Wet Markets: A Few Things We’ve Been Meaning to Say

Another rather poignant memory: last winter, I bought some wonderfully sweet white strawberries at the market. I went to some trouble to add the stallholder on WeChat by leaving a message when making a transfer payment, hoping to buy a batch for my maternal grandfather at home, who was fighting cancer. But the very next day, before I’d even finished packing to head home for Chinese New Year, my mother called to say he had passed away suddenly. I rushed home immediately. I never ended up buying those strawberries, and I still feel quite regretful about it.

What do wet markets look like abroad?

For an elderly woman from a small provincial town in China, the wet market brings together three elements that put her at ease: the market itself, the familiar language, and the warmth of human connection. To really drive home how good the wet market is, my mother actually made me compare supermarket prices for every carton of eggs and every loofah. After crunching the numbers, I concluded the prices were much of a muchness. My mother still wouldn’t have it: “Look how fresh those wet market eggs are. I’ve kept chickens myself and know that only properly fresh eggs are hard to peel after boiling. Who knows how long the supermarket ones have been sitting in cold storage!”

During a business trip to Thailand this year, I discovered that the wet markets there were an absolute introvert’s paradise, with markets of all sizes offering different positioning and price points. Or Tor Kor has to be the most “upscale” wet market I’ve visited in Thailand. I’d read a few reviews beforehand claiming it was Bangkok’s cleanest and most expensive market. And they weren’t kidding: it was spotlessly clean, and the fruit was indeed pricey. I suppose they’re simply selling the experience. There were plenty of local specialties on display—wax apples, sugar apples, mangoes, papayas, guavas, sea coconuts, green pomelos, and mini pineapples—but the stallholders were mostly keen to pitch me imported cherries…

@面团

I currently live in Europe. In the small Spanish town where I live now, there are two open-air markets on Saturdays and Sundays. They run until about 2 pm, after which council sweepers clean the pavements. You have to register to set up a stall here; I’ve seen council workers checking the permits for each one. You can buy fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables, various pickled and preserved goods, and even bedsheets, blankets, clothes, shoes, and jewellery—the real deal in market merchandise. The fruit and vegetables here are not only fresher and tastier than what you’d find in supermarkets or greengrocers, but they’re cheaper too.

@Ye

Travelling through Florida around last Christmas, we stumbled upon a market just south of Tampa. It was peak citrus season in the state. Oranges, mandarins, and grapefruit were piled high and dazzling at the entrance stalls. From a distance, you could feel an intensely saturated wave of orange, radiating straight from your nose to your brain. Stepping inside was like Sun Wukong falling into the Peach Garden of Immortality. Cacao pods, guavas, passionfruit, star apples, sapodilla, starfruit, sugar apples, plantains… a complete family tree of tropical fruits spread out before your eyes. Florida is a vibrant, exuberant place, and you can catch a glimpse of that character straight from its markets.

Experience a “Farmers’ Market”

A farmers’ market is a space where producers bring their locally grown produce into the city to set up stalls side by side. Locals hear the news and make their way out to browse, buying agricultural goods straight from the growers. For this reason, unlike a conventional wet market, a farmers’ market places a stronger emphasis on the direct link between the farmers cultivating the food and the consumers purchasing it.

@Anubis (Female, Hangzhou, born in the 90s)

My hometown of Rizhao in Shandong has plenty of wet markets, but I’d highly recommend experiencing the local fairs instead; the markets in many of the larger villages are wonderfully bustling. In my village, we hold four market days every ten-day lunar cycle. On top of that, an early morning market takes over the pavement of a street each day. All the fruit and vegetables at the market are local varieties: small cherries and grapes with a sweet-tart edge, tomatoes that actually taste of tomato, and cucumbers that taste of cucumber… The growers will also proudly walk you through their own harvest.

@Bingman

Footfall at the wet market near my home dropped sharply following the pandemic. One day, Xiaohongshu recommended a page for the “Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market”, and it instantly caught my eye! For someone like me, who only considers vegetables truly “bought” once they’ve passed through my own hands, a farmers’ market is an absolute godsend. From a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, we ought to eat fruit and vegetables that are both seasonal and locally grown. Those vibrant, soil-speckled crops haven’t been subjected to harsh chemicals. They’ve basked in the sunshine, danced in the wind and rain, and been kissed by the hands of every grower I know.

@Fei (Female, born in the 1980s, Guangzhou)

I don’t visit farmers’ markets often, but recently a stallholder who drives from Nansha to set up his stall in Liwan let me buy some wonderfully fresh Machong bananas and lemons!

@Adelaide

After taking up work in Jinan, I found that certain organic – or even ‘green’-certified – produce in large supermarkets was not any cheaper than at the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, and I had no way to verify the farming conditions behind the labels. It could be said that, for these ecological farmers, a steady relationship with consumers is far more valuable than short-term profits. Rather than deliberately ‘packaging’ their produce as the conventional food system tends to do, they openly share how each crop was grown and managed, including their less successful growing experiments.

@Zhang Xiaomao (Founder of Chengdu Life Market)

Each month, on a set day, small and medium-sized farmers from across Sichuan load up their freshly picked grains, fruits, and vegetables. Rain or shine, they make their way to a corner of the city for the Chengdu Life Market to sell the seasonal fruits of their hard labour. The experience is entirely different from ordering and receiving goods online; what the market offers is a chance for people to connect face-to-face. Beyond consumers meeting stallholders, the vendors themselves also need these monthly gatherings. Working in isolation is a lonely business, and building a network of mutual support is essential. (Excerpted from “Taking Bamboo Baskets and Plates to the Market” by *YOU Chengdu*)

The Future of the Wet Market

How have wet markets changed compared to the past? What impact have these shifts had? Facing pressure from supermarkets and e-commerce, how should they evolve to safeguard their place in the years ahead?

@章鱼 (Female, born in the 1980s, Osaka)

Let’s talk about how the wet markets in our hometown have changed. First, management has become increasingly standardised. Second, the produce on offer has shifted: In the past, people from villages around the city would bring their own homegrown vegetables to sell. Now, it’s mostly traders wholesaling produce from large-scale farms. With improved transport, the variety of vegetables has expanded, but the flavour has grown fainter.

@梅子青 (Female, born in the 1990s, Anshun)

Things are different now. Back then, despite the mess and grime—there was always a thin layer of slurry on the ground, never truly clean—it was full of warmth and community. You could always find a few stalls with cheap, delicious, clean, and trustworthy produce. If you mentioned a stall’s name, my family would know exactly where to find it. Today’s markets have been standardised into uniform layouts with identical stalls tiled in pure white. They may look spotless, but footfall has plummeted; people simply don’t enjoy visiting them anymore.

@阿猹 (Female, born in the 1990s, Beijing)

It’s cleaner than in my childhood. Most vendors now sell produce rather than grow it themselves. When I was young, you’d often find a group of quiet elders in the corners of the market. They weren’t great at pitching, but their chives had red roots, and though the aubergines and cucumbers might be slightly crooked, they were always fresh and in season, straight from the earth. Now, if I sometimes ask a stallholder how to cook a certain vegetable, they often know less than I do.

@Vivek (Female, born in the 1970s, Dali)

There’s increasingly strict regulation on stalls. Open-air markets have moved indoors, and the commercial atmosphere has grown thicker. There are more middlemen and fewer actual farmers. Increasingly, farmers are selling or leasing their land!

@钟淑如

In my view, merely championing the cultural value of wet markets isn’t enough. At its core, a wet market is a place to buy and sell produce. The key to sustainable development lies in how to attract younger generations and how to align markets with the pace of urban renewal.

During my research, I found that many markets are innovating around their core offerings. For instance, to keep pace with younger lifestyles, Guangzhou’s Lingnan Group plans to sell pre-portioned, pre-cut semi-prepared meals in its markets. Buyers can quickly cook them at home, allowing busy young people who still want to cook to satisfy their craving for stir-frying without the hassle. Technological upgrades are another trend. Hangzhou is developing various ‘smart wet markets’. Alongside cleaner, brighter, and more spacious environments, these markets integrate features such as QR code scanning for produce traceability, facial recognition payments, online ordering with 30-minute home delivery, and even live-stream shopping.

As long as there are people who love shopping for ingredients and cooking, and as long as city administrators adopt an inclusive approach to managing wet markets, we can be confident that they will continue to thrive—and indeed, become more diverse and vibrant—in the years to come.

Planning: 玉阳, 凯瑞

Edited by: 玉阳