The Joys of Chinese markets

 Whenever I get to a new place in China there are a couple of things I always try to locate. I want to find the biggest park, so that I can watch people exercising and, if I'm lucky, hear singing and maybe someone playing the erhu. I also want to find the market. 

I came across a really good one in Yan'an in Shaanxi province. I found it by the usual expedient of looking for people carrying bags of fruit and veg and finding out where they were coming from.

The market in Yan'an was a classic of its kind and all the photos are from it. There were stalls of fresh fruit and vegetables, of great variety but almost all from a very small local area. This means they are picked when ripe and tasty because 'shelf life' is not a consideration. There were particularly beautiful big cherries from the area, and I couldn't resist. There were also 'xiao gua' which means 'small melon' which is simply a melon picked small enough that you can simply chomp it down skin and all.

As well as fruit and veg there were spices and tofu and butchery, and there were as usual stalls where you could buy meals and snacks of great variety, usually cooked with the produce from the market. In Yan'an they had several types of local doughnuts and flatbreads and noodles, all cooked fresh.

The stallholders are very talkative and friendly if you have a bit of Chinese, and I found out the names of several unidentifiable fruits. You can try haggling if you like, but it feels a bit mean when the stock is already so cheap. If you go to the edges of the market, you will often find sellers who have no stall but simply set out their wares on a tarpaulin on the ground. And sometimes you even find ones who have gathered local wild herbs and mushrooms. 

All in all it is such a slice of real Chinese life that you really must get to one if you get to China. Your eyes, ears and taste buds will thank you immensely.