Markets as Mirrors

As my semester in Xi’an comes to an end and I am about to return home for the holiday, it is time to recall what I’ve learned from being here and what my daily life has been about. I’ve spent the vast majority of my time learning the Chinese language because it is truly the key to understanding the life and times of the Chinese people. However, my life outside the classroom has been equally instructive. The opportunity to use what I’ve learned and pick up more as I go has primarily been the domain of the market. Part practical and part passion, the markets of Xi’an have been my second classroom. The buying, selling, and haggling of the market is a part of my everyday life. It can be said that China is just one big marketplace where everything imaginable is bought and sold. It’s true and just as China has many strata of people, the farmer, the laborer, the businessman, and the bureaucrat to name a few; so are the ways and means of shopping stratified. From the sidewalk to the flea market and from the Wal-Mart to the department store and everywhere in between- commerce defines the lives and life of the city.
Modern China is teeming with energy. On its streets and alleyways there is an electricity in the air. It comes from the ever-moving mish-mash of people and sound, struggle and joy, constantly to be negotiated and renegotiated at the whim of time’s changes. It is a hustle; life here is one never-ending lesson in how to hustle. The primary agent’s of this lesson are the street merchants, peddling their bicycles and pushing their carts in every part of the city. They sell everything on the street and much of China’s vivaciousness comes from the freewheeling and spontaneous ability to but anything at anything at anyplace. Food, street food, is the backbone of this style of commerce. From kabobs to candy, fresh fruit, bread, dumplings, stinky tofu, popcorn, backed potatoes, noodle bowls, and nuts to name a few. The variety is dizzying and the price is rock bottom, perfect for the on the go lifestyle. At night some street food stands will put up small tables and stools turning the sidewalk into a makeshift restaurant. On the market streets the alley is shared space, a common living room for merchant and customer alike. But that is just the beginning.

In many ways the streets are a market unto themselves. Posters, pets, socks, cell phones, DVDs, pirated CDs, and not just these. In the constant drive to stake out a living by undercutting the price of more permanent stores, the cities street vendors breath life into the lower classes of society because without these street vendor much would be out of reach. That’s not to say that even the richest can’t enjoy the humblest of street food. However, in the never ending price war that is capitalism, most street goods sellers are participating in an illegal venture. Some street sales are allowed with a permit but the volume of street vendors makes their business hard to stop. But when the police do arrive, I have seen stampedes of street vendors running- goods in hand.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the luxury supermarkets and department stores. Catering to the wealthy strata of the population, these places and often western in appearance, housing international goods, and sparkling clean. In many ways when one walks into these places they are entering a whole new world defined by a whole new set of attributes, separate from those that quickly come to mind when thinking about China. In contrast to life on the outside, these places are quiet, ordered, clean, new and luxurious. The floors sparkle, the employees always smile, and the customers make way for one another and line up. At the Metro, a German owned mega mart similar to Costco, all one's foreign craving can be satisfied. French wine, German pickles, American beer, Greek olives, goat cheese, salami, Belgian chocolate, and even avocados! To a Chinese customer, these ingredients are a sign of refinement just as they are in the West.

Not only are the goods inside a sign of change but the fact that the Metro is primarily accessed by personal automobile. It’s location is too remote from high density residential areas for walk up customers to enter, A membership card also stifles the average Chinese person from entering. But exclusivity is one of the things you pay for when you go to one of these places. The prices are a bit higher, they are harder to get to, and sometimes entrance requires an added price but sometimes, if one can afford it, it is worth it to step out of the masses of a moment.
In the middle of these two poles is what would be best translated as a flea market. Many small vendors each with a hole in the wall store, congregated together in one massive amalgamation of goods and services, sometimes unified by common products sometimes not. This is the way the vast majority of Chinese go shopping. It is these places that make it seem like China is one never-ending shopping mall. The small size of each store gives a few major benefits for buyer and seller alike. The buyer can go from shop to shop looking for the best price for similar goods. The seller keeps costs down by limiting inventory and rental costs. The Bai Hui flea market focuses its goods on young adult consumers. Clothes, shoes, and accessories dominate the fist level while electronics DVDs, musical instruments, and sporting goods are on the second level. Here you can also pickup a snack, get a haircut, or even a tattoo! In others the association is even more lose with luggage and fish being sold side by side. And still others sell identical products side by side. At the tea market on culture street, dozens of tea stalls are set up side by side selling almost exactly the same teas. Here, the tea ceremonies provided by each shop make up for the identical nature of the product since each stall can only fit one customer at a time. I’ve also seen electronics markets, animal markets, electric bicycle markets, and construction supply markets. This style of commerce, which features many small vendors as opposed to the single large vendor characteristic of the US, fits in with China’s needs as a country. Labor is certainly in no shortage and this allows many people to make a lifting off of life’s necessities and luxuries. Also because here are so many sellers this system actually conforms better to the tenets of capitalism than our trend toward big box mega stores.
One other market style is the market street and it has two major forms. One is very similar to a farmer’s market. The other is an amalgamation of similar stores but instead of being housed under a common roof they share the same street. Sometimes these two are merged to create a bazaar like market street. This style is typified by the Muslim street, Hui Min Jie. Hui Min Jie is the shopping street that surrounds the Great Mosque of Xi’an, one of the four oldest in China. In the past, it was one of the centers of long distance trade and many craftsmen set up shop here. It is one of the best areas In Xi’an to by cultural goods like painting, silk, tea, and nick-nacks as well as knock off western apparel. The street also has many restaurant and snack shops that feature local specialties like persimmon cakes. The style of this alleyway marketplace has perhaps the longest history of any of the aforementioned styles. It blends all aspects of life together and its atmosphere is lively and exciting. Places like these have weathered many changes and I have hope they will survive through the road expansions, high-rise constructions, and growing car culture. Like most things in China there are endless variations between all of these market styles. Each exists to cater to a different kind of Chinese person, a testament to China’s diversity. It is in this way that markets are a mirror to society not just mere places of commerce

The Mid-Autumn Festival

I wake up and moonbeams play around my bed



Glittering like morning frost to my wondering eyes



Upwards the glorious moon I raise my head



Then lay me down and thoughts of home arise



These words written by the famous poet Li Bai during the Tang Dynasty to describe his feelings of loneliness and homesickness during the Autumn season. This poem is the mantra of the Chinese Mid-Autumn- a festival that is in many ways similar to Thanksgiving. It is a time for family to come together, to share a meal, and to reconnect. China is a vast country and many people both in the past and the present have looked to this holiday as a moment of homecoming.

In the West this festival is known as the Moon festival because the day of the festival coincides with the day in the lunar calender in which the moon is the most full. The deep mythology surrounding the holiday is also centered around the moon. First, Li Bai's poem uses the moon as a common reference shared by all of the places on earth. Basking in the glow of the moonlight, staring up at the sky, one can imagine that they are home looking at the same scene. This sentiment is also embedded into Chinese mythology. For one, the moon is that place that the aforementioned Consort Yang went after her death to wait for her emperor Xuanzang. She also took a rabbit with her to stave of her loneliness and that is why the face of the moon can look like either a rabbit or a woman's face to the Chinese mind. Also connected to the moon is the moon cake. A doughy, filling-stuffed cake is pressed with auspicious symbols and eaten under moonlight. The fillings range from rose, to watermelon seed, and even grass (some good, some not so good).This homemade mooncake is filled with rose, walnuts, and sesame. In addition to the cakes many round fruits are also shared as gifts since the shape is similar to the moon. The roundness also represents the unity of the family.

The Mid-Autumn festival is a moment of family gathering that is gaining more and more importance as Chinese society adapts into a highly mobile, industrialized, consumer society. For both rich and poor, Chinese family's are changing. Buying a train ticket at this time of year is especially hard because of the massive number of migrant workers who flood China's train stations looking to return home. In the southern mega city of Guangzhou, which is home to many export oriented businesses and a large portion of China's 200 million + migrant workers, between 68,000 and 70,000 passengers a day flow through its major train station. I recently had the opportunity to engage some mid-level energy bureaucrats in a discussion about Chinese cultural change. They were mostly male, between the ages of 30 and 60, both rural and urban, and party members. I asked them about how and why China's family structure is changing and they gave me a few answers. First is the one child policy, this is of course going to affect the traditional family structure because it is limiting the size of the extended family. The Chinese have a term for the often self centered and spoiled only child that is the result of this policy- little emperors and princesses.

Second was industrialization. Industrialization affects the family two fold. One is that is pushes urbanization and two is that changes the fundamental working unit for value production from the family to the individual. Most of the bureaucrats thought that China's young people were much more individualistic than their older counterparts and more concerned with money. Third, was that the family was not changing that much. Family is still very important to the Chinese people. Remember that the Chinese have a long history of ancestor worship and that China is a country where children are the social security system. Many families still live close to their parents and use grandparents as the primarily child care provider. Still it is hard to ignore the changes that the average Chinese family is going through in the wake of China's massive economic reorientation. This makes family holidays like the Mid-Autumn festival all the more important as China looks to hold onto its roots as it reaches for the sky.

For me, now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, I too feel that sense of distance from my home so eloquently stated in Li Bai's poem. China is certainly not the US and it is easy to feel alone in a place so far away from the familiar. It makes me thankful for the technologies that bring to you my thoughts and feelings on this blog and allow me to call home when the timing is right. I would also like to thank you for reading and commenting on my life here in China it brings me back home and reminds me that I am part of a network of family and friends that transcends our individualistic world. And that for me is the true meaning of these holidays.