the market I like best

I like to see a city through its markets. The people are all there - tapping the watermelons and picking the best eggplants they can find. I like the colors and the smells, the wet floors and the sleeping vendors. I like the shopkeepers playing chess in the corners and fishmongers slopping bits into buckets. 

Walking in markets is like reading short stories with quick vivid scenes that happen in a moment and then fall into calm. There is shouting and then quiet, arguing and then agreement. It has everything in a space where everyone comes to gather.

Chengdu's YuLin Market is a two floor cement structure with vendors inside and out. It's not glamorous and it's not otherworldly. The normalcy is the real beauty of the place.

There is a plaza out front where locals drink tea and play cards and watch dogs sleep in the shade. There are snacks sold on the outer edges of the market and in the stores that crowd up to it along the streets nearby. There is a man who makes giant rice krispie treat-like snacks by pressing a sticky mixture into wooden molds and a woman selling meat patties next to a shop selling who knows what. There are always chicken feet and pig ears and rabbit heads at the ready.

I like this place because there is stuff to like. I like the strangenesses and the appreciations and the images you can't shake once you've seen. I like the spicy rabbits and the Sichuan dialect all swirling together.

  I like that this is normal and that this is Chengdu.