Photo Gallery——Wet Market in Shek Tong Tsui

by Jiaqi Huang | Sep 19, 2021 | Students

Fresh vegetables are neatly arrayed at a stall in the Shek Tong Tsui Market, offering a broad selection from green leafy vegetables to gourds and beans. © 2021 Jiaqi Huang

A lady is looking for some change from her purse after buying some fresh spinach from a vegetable stall in the Shek Tong Tsui Market. © 2021 Jiaqi Huang

A wide view at a corner of the Shek Tong Tsui Market demonstrates that a young lady is waiting for the peddler to weigh up her cabbages and calculate the price. ©2021 Jiaqi Huang

A mom-and-pop vegetable store at the Shek Tong Tsui Market shows that an elderly peddler couple has opened their stall and is waiting for their first customer. © 2021 Jiaqi Huang

Madame. Peddler from a mom-and-pop vegetable store at the Shek Tong Tsui Market is weighing up a Chinese cabbage covered with plastic wrap before sticking a price tag on it. © 2021 Jiaqi Huang

Scale is a common symbol at every stall in the Shek Tong Tsui Market. It tells the weight of groceries, calculates vendors’ earnings and executes trades from products to money. © 2021 Jiaqi Huang

A typical mom-and-pop seafood shop at the Shek Tong Tsui Market shows how peddler couples usually divide their work: the husband cleans the fish and scrapes the fish scales while the wife bags the fish, talks to customers and collects money. © 2021 Jiaqi Huang

Hanging plastic bags can be seen at every stall in the Shek Tong Tsui Market, either in red, orange or blue, becoming a “united symbol” in this vendor community. © 2021 Jiaqi Huang

Scale is the most diligent and prolific worker at the wet market. It witnesses every trade on itself from morning til sundown. © 2021 Jiaqi Huang

Rotten vegetable leaves and bloody fish scales scattering on the concrete ground, trampled by the bustling passing crowds, leaving an unpleasant odor smell around the stalls——this could be a common impression of how a wet market looks like.

But it could also be different. Neatly-arrayed fresh vegetables in different colors, enthusiastic peddlers bawling about their groceries, every quick exchange in cash after selling and selecting food symbolizes the heartbeat of local social life at a wet market.

From the following photo gallery, you can find that three elements can vividly interpret a similar routine story happening in many stalls in a typical wet market in Hong Kong——a mom-and-pop store, a platform balance, and a stack of plastic bags.

Tags: Food, Wet Market