Sept 27/08- Chickens & the neighborhood

Chickens & the Neighborhood
September 27, 2008

'Get on a random bus and get lost,' although this was the guideline from our instructors for our first weekend on our own, I decided to check out my own neighborhood first before I ventured out to mi lu (get lost) else where.
About an hour north of the Kunming city center, the residential area I live in is an endless domino of apartments after apartments surrounded by various shops on the first floor. There are four gates out of the apartment complex at each direction, and the gates are guarded by a few military soldiers which can be a little intimidating although I ran into a 17-year-old soldier today.
So while my homestaying mom and baby brother were taking their daily afternoon nap, I walked out of the apartment complex and headed to the street where all the street vendors were. (In order to get there, I had to cross a 12-lane road and crossing roads in China is terrible- it's a game of jay-walking and 'dodge cars for your life' with very few traffic lights and pedestrian crossings.)
I was welcomed into the street by a line of motor cyclists, who were apparently taxi drivers waiting for customers.
And then I passed ubiquitous fried potato sellers (Chinese people really seem to love potatoes) and people playing mazhang, cards or daqi (Chinese chess). It was rather amusing seeing more than ten old men gathered around the daqi board, all shouting advices and even moving pieces back and forth. I couldn't even tell who the two people playing were.
And then I turned a corner and there was a market square, filled with people selling fruits, vegetables, clothes, snacks etc under the large unbrellas. At the back of the market, I encoutnered a bunch of meat-selling shops, and what I saw made me reconsider vegetarianism.
Last summer, I had tried becoming a vegetarian for environmental and ethical reasons. I knew eating lower the food chain was more sustainable and did not want to kill animals for my pleasure, but the meat was too good and my experiment only lasted a month and half. I had heard horror stories about mistreatment of animals in factory farms in the US, but the plight of animals in China did not seem to be any better.
Alive chickens and ducks were stuffed into a tiny cage, and they were so crowded that some animals could not even find a place to put their feet down on the ground and had to sit on top of the other animals. Right beside the cages were the skinned animals, who had retained their live shape and were chopped according to the orders. I wondered what went through the live ducks' minds when they saw their skinned mates. There was fresh blood and feathers on the floor behind the counter, and I saw the meat-seller take out a chicken from the cage, which cried for its life and tried to run free. The butcher broke its neck, and cut its throat. The head stayed on, the oozing blood was gathered into a container, and the body was thrown into a large basket, in which the chicken continued to move about fanatically and cry for a few seconds. At the shop next door, the sellers were skinning the duck and dipping them in a black tarry stuff to clean them .
The butchers all seemed like kind people and none of the passers-by or shoppers seemed as repulsed as I was. Maybe it's just another cultural barrier I have to clear, but I could not watch for much longer.
On the brighter side, I also saw what may hopefully be a more sustainable future for the urban areas around the world. Surrounding the residential villas were farmlands and I saw numerous people working on the field. Although my attempt to talk to the person harvesting totally failed, it was nice to see urbanites being self-sufficient and eating super-local.
Off to run for more exploration around my neighborhood.