Dr. Female Dr. 6 years visited the national cuisine market: it is crowded and noisy, but the living color is raw and fragrant

Zhong Shuru is an anthropologist.

To study the Chinese cuisine market,

In 6 years, she visited the country,

Instead of entering the 33 vegetable markets in Hainan,

Experience the life of the vendors in person,

Be a friend with more than 300 cooked customers ...

The vegetable market shows the background of a city life,

Although it is crowded and noisy, it is lively.

She hopes to understand the pan -view of the Chinese cuisine market.

Why is the supermarket in China that is not the market?

What is the significance of the vegetable farm for urban life?

What kind of challenge is facing today?

In the future, will there be vegetable markets?

Self -description: Zhong Shuru

Edit: Chen Xing

Responsible editor: Ni Chujiao

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In the vegetable field of Xiamen Bazhi, seafood is the protagonist of the vegetable field

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Beijing Sanyuanli vegetable market, seafood area is the richest place, Australian dragon and emperor crabs are everywhere

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Fruit stalls in Hainan, known for various fresh tropical fruits

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Yunnan Kunming New Cuisine Market, characterized by beanflower rice noodles, tofu, slate and secret dipping water, acidic pickles, and acidic pickles.

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Harbin Daoli Vegetable Market, in winter, vegetables are frozen

My name is Zhong Shuru, a anthropology scholar. In the past 6 years, I have made a study on the Chinese cuisine market.

At the age of 8, I started buying vegetables and cooking myself, so I have a natural feeling for the vegetable market. As long as there is a business trip or travel, I will definitely go to the local vegetable market to see.

Each city is very distinctive. For example, in Guiyang, there are more than 20 kinds of tofu in the market. Is it difficult to imagine? Another example is Fuzhou, the vegetable market is embedded in the first floor of the residential building, which is very convenient, but residents don't want to sleep lazy.

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Shenyang Sita Farmers Market, which is full of ingredients with Korean characteristics

Later, when I grew up, I went to the United States to study for a doctor, and I found that I couldn't find a vegetable farm in the United States. Every week, I can only buy food in the supermarket like Americans, buy food for a week, and fill the refrigerator.

In the United States, more than 80%of fresh transactions are controlled by supermarket giants such as Wal -Mart. Carrefour has also entered China in 1994, and I am curious. Why can the vegetable market endless in China? And China's supermarket is not the food market?

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Most of the impression of the vegetable market is humid and noisy, mixed with various odors

The Chinese vegetable farm is noisy, humid, and seeing very orderly. It is mixed with a variety of complex odors, with various "non -standardized" fresh foods, raw meat, living fish and cooked food very close ... it is attractive to people ... What is the point?

I bought so many years of dishes. How did I come from the food market? What kind of circulation system is it?

These reasons were superimposed, and I decided to delve into the vegetable market well as my doctoral dissertation.

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▲ Zhong Shuru doing research in the vegetable market in Hainan

I started researching from Hainan.

Hainan people like to take a walk at the beach after meals. I caught people and chat at the sea, and I talked more than 300. Ask 10 Hainan people, there may be 9 and a half people. Their most daily consumer venue is still the vegetable market. Why?

Because the freshness in the vegetable market is no other way of shopping channels, freshness is the soul of the Chinese cuisine market.

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Suzhou Limen Hengjie Vegetable Market, seasonal umami is endless

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Xiamen Eight City is very close to the first terminal, and the seafood caught on the fishing boat is transported to the market as soon as possible

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Yunnan Kunming Xingxin cuisine market, flowers and bacteria in spring and summer, wild vegetables in autumn and winter, and the freshest seasonal vegetables in the four seasons

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▲ The Yunnan cuisine market during the rainy season is the world of fungi. Sheparies, chicken crickets, bamboo crickets, red mushrooms, beef liver bacteria ...

I made a detailed survey of more than a hundred vendors. They had an average working hours of more than 12 hours a day, and almost endless year. The small stall, the family's life is there.

I accompanied the fishmongers to the dock to buy the goods. Every time I set off at one or two at night, pick the goods in the dock, and send the fish goods to the stall at the fifty or six in the morning, and hand it to the partner to watch the stall. Sister Hong went home to rest for a while, and came over to help sell fish until 7 or eight in the evening. This is the case every day.

I also helped sell the mackerel for a few months. Although I only went to half a day a day, I already realized that the kind of tiredness and deeply understand that the freshness of the market is given by the hard work of the vendors.

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Foreign supermarkets, fruits and vegetables, meat, and meat are produced through cold chains and other standardized production lines

The West is very strange to our food culture, and the definition of "fresh" is different from us.

Take pork as an example. For Hainan people, the pork bought at the market at 5 or 6 in the morning is still hot and fresh.

Foreigners believe that freshness is given through the cold chain and modern technology. They are pursuing cold fresh meat. After the pig kills, it will be sour, and the meat will become soft. After this process, it is good meat. This is completely different from our cognition.

What kind of Chinese consumers do you like? I definitely like the former.

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Beijing Sanyuanli Market, with 139 stalls, each booth is very characteristic and aesthetic

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Eight cities in Xiamen, a variety of seafood

Therefore, the Chinese cuisine market has a stigma impression abroad.

Some foreign media regard it as a hotbed, unhygienic, and virus breeding. Since the epidemic, the overwhelming voice requires completely shut down the Chinese cuisine market. Like SARS and H5N1 bird flu, whenever this large infectious disease occurs, there will be some public opinion orientation, accusing the vegetable market of being a carrier. This incident is completely misunderstanding of foreign media. Without understanding, they can easily regard China's vegetable market as a modern and hygienic opposite.

In fact, in recent years, with the update of the vegetable market, the shopping environment has been greatly improved. The vegetable market and modernization are parallel.

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The "participating observation" method is that he has also become a photo of Zhong Shuru with a picture of Zhong Shuru with a stall owner.

I stayed in Hainan for 14 months and tried my best to experience the life of the vegetable market.

I first used the most direct way to talk about the status of my researcher while the owner was idle. But at first everyone felt that I was the owner of a wholesale business, because no one had never engaged in research in the market, and thought I was here to steal their commercial secrets.

On the first day, many people stared at me and looked at them. Everyone will be curious, who are you guys, who are you? Or let me go away and say that the business here is not easy to do, don't come to grab business.

Later, I was introduced by an acquaintance to join a stall selling mackerel. Later, because I went every day, everyone found that I was really working, and I didn't collect money, so I gradually became familiar.

Sometimes they help them sell vegetables and pork, and they are called to coach their children's homework, receive, deliver goods, and purchase goods at the dock. These are all small Case.

There are also some activities in the countryside to help inspections; some delivery restaurants will owe money to collect money; and I ask me to help write a divorce agreement, and I really help him write it.

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By visiting the dock, the distribution center, and the conversation with everyone, clarify the structure in the seafood industry

During the field survey, I recorded the life story of 113 Hainan cuisine market vendors. Among the 113 vendors, 1/3 came from other provinces, 2/3 is Hainan, and Hainan people are 1/4 from Sanya.

To do research, a large part is to chat with everyone, and I will pay special attention to their social networks.

Especially at the beginning who supported them to do business, how did they enter this circle, who is the main supplier? Who are the main competitors and who are their familiar customers? Slowly find out the structure of social division of labor and see how they participate in the ecology of the vegetable market.

It also slowly found out what a vegetable market means what a city and residents.

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Opening a store in the vegetable market has become a way for many rural immigrants to take root in cities

Like the vegetable market in the big city, the stall owners are generally immigrants in the surrounding rural areas. For example, 76%of the vendors are rural immigrants in a vegetable market in Wangjing, Beijing.

In the vegetable market, the business entry threshold is low and the income is good. It is a career choice keen on rural immigrants, and also carries their hope of taking root in the city.

Sister Hui is a native of Hainan Island. She was born in the fishing port. At the age of thirteen, she began to pick her mother's basket with her mother, swim in the village to sell sea fish, and began to work alone at the age of fifteen. She is not tall and full of energy, as if everyone who enters the market knows, and also wants to say: "Why don't you come to me to buy fish here!" The voice was very penetrating, and the people who were called could not hide.

She attributed her successful experience to two points, one is hard work, and the other is integrity. "One or two of the deception, a short life for one year", absolutely do not do a disposable business. Therefore, she has accumulated a group of loyal customers, most of which are institutional customers such as restaurants, schools, and construction sites.

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There are many rural immigrants like Sister Hui in the vegetable field

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Their life of one day includes eating and bringing children in the vegetable market

Sister Hui was poor when she was a child, and she dropped out of school in the second grade. She said that she likes to make friends with smart people with high education, so when she heard that I was a college student, she immediately became friends with me.

She is most worried about the study of a pair of children. After graduating from junior high school, Dawa has taken care of various training courses. Sister Hui hopes to give the children the best education, so that they do not have to mix in the vegetable market when they grow up, and can find a decent job in the city.

In the case I investigated, only 17%of the vendors have high school or above. However, Sister Hui did not affect self -confidence because of her academic qualifications, but she often hung "academic qualifications as well as experience".

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In the division of labor in Hainan, the downstream chains such as distribution and retail are dominated by women

Sister Hui's husband became a boatman before. Because of the danger of running the boat and the low income, she simply sold fish with Sister Hui. I found that in Hainan's seafood industry division of labor, maritime fishing is monopolized by men, but downstream chains such as distribution and retail are dominated by women.

Now, Sister Hui operates three connected stalls in the market and take care of her husband. The annual income of 200,000 is not a problem.

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Most of the street vendors selling fish in Hainan are tall people

In the vegetable market, the phenomenon of fellow fellows is very obvious.

If you shout "Who is Wanning" in the pork area of ​​the Hainan cuisine market, half of the owner may turn back. Uncle Biao is from Wanning in Hainan. He has sold pork for more than 20 years in the market, and was brought by the cousin of the same village.

The seafood industry has many seniors. There are thousands of relationships between the ship boss, agency sales, acquirers, and market fish vendors. Without relatives engaged in related industries, it would be difficult for strangers to enter the industry. There are many markets in the market, and they have a boat off, and they ensure a relatively stable supply from the source. Sister Hui, who sells fish, runs a fishing boat, and sometimes it can also be supplied to a piece of fish in Hui Hui.

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There are snack bars near the vegetable market, and the stall owner has also become their consumers

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Stores near the vegetable market may be the most authentic and most cost -effective picture as the Wenchang chicken in Hainan

In addition, senior diners should know that there is often a food ecosystem around the vegetable market.

During the research, I rented a house near the vegetable market. The window could see a large banyan tree. The breakfast stall downstairs. Early in the morning every morning, I can hear all kinds of selling, car water.

On the way to the vegetable market every day, I will pass through a street with a variety of shops: breakfast shops, hardware shops, tailors, cooked food shops, grain and oil shops, shoes, birds, fish insects, home department stores, home department stores, home department stores All.

The most popular old market can find the most authentic breakfast restaurants, delicious cooked food, and pastry stalls, such as stars.

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Zhong Shuru in the teahouse where Uncle Nangu often goes to do an interview and investigation

The uncle was nearly 50 years old, with a big belly, and a perennial sweatshirt and slippers, talking about Haipu with a strong accent. When he was young, he sold two or three pigs a day. Now it is very open to the business, one day, selling the stalls.

Starting at five in the morning, about ten o'clock, Uncle Biao will slip into the breakfast shop, order a bowl of Hainan powder with scent of incense, and sometimes a plate of white -sparking sausage, the shochu made by the two or two shops, slowly, enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, and enjoy yourself. The time of sages.

Uncle Biao likes to disappear in the teahouse every afternoon and relax on the chair.

In a market in Hainan, 61%of the vendors and catering practitioners maintain a relatively stable cooperative relationship. Not only family consumers are connected, but also a large number of snack bars, non -chain restaurants, and stalls.

If you wipe the vegetable market from the city map, then thousands of snack bars, fast food restaurants, and supper may also disappear.

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Old man who is buying vegetables

For middle -aged and elderly people in China, buying food in the vegetable market is a very important social.

For example, if I buy food for 5 minutes, my mother takes 2 hours to buy food. Every time she meets a person, she has to talk about 10 minutes, nor is she talking to vegetable vendors. All friends and relatives can be seen in the market that the vegetable market has become the center of various information.

In Hainan, there are 1.5 million migratory birds and most of the Northeast. They are incorporated into the vegetable market and gradually incorporated into this strange city.

For example, Aunt Mei, she is about to be seventy years old. From 2010, she went to Hainan at the end of October each year, and returned to Changchun's hometown in April the following year to migrate like a migratory bird.

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The leisure activities of many migratory birds are visiting the vegetable market

Her most important leisure activities every day is to visit the vegetable market. What are the characteristics of the surrounding market, what dishes are good and cheap, she is like a few treasures. Sometimes I do n’t want to watch things, I like to see a lively and vibrant.

Aunt Mei said that many people in the market were busy and so many fresh foods felt young. At first, Aunt Mei felt a language barrier and couldn't understand Haipu. Later, she understood the trick, and asked simply, saying very slowly.

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The colorful sea fish in the Hainan cuisine market changed the recipe of Aunt Mei

The vegetable market in Hainan even changed the recipe of Aunt Mei. She rarely eats sea fish before, and the vegetable market has been shopping, and colorful sea fish inspire her curiosity. When she danced in the square dance, she knew a few fellows who also loved to eat seafish. They discussed it well and bought fish from a new dock at 50 kilometers away every week.

The vegetable market brings a very direct life and social circle to Aunt Mei.

Therefore, to some extent, the vegetable market is a spatial correction of over -urbanization, and people with different social status and background can meet here.

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Shanghai is the largest city in the country's vegetable market

Shanghai Jiahui cuisine market is a "best food farm", less than 100 meters, and more than 30 snack rests distributed

The number of Chinese cuisine markets is reduced year by year.

There are more than 800 vegetable markets in Shanghai registered in the book, and the current 584 vegetable markets in Guangzhou, while the number of vegetable markets in Beijing is gradually decreasing. According to statistics, by 2015, about 160 in Beijing's Third Ring Road.

In the fall of 2019, in the season of ginkgo yellow leaves, I rode a bicycle to sweep the street in Beijing. After trying to understand how the vegetable market disappears, Beijingers can buy food. I found 16 stops or demolished vegetable markets. Some are now open spaces, and some have become parking lots.

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After the vegetable market was shut down, many small door faces appeared in Beijing Hutong

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Anonymous small food shop in the hutong and tricycle selling large cabbage

Around a disappearing vegetable market, there will be a few small faces that sell vegetables, as if the new buds beside the chopped big tree stump. In the Beijing Hutong, there are a lot of such small faces and convenience supermarkets.

I found frozen pork in the beverage refrigerator in the grocery store of Hu Guo Temple. The boss said that the frozen meat is now convenient for the neighbors to make a little money.

In the hutong near the Drum Tower, there were vegetable vendors kicking three rounds of Chinese cabbage in the evening, and they did not dare to sip loudly, but the surrounding residents came out of the purchase like receiving a secret code. At this time, I was particularly emotional that it was not easy to buy food in old Beijing. However, in Nanjing, Guangzhou and other cities, the vegetable market is still undergoing supermarkets.

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The Shanghai Triangle Edible Farm was once known as the "Far East No. 1 Field". Now the market is no longer visible. As a brand, "Triangle Land" also operates in Shanghai's business vegetable market. Source: Shanghai Archives.

The stubborn survival of the vegetable market in China actually has a very heavy historical source, which can be traced back to the Fangshi system in the Song Dynasty.

The earliest urban vegetable market in China, in Shanghai Hongkou in 1891, called the triangle market, specially served foreigners.

The vegetable market has entered the home of ordinary people, starting from the Republic of China. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the vegetable market really started to take off. In the 1980s, there was a "vegetable basket project". There are still cities that in residential areas with a population of 100,000 people, within a ten -minute walk radius, at least one vegetable market must be set up.

We now see most vegetable markets built at that time.

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Before and after the transformation of a vegetable market in Hainan

In the 1990s, with the reform of the state -owned system, the vegetable farm gradually became private ownership, and property rights began to become very complicated.

Many places where the vegetable market is located is located in the city's transportation fortress, and its place is very valuable. It has become a fat in the eyes of real estate developers. After the property rights are changed, some of them have become high -end communities.

In 2000, the state called for "agricultural reform super", and many cities failed. There were only one city comparison, which was Fuzhou, where the current Yonghui supermarket was born.

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The supermarket and the vegetable market, on the surface, seem to be a competitive relationship, in fact they are complementary

In Hainan, there will be a supermarket next to the vegetable market

In the 2010s, community cuisines and online shopping were fixed. By 2020, community groups based on e -commerce platforms blossomed.

In these more than 100 years of evolution, after a round of cruel competition in the vegetable market, many have indeed been eliminated, but there are still many vegetable markets standing until now.

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Shanghai Wuzhong cuisine market, due to the cooperation with luxury brands in 2021, set off a popular "vegetable market pop -up show"

But for young people, especially young people in big cities, they have never regarded the vegetable market as the most important shopping channel or social channels.

The Nanjing Vegetable Farm Association provided me with a data: In Nanjing, 80%of the customers in the vegetable field are middle -aged and older, and 53%of the annual turnover of the vegetable farm is gradually declining, so this is a big survival crisis for the vegetable farm.

Now that young people have no time to cook, e -commerce influx, prefabricated dishes, and the vegetable farm cannot meet the needs of young people.

The reform of the vegetable farm is not working hard.

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The fresh decoration of the Wuzhong cuisine market subverts the inherent impression of "dirty mess" in the vegetable market

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Wuzhong cuisine market is a touch screen in the lobby on the first floor of the intelligent vegetable farm, showing low -cost vegetables and booths

On the screen on the second floor, the latest price and rising decline of different vegetables are rolled on the screen on the second floor.

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The corner of the flowers of Wuzhong cuisine market

For example, Shanghai's Wuzhong Market has jointly made a half -month pop -up store with fashion brands. It brings a short -term social news attention to the vegetable market, but it has not changed anything.

Many people go to see the fun and do not buy food, which has a certain impact on the business of vegetable vendors. Internet celebrities blocked the door, and those who really wanted to buy food could not come in.

Recently, architects and artists also love to "interact" with the vegetable market.

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He Zhisen, the director of the Guangzhou Zhelian Museum, took a group of photos for more than 40 vendors, and held a photography exhibition at the vegetable market.

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The vegetable farm opened by the art museum

Beijing's Chaonen Nanxiao Street vegetable market, Suzhou's Twin Tower Market, Nanjing Kexiang Market, etc. have all become high -value Internet celebrity vegetable markets.

Like Hangzhou is building a "smart vegetable market", clean, tidy, and bright new decoration, you can know where the dishes are produced, and the face is paid. Very advanced.

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The vegetable market is attracting customers in various ways of self -rescue, such as cooperating with well -known writers and opening up some interesting ways to sell vegetables

In addition, there are "one -stop vegetable markets", business, cultural activity rooms, and elderly activity centers, with complete functions. However, this new type of vegetable market complex actually has a cycle, just like the old vegetable market, and there is a lot of treasure houses around the surroundings.

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Xiamen's largest eighth cuisine market is considered to be the most local fireworks

The competition now is too big, and the vegetable market is trying to try various self -rescue measures, but how to win back to the hearts of young people can only be said to wait and see. After that, I will continue to visit the vegetable markets of different cities and continue from different perspectives to study the research of the market.

As long as there are people who love buying food and cooking, as long as the city manager adopts an inclusive governance method of the vegetable market, we will have reason to believe that the vegetable market will continue in the future, and the fireworks brought by the vegetable market will be on the market. More diverse and more exciting.

Picture Photography: Zhong Yan Liu Siyu

Part of the picture is provided by the guest

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