Reservoir Market

This morning J's mom took us out to the local morning market, which is
set up along an old water channel leading from the nearby reservoir
that's no longer in use. We walked along with market stalls set up on
both sides along the length of the channel. The entrance to the market
is actually just up the street, but J's mom took us around to the end of
the market so we'd end up back near the house. She said that in the
summer, the market extends much further, but since it was winter, maybe
only half of the channel is filled.
The first person we came across was a man sitting on a small stool
spinning a black iron canister hung horizontally over a fire to make
puffed corn. He was selling it for 1 Yuan (about 15 cents), so I picked
up a bag and handed him the money. It tasted great, and I couldn't
resist throwing a few in the air and catching them in my mouth.
We headed further down and came across a clothing wholesaler getting rid
of old merch, "Anything in the pile for 10 Yuan!" There was some good
stuff, all of it in piles laid out on top of a big tarp. J found two
nice tops in the pile and we continued further down.
Next was a man selling a vegetable cutter. It was like he'd been
transported off a home shopping network. He had a headset microphone
with a small speaker projecting his voice to anyone who was interested
to hear. "You want chopped cucumber? Why chop endlessly with a knife?!"
He demonstrates with--and there's no better way to describe the common
kitchen knife in China--a big, honkin' meat cleaver. "Instead, you can
use this and it's as easy as One, Two, Three." With each number, he
slides the cucumber across the grater. "Want sliced carrots? Even
easier!" He changes the blade on the grater, "One, Two!"
and--shebang!--there are finely sliced carrots in front of him. J was
mesmerized, but thinking of our luggage limit and the fact that we were
still just 10 minutes into the market, I told her there were similar
outlets for such a device in the States.
After that, we passed a number of mostly meat, veggie and fruit vendors,
although there was an interesting "CD shop" selling karaoke versions of
old Chinese favorites. The guy had quite a large crowd, including one
old woman who looked about 90 hunched over leaning on a cane reading the
list of the 1,000 songs featured on the CD (set?).
We passed by a table with four piles of different shellfish (I think
scallops, clams, muscles and oysters). The guy behind the table was
shucking huge oysters and putting them into plastic bags for customers,
eagerly buying them up. We ordered a kilo of scallops and he dragged a
small hand rake across the pile and onto a metal tray for the scale. A
closer look at the pile and I could see some of them were still moving,
proving them fresh caught from this morning. I suppose they were
gathered out of the Bohai Sea this morning and brought straight to the
old reservoir, which certainly proved to be an interesting place to
spend some time.