Redefining Movement

Issue #06

“To market, to market to buy a fat pig, 
Home again, home again, jiggety-jig”
I have a love-hate relationship with wet markets….the chunks of bloody raw meat, an ear here and a tail there coupled with raw fish smell and the wet floor is really not very appealing. However, one can’t deny that somehow the meat tastes sweeter, the vegetables crunchier and the fruits fresher. But what I really enjoy about wet markets is that I get to become a “Toa Payoh Auntie”. Eavesdropping on other people’s conversations while waiting in line to buy my pork, taking in the array of colours from the fruit stores or peeking into other people’s plastic baskets and asking them where they got it from. And I am always fascinated by  how the butcher effortlessly switches from Cantonese to Mandarin to English and then back to Cantonese again all while chopping up his pork orders. The cacophony of sounds and promise of fresh food brings me back once in a while as these are experiences one can’t find in an air conditioned supermarket.
Go visit one now!