the restaurants with cages outside full of exotic fauna that made eating out a bit like dinning in a slaughter house.

However, we could never be certain that the cat story was true. Maybe it was just an urban legend.

Qingping Market Today

Today Qingping Market is a far mellower place. It is not that the Cantonese have given up their love of wild food. The famous Yeweixiang Restaurant (literally; the Wild Animal Restaurant) has a menu that reads like an A-Z on Fauna. It is said that it once served Tiger.

Rongjiang Photos

Rongjiang Sunday Market (Guizhou Province, 2007 Click here for updated article)

dong minority at Rongjiang Market 榕江市场 Guizhou Province 贵州省 — Dong minority at Rongjiang Market 榕江市场 Guizhou Province 贵州省

See updated article

sellers at dong minority at Rongjiang Market 榕江市场 Guizhou Province 贵州省 — Shopping in Rongjiang

curious child at Rongjiang Market 榕江市场 Guizhou Province 贵州省 — Shopping in Rongjiang

Laomeng Market Jinping Yunnan

For an updated and complete version of Laomeng Market with new photos please click here:

Laomeng Market (Jinping, Yunnan Province)

The hotel owner in Yuanyang had told us to get there early, as many of the hill tribe people have to walk all the way back and the market starts breaking up at around noon.

First to Arrive

So we got to Laomeng at about 8:30, where we were among the first to arrive. We walked once round the town and had a look at the few stalls already set up by a small number of colourfully dressed Miao ladies and some older Yi women. Most of them seemed as curious about us, as we were about them. By the time we got back to our starting point, dozens of vans, carts and other vehicles had already arrived, unloading hundreds of passengers and all kinds of goods.

a kaleidoscopic mix of colours

They brought with them a kaleidoscopic mix of colours, as ladies from the Hani, Yao, Yi, Miao and Black Thai ethnic groups spilled out from the back and descended upon the market for a few hours of frenzied buying and selling.

For the next 3 hours we were treated to a visual feast that left us drained and out of film. Our driver had filled us in on some of the intricacies of the local costumes, so we were more or less able to distinguish between the women from the different ethnic groups.

Every Five day Chong’an Market

Click on the links for an updated article and new photos.

Every Five day Chong’an Market

Every five day Chong’an Market Guizhou 重安市场贵州 is just openning for business. The early morning mist and heavy cloud cover bestowed an eerie atmosphere over Chong’an. The river was motionless and silky smooth like a millpond. The town and the surrounding scenery seemed as if suspended in a landscape painting. Silence reigned. Then there was a shout, a curse and the haggling began. Chong’an Market was open for business.

Click Here for Updated Text:

Click Here for New Photos: Faces of Chong’an Market

CHONG’AN MARKET PRACTICALITIES:

Coming and going: We visited Chong’an from Zhenyuan in a car we had hired. The trip took about two and a half hours as we stopped at a few places on the way and back. However, if you are using public transport, then it is better to travel from Kaili, from where regular buses leave throughout the day.

Accommodation: We saw a couple of nice and simple guesthouses with signs welcoming foreigners near the wooden suspension bridge. Near this area there are also a number of interesting looking paths leading off into the green hills, towards other Miao villages.

Continue reading “Every Five day Chong’an Market”

Xiding Market – Xishuangbanna

Xiding Market – Xishuangbanna

We abandoned our driver, his car buried deep in the mud, and mounted a motorbike. Ironically, the previously treacherous mud bath soon became a reasonably smooth, semi-asphalted road. The drive was stunning: we passed Dai villages with their traditional raised wooden houses, thick jungle and vistas of mist-covered hills and valleys flashed by, and just when it seemed that the scenery couldn’t get better, we arrived in Xiding, looking like an island floating above the clouds. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, the town revealed itself as a bit of a dump.

A rough market town

The small, grubby market town of Xiding may seem a strange destination, especially if you have to spend so much time and effort trying to get there, but its Thursday market is one of the most authentic ethnic markets in Xishuangbanna. A hive of activity from dawn to midday, the market attracts nearby Dai, Hani (Aini or Akha), and Bulang minorities. It is said that Lahu also drop in, but we didn’t see or recognize any. The only real sign of Han-Chinese presence are the huge military barracks overlooking the town, a reminder that the Myanmar border is only a few kilometres away.

Curious Locals

The market occupies a large square, just up the road from the bus station, as well as some of the adjacent streets. There is nothing touristy about this market, the only things on sale are local produce, household goods and cheap clothes. A few noodle stalls feed the hungry shoppers. With everybody busily going about their business, nobody tried to sell us anything. The local kids, pipe- smoking old men and colourfully dressed women occasionally glanced at us with a certain amount of bewilderment, probably wondering why we had made it all the way out there. Even if you can speak Chinese, it is quite difficult to explain that you have come to see them.

hani-having-lunch Xiding Market 西定市场 Yunnan

Hotan / Khotan / Hetian/ 和田

City of Jade / City of Anger

Hotan is remote. It is one of those end of the world places beyond which begins one of the world’s largest deserts, the Taklamakan, an enormous area of sand dunes and barren rocks forming some of the most hostile terrain on earth. Boiling in summer, freezing in winter, towns like Hotan hang precariously to the desert’s outer ring, hemmed in by the looming Kunlun Mountains that rise up to the Tibetan Plateau. Over the centuries, many other once thriving oasis towns like Hotan have succumbed to the advances of the Taklamakan, and their half hidden remains lie buried in the sand, a poignant testimony to the harshness of the environment.

Continue reading “Hotan / Khotan / Hetian/ 和田”