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.