|
In
order to be able to know more about status of traditional market and compare
market conditions of different regions, we decided to visit adjacent markets:
1. Tamshui Market
We visited Chingshui Street Market in Tamshui and
Jhungcheng Road Market, and the Chingshui Street Market had a history over 30
years, like Luchou Market, its peripheral environment was comparatively mussy,
people and vehicles moving in the same way make it hazardous. Furthermore, the
topography of Chingshui Street is hillside, so it's a bit angled and it looked not safe. We met Ms. Chang at
Chingshui Street Market, and she treated us to fruit. The air in Chingshui Street is
not so good because of narrow alleyway and crowded people. But their fish is
very fresh, and there are many we cannot see at other times. And we called by Chingshui Tzeshiyeh Temple in Tamshui for visiting historic site and construction.
|
|
|
And
then we went to the oldest market in Tamshui, it was a small market having
small area. Goods in this market were sorted clearly, fish stalls were gathered
at the first row, meat stalls at the middle, and all vegetable stalls were at
the back row. There were not many people
in the market, it looked very cold and cheerless. The vendors were aged grandpas
and grandmas.
|
|
We
asked a vendor curiously, and he said that due to inconvenient parking and many
new residential blocks were built in peripheral regions, with the addition of
the establishment of Chingshui Street Market, a lot of people didn't come here
any longer. Most of vendors stayed here for serving their repeat customers. We
saw a vendor making sausages!
|
 |
|
2 Songjiang Market
Songjiang Market has had 32 years of history, it is
called new market because of its new style of being located below stairs. After
entered the market, our teacher asked us to observe the difference between the
basement and the ground floor, but I felt the basement contained almost
everything, it just mainly supplied meat, while the ground floor mostly sold
the finished products. When we strolled around the market, our teacher said
let's have a match to see who could interview more stalls. We interviewed a
stall selling south-north sundry goods, the vendor said he had been doing this
business for 42 years, and he was in else places for the first 10 years, and
then he had been in this market for 32 years, he said the market was the way it
goes now on the day he moved in. Our teacher interviewed a stall selling fish,
the vendor said this market was 35 years old, it's strange, didn't that vendor
we asked say 32 years just now? |
 |
It's
really strange, she had been doing business in other places for about 20 years
and 35 years here, that's totally about 50 years, 50 years, that's so different
from our information! It seemed as if we would lose this time. Teacher asked us
whether we wanted to ask for an answer of 60 years, but we said no. We saw a
stall selling charqui which was grilling outside when we walked out of the
market, we were curious about it, so our teacher bought some for us, that's
really tasty, and then we walked around the market again, and went back to that
shop.
|
|
3. Nanmen Market
|
|
|
| Nanmen
Market and Songjiang Market were alike, both belonged to the public-owned
traditional retail markets, the location of markets were at Rosfu Road, Taipei
City, we took the MRT Tamshui-Hsindien Line to visit. Just as we walked to
entrance gate, we saw it hung a big, red cloth strip, where it wrote “since May
2007 the tidy, bright, new appearance plan will be executed”, such words
shocked us, because we believed in food market we researched by ourselves, what
needed to be improved was just the “tidiness” and “brightness”. |
 |
|
|
Whenwe entered the market, it let us feel shocked, because in the second floorthere were specialty stores that sold clothes, that furnishings matching withclean floor board made one have the feeling of shopping around departmentstores. Most of stores in the first floor sold groceries, there were
comapratively abundant in prepared foods such as dried meat floss and light
refreshments etc, what made us feel novel was there were several stores sold
various preserved ham and dried fish etc, it might be the people here liked to
eat the foods! In this market, because of these dired foods, it also looked
bustling!
|
|
When
we walked towards the basement, we discovered the entire floor almost all sold
seafood, meats and green vegetables, the stall keepers here told us the
arrangement of stalls were all in a hope to let the food market look very tidy
and clean, so the foods that would “wet” should be arranged in basement.
|
|
The arrangement
of green vegetables and meat here was quite different from what we saw in
Luchou Market, but the stall keepers treated people very cordially, when we
wanted to take photos of pettitoes cleanly treated, the stall keeper also
taught how to rather lovely place the pettitoes, the stall keeper’s wife who
sold seafoods just didn’t tire of answering questions asked by we the customers
from Luchou. The stall keeper’s wife told us in Nanmen Market every stall
keeper should abide by the agreement stipulated by them, only in a disciplined
organization could it possible to let everyone have a booming business,
everybody must be of one mind and cooperate. Indeed in this market we also saw
everyone observe order and like tidiness, which made the market looked with a
feeling of “very superior”!
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
| |
|
|
|
4. Fruit and vegetable market
This morning,
when we were on the bus, we still felt sleepy, because we seldom did anything
in such an early morning (3:00-6:00), this mission excited us excessively.
When we just reached the fruit and vegetable
transportation and sale company, I just felt it's lively and bright, a lot of
people were working hard including men, women, aged and young, that was another
unthinkable life style to me.
Only
after interviewed the shop keepers, we found that they had lived in this way of
reversing day and night for years.
|
|
|
|
Many
grandmas and grandpas were very capable, they drove electric motor cars as if
they were driving toy cars, turning left at one time, turning right at another.
The world 50 meters away was like another space, although they were existing in
this world at the same time, they were vastly different as between heaven and
earth, seeing these people living in such a distinct life style, we would feel
more grateful to them for their dedications.
In this visiting activity, we saw different
mentalities and moods of people, most of them could do this work
optimistically. While at the other end of the fruit and vegetable company,
there was another different feeling, many people were diligently delivering and
stocking goods. According to the personnel of fruit and vegetable company, all
these supplies of goods were from agricultural associations or cooperatives or
produce and sale companies of various regions. They collected goods here, and
numbered the goods by computer, and then the consignees and wholesalers bid for
the goods, when a bid was won, these goods would be sent to the market for
auction and became delicious dishes on our tables at last!
|
5. Yilan market
We
went to the market to interview a fish vendor Mr. Lin the other day, and we
knew his fish were bought from Yilan Fish Market, so our "market
commando" decided to go to Yilan Fish Market. Today, we were divided into
two teams for two destinations, one team went straight to Taipei Station and
wait there, the other team went to Jhunshan Market to interview Mr. Lin, and
waited there till he closed his stall, and then went together to Taipei Station
to head for Yilan. The feeling of taking a train for the first time was very
great, we ate the squids bought by Ms. Wu and Mr. Lin and saw the picturesque
scenery at the same time, |
|
we felt so happy! After arrived at the destination,
we took some photos with Mr. Lin and said good-bye to him. And then we went to
the Renwen Elementary School, Ms. Wu asked a
teacher of that school to take us to neighboring fish market. We saw a lot of
marine products in the market, including clove fish, neritic squid and fish
we'd never seen before, it really widened our views. Walked into the market, we
saw stalls of fish, suddenly, we heard a whistle and people began to fast cry
biddings with a sort of particular term we could not understand, and the market
was livened up.
|
 |
|
|
After visiting, we decided to go to the seaside, we saw the
blue ocean and the Guishan
Island standing in the
sea, it's so beautiful. After saying
good-bye to the beautiful ocean, we went straight to Yilan Railway Station, and
we had the delicious Fulong Lunch Box, I ate the food and thought this journey
at the same time, it let me know the operation of fish market. Due to their arduous dedication, we can have
fresh fish! Thank them very much.
|
| |
 |
 |
|
|
