Chinese Street Vendors

SHOW & TELL

I recently took a trip to Chongqing (ChungKing), China, and saw a few interesting things. Took loads of pictures, too. Wanna share a few with you...

The topic this time: Chinese street vendors and their wares.

COOL VENDOR STYLE

As I go along, click on the corresponding pictures.

Picture 1 - All Sorts of Vendors: This one is cool because it shows the rich variation of colors you can see in just one small place on the street. Here we see a load of vendors selling their stuff when the People come out to play. Stuff for sale: Food like boiled lotus, clams, oysters, lamb and beef on a skewer, duck livers, gizzards, beans, roasted chestnuts... On and on, and all very yummy!

Picture 2 - Shoe Vendors: These guys use violent entertainment as advertisement. And they draw quite a crowd. What they do: two or more guys start by having a heated discussion. One usually plays a seller, and the other a devil's advocate who questions the quality of the shoes. The discussion escalates to a loud argument, which starts drawing a crowd. As the volume increases, they gesture wildly at the shoes and get the crowd involved, sometimes by randomly handing a pair or two at passers-by and asking them for their opinion about the point over which the two guys are "arguing". As time passes, the scene escalates: the two guys eventually get into a shoving match, which really draws a lot more people to come look. After a round of harmless fisticuffs, the "fight" suddenly stops - usually a few moments before someone would be inclined to call the police. One or both guys walk away to cool off, leaving the captured crowd to ponder a purchase they would have otherwise walked past. Very clever. After the crowd disperses, the would-be pugilists wait a while and come back to do it all over again.