Traditional markets, food circulation and supply, market transformation, and urban food ecologies.
Yijing Market, Wuzhou, Guangxi: Juzi’s grandmother opened the shop with the market in 1995; Juzi’s mother now opens at dawn, portions spices late at night and wins repeat trade by remembering regulars’ tastes, as Wuzhou’s wet markets decline and the small shop awaits its fate.
Shuer’s family returned from Wenzhou to Wutong Village, Zhangjia Township, Weiyuan County, Sichuan, for the Spring Festival. There, market visits, fishing and picking pea shoots, with pork, crucian carp and seasonal vegetables, made up a rural dining table where food is both plentiful and scarce.
On 7 February, Foodthink’s editorial team will take over Jishi, the Sanyuanqiao community store of Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, to sell vegetables for 12 hours. There will also be a year-end review, a sharing session, a New Year’s goods livestream and a documentary screening. Readers can attend in person, and some events can be watched online.
Two bundles of Chinese leeks casually bought at the open-air market began Uncle Li’s twenty-plus years of continuous seed saving, selection and breeding, yielding longer, whiter white parts and leeks more resistant to suburban Beijing’s downpours and floods.
Beyond supermarkets and fresh-food e-commerce platforms, grocery shoppers in Beijing, Tokyo, Guangzhou, Chiang Mai and elsewhere see wet markets as still tied to local human touch and livelihoods through memories of stalls, know-how for choosing vegetables, and trade with acquaintances.
Behind 30-minute delivery, former JD 7Fresh picker He Siqi worked 31 days. He ran 30,000 steps daily, earned just 30 paise per item, had nine minutes per order, faced scolding and fines when late, and sometimes paid his own delivery fee for a supplementary delivery.
From takeaway containers and courier parcels to mooncake gift boxes, people document the layers of plastic wrapped around everyday life. They also share experiences of reducing plastic by reusing it, bringing their own containers, and finding recycling points.
I am someone who succumbed to pressure; I couldn’t keep playing this game of racing between skyscrapers. Now, I write my story in the hope that as a “failed player” still in flight, I can identify from those past “failures” the things that truly made me feel lonely and depressed,…
Foodthink’s Take In the previous edition of our “Eat Well” column, dozens of Foodthink readers shared their “moments they wanted to avoid takeout”. Many expressed their frustration; although there are times they are tired of takeout, the frantic pace of work, a lack of culinary skill, or poor kitchen facilities…
From the short crop at Hu Xuemei’s farm on Chengdu’s outskirts to radish greens at the Longquan Green Vegetable Shop, Chengdu freelancer Xia Lili’s ecological Little Dining Table and the community vegetable shop show how everyday vegetable shopping becomes a healing space for residents.
