Wet Market

Going to a local American supermarket reveals a place of relatively serenity. It’s clean and sterile. Most Americans think that cutting up animals alive is very disturbing. Therefore, there are seldom fresh meats or fish available at the local supermarket. All of poultries are frozen, cleaned up, and packed when customers buy them. After the freezing and cleaning process, the flavor and texture of the meat are almost all gone. In addition, it is very difficult to determine whether the packaged meat is fresh or not. Furthermore, except for the fruit and vegetable section, nearly all the items at the supermarket are packed. Although packaging food is very convenient, one will easily miss out on the fun part of cooking. It is not until I started studying in United States that I realized most people do not have much knowledge on how to determine whether food items are fresh or not. Most people do not know that a fish with shiny scales, gleaming eyes and bright red gills is a fresh fish. They do not know that a cucumber with more spikes on the surface is fresher than a cucumber with a smooth surface. It seems that in America, cutting up animals is too inhuman and cruel for customers to see. They don’t want be reminded that animals are made for humans to eat. Animals are never killed in front of customers. Yet they are still killed and humans still eat them. It seems that Americans tend to want the illusion that when a meat is packaged and killed in another place, it is not inhumane. Most Americans have a very indirect attitude when it comes to food, which is very different from their usual direct attitude when facing various social issues.

On the other hand, Chinese people from Hong Kong go to the wet market. The wet market is very festive, especially in the morning when all the housewives, helpers, and elderly are out to buy the ingredients for their families’ meals. The floor is always slippery and wet because the fish vendors hose down the chopping board after cutting and scrapping the scales off the fish. Not only do the fish vendors sell fresh fish, but they also sell frogs, turtles, clams, crabs and all other kinds of seafood. They cut up the seafood right in front of the customers and hand it to them as fresh as it can be. In the vegetable section, instead of wrapping the vegetables in a package, the vegetable vendors pile up layers and layers of crunchy, green vegetables neatly in a box, ready for customers to choose. Most of the people look at the stem to see whether the vegetable is fresh. In the meat section, the meat vendors put up their freshly cut meat. They sell ribs, livers, kidneys, throats and anything that is edible from pigs and cows. In the poultry section, chickens live in cages. When customers want to buy chicken, they pick one and the vendor cuts it and kills it at the back of the shop. Then the vendor hands it to the customer in a plastic bag. Nobody in the market is afraid of the cutting scenes as Hong Kong people need to be reassured that what they are purchasing is fresh. Most Asians care about the taste, texture and freshness of things they buy at the wet market.

As I think about the differences in food cultures, there are some fascinating ironies between food culture and social behavior. Americans, in general, tend to be more direct in social settings. They tend to speak out for themselves. However, when it comes to food, they become more indirect. They freeze, wash and package meat, so people forget the slaughter part. In addition, words like pork and beef sanitize the idea of pig’s meat or cow’s meat. While in Asia, people are usually more indirect in their social interactions. However, when it comes to food, it is the opposite. All of a sudden, they become very direct.