Nothing like a stroll through a morning market

Whenever I feel blue, I have found the best cure is to take a stroll in my neighborhood market. Known in Chinese as "zao shi" (morning market), this is where you can find anything - from antiques, clothing, live fish and fowl, to a self-styled dentist who yanks out teeth from customers seated on a simple stool.

Even on a cloudy, chilly day, a warm greeting from an old neighbor, a parent of my son's classmate, or a familiar vendor, never fails to cheer me up. Brushing shoulders with wage-earning "small potatoes" like me, I feel alive striving to stretch every penny to the maximum.

Most of the vendors sell vegetables and while these may not look as neat and shiny as those in indoor vegetable markets, they are very reasonably priced. More importantly, you get the chance to bargain, and establish rapport with the vendor.

Some vendors excel in the art of persuasion. Once, when I paused in front of some golden corns, the "auntie" who was selling them immediately launched into a speech about how popular her home-grown corns were among the local residents. So popular, that her old patrons always took the trouble to search for her every morning, she said.

In our commercialized society, one may get juicy and colorful corns from a US farm in supermarkets. But a chance to meet the grower of the corn who lives not far from me actually makes the local corn more endearing. And my taste buds have not become that picky to spurn the local variety.

Believing in the maxim that "silence is golden", I seldom speak more than is necessary. But I never hesitate to advertise for the vendors.

Liangshu, a kind of root similar to sweet potato, is one of my favorite ingredients while making jiaozi, or dumplings. It is grown in the south, so few Beijing residents know what it is and how to eat it. Whenever I buy this vegetable, I eagerly explain its taste and the various ways to cook it to all the grannies and grandpas around.

The market often throws up many pleasant surprises.

This summer, I found some small melons about 15 cm long and 10 cm in diameter. A box of six was priced at an incredible 8 yuan ($1.2). The tag showed it came from a farm in my neighborhood. The melons supplied my family with some wonderful juice for weeks, before disappearing from the market.

Imagine my surprise when I found nobody at the usual marketplace one morning. Some elderly residents were walking back, empty-handed and disappointed. The vendors must have been chased away, as they leave so much litter and always congest the roads, I thought. Most cannot afford the rental for a booth in an indoor market.

Before I could figure out where to replenish our stock of vegetables, I went right into the market the next morning on my way to my son's school. The vendors had moved to another place and it seemed the market had even more vendors than at the previous place. I even spotted a huge hardwood desk and bed among the cabbages and turnips.

"Hi there," I finally saw my favorite tomato supplier, a deeply sun-tanned woman in her 50s. "Doing good business this morning?"

"Not too bad. Thanks. One has to make a living no matter what," she replied and gave me some useful tips on growing tomatoes.

Who knows, I might bring my own home-grown tomatoes next year to, well, perhaps not the market, but to share with my colleagues.