Market Gardens
We will start off with the market gardens near the river in HuaDu where some of the fruit and vegetables for the area are grown
From what I can gather these are small individually owned/run plots maintained by small family businesses. Produce is grown, harvested and sold directly by the owners, either through the wholesale markets or directly depending upon the size of the plot. (The larger plots wholesale, Medium sell directly, and the small plots through wholesalers or direct where they are able to sell on the street as street vendors). It must be noted however that all the produce is sold to the consumer either the day it is harvested or the following day with the exception of bananas which may be allowed to ripen by the wholesalers before they are sold.
Sugarcane is also kept by the resellers as it too does not need to be fresh. This is either, peeled and cut into 30 cm lengths to be eaten as is, or crushed to release the juice which is then consumed as a drink!
These particular market gardens are situated south of the main shopping centre and between a channel cut off the river (when the area upon was flattened to build the city) and the river.
These gardens extend right along the river and are just a small number of the gardens dotted through out HuaDu to feed the population, to my knowledge food still has to be brought into the city from not only outside the city but also China
It is remarkable as to the amount of rubbish is in these gardens, blown in from the street.
While the Chinese can be very clean, they are also very dirty, in that it is common for people to drop their rubbish in the street for the “Street Sweepers” to clean up rather than putting it into a bin (which can be next to them).
The reply by these same people when asked why they do that is “That it keeps people employed”.
I have seen these “Street Sweepers” work from 6~7:00 am through to 10:00 pm sweeping and picking up rubbish, putting it into their carts.
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Welcome to Herman and Carolann’s Travels to Asia
China 2008