Fresh Fish

The wet market is the center of a lot of village activity. It's the place where most everyone comes to buy fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, and assorted other items. The market is set up in a big square. Most of it is under an open-sided covering -- kind of like at a state fair. Inside, the walkways are lined with troughs that capture all the liquid produced from slaughtering and from hosing the place down. Outside, vendors put their wares on the ground flea-market style.

On Saturdays, the wet market is full of live chickens -- all the chicken vendors come to town and line up their wares on the back of the market, forming what I call "the Hall of Doomed Chickens." On other days, chickens and other fowl are sold, but not in the same quantity. This picture is kind of blurry, but you can see that someone is buying a chicken for dinner. After D snapped this picture, the vendor neatly twisted the chickens's neck to kill it. I haven't been brave enough to buy a chicken yet, but I probably will before we leave China.

Mondays are fish days, when the fish-
mongers take over the open area outside the main market. The pavement is covered with shallow containers of water filled with living critters and piles of freshly killed sea creatures of all stripes. When you buy a fish, the vendor will kill it for you and clean it. The men in the photo to the right are cleaning a fish for the person standing in front of them. The square blue containers you see have living critters in them.