Xiao Huang is from Sichuan and runs a butcher shop in Hangzhou's vegetable market, which opened on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Photo by Fu Rui, reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network.
Because of work, I didn't go home until the fourth day of the Lunar New Year. According to the group chat record of "Blind Date and Love Family", there were chickens, ducks, fish and crabs on the table of the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner, but there was no me. In those days, every second of the meal I missed back home felt like a year.
I am from Hangzhou. Before going home, I heard a netizen say that in some farmers' markets in Hangzhou, Hangzhou-style smoked fish can be freshly killed and fried, which feels like "when I was a child, my parents cooked, and I took the vegetables out of the pot and ate them directly".
The vegetable market described by netizens, the warmth of home and the fragrance of the food are together, which makes me feel homesick.
Hangzhou is colder indoors than outdoors in winter. Northerners have heating, Southerners shiver for three minutes and keep warm for two hours. "Wear more when it's cold, what air conditioner to turn on" "It's enough to turn on 26, don't drive to 28", my parents' "intimate" advice prompted me to go out and look for the delicious food that netizens said.
The "Caihe" farmers' market is housed in a bunch of residential buildings, with entrances the size of two unit doors. On the afternoon of the fifth day of the first lunar month, the sun is lazy, and people are talking and laughing at the entrance of the vegetable market.
I remember the wet market as a bloody place full of shouting and shouting, with bluestone bricks that shoot fish into deep stupor, and rusty scissors that cut the main arteries of chicken necks. I'm most afraid of the translucent, half-human-tall plastic bucket of live poultry in the corner.
On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, the scene in front of me was very modern and civilized. The market is covered with gray floor tiles, and vegetables are stacked in front of the stalls according to their varieties and shapes. The owner of the fish shop kept cleaning the scales of the fish, and the butcher stall replaced the "tender meat red light" with an ordinary fluorescent lamp. No sewage, no odor.
The smoked fish that netizens said was found, a bowl of 48 yuan, not cheap, and you have to queue up, the stall owner is a middle-aged uncle, wearing a hat, mask and gloves, standing in front of the big oil pot in the bathtub, selling with a rock and roll black voice. "You take a bite, you eat it now, if it's not delicious, you can return it to me, don't want a penny." ”
I took a shivering bite, and the freshly killed tender fish pieces were wrapped in sweet soy sauce vinegar and chives, and each bone was fried until crispy, and it really felt like eating in front of the pot.
On this day, I went to the local Internet celebrity "Wener Vegetable Market" again. Xu Zhenghui, the manager, said that the market began in October last year, while renovating and putting into operation, the progress of the entire reconstruction work was not halfway before it became popular.
It sits next to a residential building, and its abstract logo shows its determination to go beyond the usual wet market. At the door, there are roses, moon seasons, lilies, impatiens, plantains, iron trees and ......I was dazzled by my myopia, fruits, vegetables and flowers and plants were integrated, and the vegetable market in winter looked like a flower shop in spring.
The vegetable market has a chief designer who graduated from the China Academy of Fine Arts, and the scene layout, lighting and color temperature have been carefully planned. In order to become an "Internet celebrity", everything has been premeditated, such as "the lights are unified with a color temperature of 3500k, and the best shots are good-looking".
Echoing the colorful dragon decoration of the Year of the Dragon, if you look closely, the scales are sliced shapes of fruits such as watermelon, mangosteen, passion fruit, and kiwifruit. The fine rattan grille allows the light to form a lattice shadow when it hits the ground. In order to restore the texture of the ancient capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, the delicatessen used wooden dishes. Plastic bags are not allowed in all stalls, and vegetables need to be lined up according to varieties and shapes - to make customers happy.
Manager Xu, a 52-year-old native of Hangzhou, plans to use the eight years before retirement to "do a big job" and connect the vegetable market, food, coffee and aesthetics.
He wears black-framed plate glasses, combs his back hair, and when he chats with me, he rubs the black tourmaline ring on the ring finger of his left hand, like a young "hipster man". He said that the vegetable market was established in 1999, and before that, it was all sold by stalls, and there was not even a roof. With the implementation of Hangzhou's "retreat into the market" policy, the original decoration materials factory set up a temporary greenhouse and became the Wener Farmers' Market. "At the time, I thought it would be nice to have a top. Xu Zhenghui said that now to completely change the habits of merchants, we have to communicate with each other one by one. The vast majority of merchants don't understand why they want to put melons and fruits on a good look, they don't worry about sales, and they feel that "if you sell it, it's over".
It should be integrated with the market style and commensurate with the times. Xu Zhenghui persuaded over and over again.
After the renovation, the opening time of Hall A is close to the Spring Festival, because Wener Market is an important "vegetable basket" for surrounding residents, the Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and the Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee have come to inspect. Talking about the leadership's emphasis on "guaranteeing supply", Xu Zhenghui said: "The farmers' market has been open every day for the past 25 years. ”
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Huang Shaoyong, a Sichuan guy who set up a meat stall in "Wen Er", opened. On that day, he was the only butcher shop in the market that was open, selling his own pork and helping the nearby shops sell beef.
Among the merchants in this vegetable market, only one sells soft-shelled turtles who can speak Hangzhou, and the others are from all over the world. Xu Zhenghui calculated, six or seven security guards, from Heilongjiang, more vendors and staff from Anhui, Chongqing, Sichuan, Shandong, Henan, Guangdong and other regions, can make up a plate of "east, west, north, south, central". Many people have been coming to Hangzhou for more than ten years, and they have become rich by hard work. Although they come from different places, have different cultural backgrounds and living habits, they all live a comfortable life here.
The vegetable market is a microcosm of Hangzhou, where people from all over the country gather to start, develop and break through. In 2006, there were 271 in Hangzhou810,000 urban population, the population slowly increased by about 1.13 million in the next eight years; In 2015, Hangzhou's urban population soared by 1.38 million in one year, and the total population exceeded 5 million for the first time, making it one of the megacities. In 2022, the population of Hangzhou's urban area will exceed 10 million, unlocking the achievement of "megacity".
The Internet economy and digital economy are developing in Hangzhou, leading enterprises are expanding, and more young people are coming.
In the entire Wener vegetable market, the electronic scale is the "Internet" model, 4,000 yuan a unit, connected to the computer center, and counts the vegetable species, vegetable volume, and vegetable price sold every day. A large screen hangs on the wall of the south gate, displaying the number of transactions, the total amount of transactions and the number of customers, forming the market's own database. The person in charge will make a procurement plan according to the change in the transaction volume of dishes.
In Hangzhou, many vegetable markets have long started the model of "Internet + selling vegetables". Some "avant-garde" "family industries" make full use of this model: the son opens a store online, Lao Tzu sells vegetables offline, the daughter-in-law distributes goods, and the old lady accounts for the account. A widely circulated highlight story is that 4 years ago, this business model allowed an ordinary vegetable stall to become the "top five in East China" on a takeaway platform.
The concept of shared kitchens is also being implemented, and on weekends or holidays, cooking classes allow young people to learn to cook and socialize at the same time.
Xu Zhenghui repeatedly mentioned "young people", and he repeatedly said that he worked hard to make a new vegetable market so that young people could stay, see more, take a cup of milk tea and coffee, and take a stroll. "The young man recognized the market, and even if he only came to take pictures and not buy groceries, we were a little more successful. ”
Looking out from these markets, Hangzhou is a city that warmly welcomes young people. In 2023, there will be an inflow of 3970,000 people, a year-on-year increase of 9%, at the highest level in the history. Hangzhou showed sincerity, and the living allowance for fresh graduates was 10,000, 30,000, and 100,000 yuan respectively, which was issued once every six months. Not only that, but there is also a rental subsidy of 30,000 yuan for 3 years, and 5,000 yuan every six months. I graduated from graduate school last year and found a job in Hangzhou as a fresh graduate. After applying online, the first phase of the two subsidies was 20,000 yuan, which arrived in 3 minutes.
When I left the vegetable market, I passed by a delicatessen, and the stall owner's aunt had been in Hangzhou for almost 20 years. She always wears light makeup and stands in the store, preparing braised pork with different tastes for customers of different ages and preferences. I think that in my hometown, people will always find their own space, just like finding the most palatable braised pork.
Photo by Fu Ruiwen **China Youth Daily.
*: China Youth Daily.