A Short Letter Home

Pounding the pavement

Speaking of the street markets, as I was in the last post, I suppose I should report on our survey of the local markets. Last week we found ourselves in need of red cabbage. Our science curriculum does a good job of providing most of the materials needed for experiments, so you don't need to go chasing around trying to find something like powdered alum. There are, however, a handful of materials they expect you to be able to scrounge for yourself. Up until last week, we had managed to do just that, but then we had an experiment that asked us to use red cabbage water. All one needed to do is to boil up some red cabbage and pour off the leftover water for experimentation. The problem was, the local supermarkets didn't have the red variety. We tried green cabbage, but the green water didn't give us the results the answer book indicated. So we either had to blow off the experiment or find a supplier for the fabled red cabbage.

As I've mentioned before, we've yet to find the courage to try buying food at the street markets. Part of that has been due to our concept of hygiene--as if a supermarket is really as clean as we like to think it is--part has been due to the fact that you actually have to talk to a person to shop at a stall. But necessity pushed us out of the comfort zone, so off we went. Our first attempt was to walk down a road I call the market street. It's an older business district with shops on either side of the road. You also get vendors setting up little tables or blankets on the ground to sell their wares. Of course, you also have pedestrians, bikes, cars and small busses trying to make their way through. It's not the place to go if you have claustrophobia.

Anyway, we strolled down the market street looking at the farmers' offerings. There were many vegetables lying in baskets lined with banana leaves. They looked just as good as the fare offered in the supermarkets and some vendors even kept their produce moist by squirting water on it from time to time. (They didn't make the thunder sound like they do at the Safeway.) But while we saw a few items that weren't offered at the supermarkets, we saw no red cabbage.

The next day, we tried another market. This one is held at an empty lot along one of the main thoroughfares. We've passed it many a time, and new that prime shopping time there is in the morning. By afternoon, the market is reduced to a few die hard meat and fruit vendors. So Monday morning we walked over to the lot. Whereas the market street has all sorts of vendors selling--from veggies to hardware--this market is more properly a farmers' market. There was a greater variety here and more meat vendors (including one who was selling, er, dog), but we still were unable to find that red-hued treasure.

We were finally reduced to the last market of which we were aware. While walking down a more distant street, we had noticed that there seemed to be a market along one of its side streets. So, on Tuesday, we gave it a shot. It turned out to be the biggest market in town, located in a plaza behind all of the buildings. There were vegetables, fruits, meats, spices, clothing, hardware and household goods. We even found a turkey for Thanksgiving! (We didn't buy it, however, since it was not quite dead. Learning to butcher is pretty low on my list of desired Yunnan experiences.) But, alas, one of the things that was not included in this bounty was, of course, the fabled red cabbage. So I guess the child will just have to substitute with beet juice. (That we had foresight to buy in Kunming.)

posted by John @ 9:30 PM