Wuwei Morning Market

The best part of it all: it is all fresh, as the market sets up each day around 7am, is open around 8 am, and vendors usually stay until it is all sold out, often before 3 pm, before coming back the next day with fresh produce, eggs, tofu and meat.

Oops, I just lied. The best part of the market isn’t really the prices, or the produce, but the people. I’ve learned that being the only foreigner, or perhaps more accurately, the current foreigner, in Wuwei comes with a lot of features: randomly having your picture taken when you’re walking down the street worried about tripping and dropping your eggs, or getting extra assistance picking out items at a grocery store or restaurant by new Chinese friends who are concerned that you don’t know your way, or can’t read the menu. Yet, it also comes with the responsibility of knowing that people will remember you – which is a huge benefit when it comes to getting to know local people and having conversations.

At the market, my unique foreigner nature results in many levels of interactions. One of the most rewarding is that people who may never have seen a foreigner before, or at least what is commonly perceived to be a ‘true’ foreigner (read: white), tend to remember our conversations, my order, and always try to help me out in the market.

Immediately after shooting the video of the market, I went and bought groceries for my next few days, and throughout my trips to the market I’ve tried to find a favorite vendor and stick with them. One such vendor is a woman who sells onions, garlic, ginger, spicy green peppers and green beans – she was the first person I ever bought anything from at the market, and our first conversation (in Chinese) went a little something like this:

Two days later, I, the onion-shopper, had returned, and I was walking down that aisle to see if she had any more onions. I was about fifteen feet away from her stand when she saw me, smiled, and she proceeded to walk over to check out her stock of onions. I arrived at the stand.

Vendor friend: “You’ve returned!”

Isaac: “Yes, the onion was very delicious, and I need another.”

Vendor friend: “Do you have onions in the US?”

Isaac: “Yes, but they are cooked differently.”

Vendor friend: “Buy another! Choose any.”

I look around at the onions, picking them up, feeling their weight, squeezing them here and there, being that conscientious and informed (or, US style) onion buyer, seeking the onion with the fewest blemishes, and I settle on a medium-sized onion to hand to her.

Her: “No, no, no! That one is too small, you ate the other one in two days. You need a bigger one.”

I laugh, but nod, and thank her for helping me pick the perfect onion, that is the largest one she has and has now been placed on her scale for sale to me. I add in some green beans, garlic, and buy it all, answering a few questions along the way [“Why are you in Wuwei? Why are you not in a larger, more well-known city?”], questions that I have now grown somewhat used to answering, though I have not yet figured out how to ask a question myself before she asks me a few more questions, and waves me away as she helps another customer, telling me to come back again.

This is one type of interaction that I have had at the market, and it always makes each trip rewarding beyond the foodstuffs that I purchase. Yet, I’ve also found that the conversations can take many unexpected turns.

That same morning, I was finishing up my fruit and vegetable purchases and was looking to make my final purchase of the day: chicken eggs. For practical reasons, fragile eggs are last on my shopping list. I was heading to the same vendor I had previously purchased eggs from when another woman smiled from across the aisle, said “Hello!” in English, and then asked in Chinese if I wanted eggs. I decided to buy some eggs from her stand.

I asked the price, agreed, and asked for a half-kilo of eggs (this ranges from 8-10, in my experience). As she is packing up my eggs, and gathering change, I answer the standard questions that define the start of every relationship here for me so far [“Where are you from? Why are you here?”] before we enter another common conversational theme: “Are you used to Chinese food? Do you like Chinese food? Can you make Chinese food?”

I answer all three questions in the affirmative, adding a caveat to the final answer that I do not cook Chinese food very well.

And perhaps this was the impetus for the next conversational turn.

Suddenly, upon hearing that I don’t cook Chinese food very well, her face changes to display mild concern, and she asks: “Is it you cooking the Chinese food? Just one person? Alone? By yourself? Cooking for one person?” And more variations of the same question, until I’ve convinced her that yes, it is just me cooking, but that my host dad in Chengdu taught me a few recipes, and that I don’t make a lot of “US food” because it uses different ingredients.

Then, she asks: “You haven’t found a 美女 [beautiful woman, multiple meanings/usage, but here referring to a girlfriend] to cook for you?”

I wasn’t expecting this question, so I kind of freeze-up, involuntarily release a little nervous laugh, and utter a quiet ‘no.’

“You haven’t found one yet? Why not?” to which I respond that I’m not looking for a girlfriend, and that I myself love to cook food, and that it is more common in the US for men to cook food. “Are you sure you can cook? You should find a 美女to help you cook food..” She looks around, and her eyes alight upon a young man sitting at the stall next door selling live fish from a tank on the ground, and offers to introduce us.

“He has a cousin, she’s very pretty.”

“Oh, that’s great, but I’m not looking for a girlfriend, I just need some eggs today.”

“You sure?”

“I think so.”

“Well, next time..”

“Thanks for the eggs! Byebye!”

And so, I managed to escape the market that day with eggs, and without a girlfriend, and return back to my apartment to cook my lunch.

In my few trips the market so far, I’ve had more encounters and conversations than just these two, but I highlight both of these stories, to show that one experience/conversation is not better or more valuable to me, or you, than the other, and to show the wide range of conversations that occur in perhaps the unlikeliest of places. It also provides an opportunity to discuss and recognize the merits of each conversation and story, in any context during my service here, but perhaps especially when the conversations take unexpected turns and lead into areas of cultural differences that I would likely never have broached or brought up on my own.

I’ll contend that in both cases, and all conversations, we had moments of cultural exchange – onions in the US? Have you heard of Wisconsin? You study Chinese? You cook your own food? What’s the US like, and why would you come here? – that make our stories worth sharing.