Daily Life in China                  

Fish Market in China:

  This is the largest fish market in Changde.  This market is 4 city blocks away from the city center so any restaurant in the city can get fresh fish on a moments notice.    

There are many smaller markets throughout the city.  This is the only large market and the only one outdoors.  The smaller indoor markets have smaller and fewer tanks.

   Fish can be brought here, fed, and kept fresh for many weeks.  Behind the roll up doors are either accessory storage areas or downstairs living quarters for the workers.  The far left shows a row of windows which are the upstairs living areas.   Both rows have living quarters above.

   Cold or frozen storage is expensive so tanks alleviate that problem.  Some cities still have tanks built on top of the the sidewalk in front of the fish shop.  As updates to cities and towns happen the sidewalk tanks get torn down.  

   All in all the method is basic to all fish farming.  The difference here in China is the extent.  There are a zillion ponds out in the fields.  The weather is warm and the fish grow very fast.

Fish farming family at their pond.  The family may be the owners or workers for someone else.  They work the land in back of the house.

The front door.  The bags are fish feed.  Each bag is roughly 40kg and costs 83 Yuan, roughly about $10 USD.  The feed is in the form of pellets for automatic distribution.

May be someone can read the bags and let me know what the type of feed is.

The pellets are distributed from an auto feeder on a timer.  The feeder just made a distribution but I missed the ripples of the fish.  The fish are 12 inches to 36 inches long.   There's a row of bottles to the left which have cages suspended, probably for crabs.  Note the cement boat.  They are made on a wire mesh form which gets skim coated with cement.  Wooden boats are on the way out here.

Nice kid, bright, with pretty good English for her age.