…But You Can’t Beat Our Meat!
Everyday at lunch these street vendors line up outside our factory selling fruit, vegetables and meat. YES, you heard me right! M-E-A-T! No refrigeration, no fancy red lights to give the fake sense of freshness.
You ask, are there flies? Why of course there are flies!
One of my colleagues at work, sensing my queaziness with the situation, told me that this is a part of Chinese daily life - to buy meat in the open market. He also added that the restaurants here also buy their meat the same way.
Apparently it is not too big a problem since I have not heard of any deaths from food poisoning and I really have not been “food” sick since I have been here. It also makes me think that even though in America we are given the “appearance” of good health and sanitation practices, what about the things that we don’t see? I really don’t want to spend too much time thinking about this, and probably neither do you, so I will move on.
Most of the vegetable and meat vendors have scales, but the meat vendors use a hand-held balance beam to weigh out their offering. Of course, all the prices are negotiable and Chinese people love to “haggle”. They call this bargaining or haggling “tao jia huan jia” or “tao jia” and it is quite an experience to witness the buyer and the seller “give and take”. I think everyone in sales should take a sales class from a Chinese street vendor! They are the ultimate bargainers and closers!If you want to see BIGGER views of these pictures, just click on the photo!
Thanks for stopping by and as always your comments are welcomed!
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