The Insect Market

So, Kristy and I went to Shanghai twice over my last break. The first time was interesting, spent largely at the Shanghai Museum learning about Chinese artifacts. The second time, we went a little farther afield. We followed the Lonely Planet guide loosely, and found ourselves looking for the insect, bird, and flower market.


This market sells animals, birds, fish, plants, and insects. We have on here in Suzhou as well, but it is much more of an animal/bird market, with only one vendor selling crickets. The place in Shanghai was FULL of crickets. Crickets of every kind. Crickets in earthenware containers, and crickets in large, plastic jars. The Chinese even have little food and water dishes for their crickets, and little scoops for dishing out the "cricket food".

The market is alive with the sounds of the insects, and the Chinese sticking tiny little shovels into the cages to feed the bugs or prod them into some kind of battle-fury. I couldn't really tell which it was.The insect market sold LOTS of mealworms. I assume these are for bird food, but who really knows? I hear they have a pretty good, nutty taste.

The market also had a ton of fish, which weren't really very interesting, birds, turtles, dogs, cats, hampsters, gerbils, squirrels (YES, squirrels). Let me take a moment here: I have seen ZERO wild squirrels since we've been here. I haven't really seen much in the way of birds, either. The ONLY squirrels I've seen have been at these markets in cages. Why would someone want a squirrel as a pet?





Lots of birds, like this guy here. They had nicer cages then most of the other animals (such as those poor squirrels). The Chinese really like their ornate cages, though. The birds ranged from parakeets, parrots and cockatoos, to mynah birds and doves.

There were also bunches of turtles. They didn't look like the ones we see at the grocery store, though. Those are mostly soft-shell turtles. These were mostly water turtles and snapping turtles. I didn't see anyone actually buy any of them, but I have heard that the snapping turtles are pretty tasty.