(warning: this post contains not-so-pretty images)
Ah.... the days of buying the Publix premade fruit bowl for the week are over. With our current location in Beijing, the Sanyuanli Market is where I have found to be the best place to shop. It's considered to have the freshest produce and is a place where most embassy/diplomats shop. The first time I went here, I had no clue what to do. I didn't have a bag, couldn't speak a word of Chinese, and had no idea how much to ask for things or how to tell quantity. I literally walked into the market, straight through and out the back. I was embarrassed, scared, nauseated.... you name it. Sometimes pictures give you a better idea of what I mean, so here goes:
The outside of the market. It's literally a long tube, morton-like building. No windows.
Walking in, you are greeted by the fruit people. The first time I went, people were yelling at me, "Fruit! Come here! You want fruit?!" It was crazy. I did my best to avoid eye contact with anyone and felt inclined to say, "No thanks" to them all. Now, I walk in and nobody yells at me. They know me and they know I am loyal to my fruit lady.
This is my fruit lady. I don't know her name. She doesn't know mine. But when I walk to her stall, she instantly serves me. She gives me free samples because I am a loyal customer. When I buy from her, she holds on to my bags for me so that I don't have to walk around carrying them the entire time I'm shopping. The first time I bought fruit, I wanted to know how much each and every individual item was. Now, I just point and hold up fingers as to how many I want and pay at the end. I know she won't rip me off. At least I hope she won't....
She has stall #7. She is the first person I ever spoke with in the market. The first week I bartered for some blueberries - a very expensive and hard-to-find fruit in Beijing. I got her to give me a deal and I don't think she was happy about it. But she pointed up to her #7 sign and said, "Next week, you come here." I quickly realized how to earn my deals. She types in my total on a calculator and I pay her what she asks. No bartering.
These are delicious. I don't know what they are - perhaps some type of a cherry. You peel the outside and there is a small seed in the middle. The inside fruit is white. If you know what they are called, let me know.
A glimpse of looking down the long market mid-way.
There's just about type of food you might ever think of here. I don't ever eat the freshly made vender stuff. I stick with organics!
This all looks delicious and incredibly fresh, I just don't know what to do with it.
Spices are not really hard to come by, but they are difficult to purchase. Does that make sense? Here is a shelf of about every McCormick spice you could ever want. But you don't buy the jar. The spices are weighed out.
Cinnamon IS a hard one to come by here. It's usually mixed with sugar. But today I was lucky and found Cinnamon, straight-up!
So I had to have some. Of course, it was weighed and placed in a plastic baggie.
This is the owner of the little vender where I bought the cinnamon. I also bought olive oil and jelly here. You can actually call and pre-order what you want, or have it delivered. Sounds awesome. If you can speak Chinese.
You can pretty much buy about anything you may want in this market. Toys, kitchen appliances, shoes, etc.
Brooms. For little people? But what is comical is the heels next to this. Honestly, the Chinese will wear heels in ANY circumstance.
Today I bought a vegetable scrub brush and ice cube trays. I paid about $0.80.
You have to be careful buying alcohol in China. Many brands are watered down or falsely labeled.
It's a bit hard to get used to most places not putting the eggs in a cooler. They all just set them out at room temp. I take them home and put in my fridge anyways.
Moving down the walkway to the meat section. Please hold on to your cookies if you have a weak stomach.
Yep. Be glad you can't smell through this computer screen.
This is my chicken lady. I use her because she uses gloves. And I think she dresses cute.
This used to be my pork lady until she gave me my cash back. With. The. Same. Hand. She. Then. Used. To. Cut. My. Food.
I don't personally believe in eating organs.
They really hack these things. The knife is brought above their head and then, "WHACK!" I need one of these knives.
If you think the meat section smells..... the fish section is by far worse.
Not quite like the Red Lobster tanks, huh?
Some things are beautiful to see. But who really makes these???
Let's move on to more enjoyable smells, shall we?
The freshest rosemary, thyme, and basil i have ever smelled or used to cook in my life. I find excuses to use it in my dishes.
Vegetables are so cheap. For instance, I bought: 3 sweet potatoes, 5 regular potatoes, rosemary, basil, 2 onions, 4 carrots, green onions, 2 cucumbers, 1 tomato, green pepper, yellow pepper, red pepper, lettuce, broccoli, green beans, garlic clove, and 2 avocados for $8. Fruit is about 4xs that.
This is my vegetable lady. Stall #85. Again, loyalty. Chinese are all about relationships. She smiles when she sees me and knows what I want. Today I thought I had everything I needed and she held up a yellow onion. Thanks for reminding me.
This is her son. She was so busy today she had him working in the aisle. He waited on me and took my food over to another vendor to use their scale. That's a bag of fresh green beans.
Looking towards the front of the market. It's just one long aisle. It was a madhouse today. My pics are a bit blurry due to inability to move and my camera had a bulb that was malfunctioning.
Today is a Chinese holiday - Dragon Boat Festival. The Chinese Dragon Boat Festival is a significant holiday celebrated in China, and the one with the longest history. The Dragon Boat Festival is celebrated by boat races in the shape of dragons. Competing teams row their boats forward to a drumbeat racing to reach the finish end first. The boat races during the Dragon Boat Festival are traditional customs to attempts to rescue the patriotic poet Chu Yuan. Chu Yuan drowned on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in 277 B.C. Chinese citizens now throw bamboo leaves filled with cooked rice into the water. Therefore the fish could eat the rice rather than the hero poet. This later on turned into the custom of eating tzungtzu and rice dumplings. The celebration's is a time for protection from evil and disease for the rest of the year. It is done so by different practices such as hanging healthy herbs on the front door, drinking nutritious concoctions, and displaying portraits of evil's nemesis, Chung Kuei. If one manages to stand an egg on it's end at exactly 12:00 noon, the following year will be a lucky one. Here is a bit of zongzi if you are interested (traditional Dragon Boat Festival food).
I bought 4 of them for 8 Kuai (about $1.30 or so) and gave them to our driver. He politely refused. So I took them home and asked the front desk how to cook them. They said, "Depends on what inside. Probably best to boil but can't be sure." I decided not to risk. $1 is not work indigestion and/or food poisoning to me.
They look pretty though, don't you think?
After I get my produce, I walk down the sidewalk to a "supermarket".
Here's what I can expect to see in just 1 block of walking:
This is a much more organized, open, less-chaotic market to buy produce. I don't shop here for three reasons: 1. price, 2. selection and 3. when in Rome.... I am trying to fully submerge myself in the culture. This shop is more like any farmer's market in the states.
Christmas gift please. My ideal car here in China.
I now realize I need a whole blog post on modes of Chinese transportation....
I thought this was sweet.
Oh and look.... a grandpa holding his grandson so sweetly. But look closely.... he's actually wearing bottomless pants and the kid is taking a whiz right there while gramps holds him mid-air. Nasty. The bottom-less pants are standard clothes for Chinese kids 0-4.
I haven't tried it yet.
But they do deliver!
Finally - here!
This is stop #2 for my groceries. Here there are packaged goods and brand names available. They have an upstairs area with household items. But I can't get too excited, it is a Chinese supermarket, so they don't have what you might consider "staples." No crock pots but every brand of rice cookers you could ever want.
I'm usually about the only white person here.
The "baked goods" section. They are laughing at me because I'm that foreigner with a camera. You gotta get used to getting stared at.
Produce here is almost double what it was across the street.
At $0.50.... these are necessities.
They have tons of sweets, but they are all in Chinese so you don't know what you are getting. Plus, you have to weigh everything (metric people) and label what it is. Until I learn how to read/write Chinese, I pass this section.
That's about it for my grocery shopping. I would like to have taken a picture of the check out at this store, but the people there are not too friendly. They act very irritated when I'm digging through my purse trying to find the correct coin to use to pay them. Not to mention there's always a person standing in line behind me, invading my personal space. They are so interested in what you are buying. I have people that will literally come up to me, stop their stride, and stare into my cart.
Hope you enjoyed my Saturday shopping!
