What you always wanted to know about Chinese food...

It's all true: Chinese people eat cats. dogs, ducks, frogs, pig's feet, chicken feet, eels, snakes, silkworms (gooey) and their pupa (crunchy).
Some of this fascinating fare I got to see on my very last morning in Shanghai, when I chanced upon a street market in one of the last traditional quarters close to the downtown area of this dynamic city that is changing at breakneck speed. One example: two years ago four metro lines were finished – at present 8 lines are working, and in another two years there will be 12!
I can't help comparing to Greater Istanbul, which also has about 20 million inhabitants: ONE (!) puny metro line that boasts about 6 stops (or maybe a few more in the meantime).

Anyway – this is a traditional Shanghai street market in July 2009:

pigs...

chickens...



Not just hens' eggs!

If you prefer a live chicken, there you go:
head folded under the wing,
and it'll stay perfectly still in that bag.

Want something fancier?

How about quail?










Or frogs?

Glazed duck for tonight's dinner, or fresh fish?

Bones are being taken out of these eel-like fish.

 Seafood, seeweed, sprouts...

                    

 Gargantuan vegetables

The market is not only a place
where things are sold,

lots of things are also produced right there:

  for example noodles

and pastry

baked...

... or steamed

And while you wait for your breakfast to be cooked

you may get your hair cut

and your trousers shortened,

or your watch repaired

while the neighbors go about their daily lives.