Holla' if ya feel me

The creature that is the street at the back gate of my university may never cease to amaze me.

Bananas took over the street today. THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of of bananas. I have absolutely no idea why, my best guess is someone delivered them, but why that happened is equally random in my mind. There have been strawberry days before. I think I've already witnessed 3 strawberry days. On a strawberry day somewhere in the range of 10 to 15 people set up a tiny kiosk or row of baskets or bowls filled with these little intensely red strawberries. The strawberries sit in their baskets and bowls and people occasionally inquire as to the price and walk away. Maybe these are only minor strawberry holidays, but today was a major banana day. Something like 60 people were spread out fairly evenly one per 100 feet along my back road. Each person had gobs and gobs and gobs of banana bunches strewn wildly across a blanket or string of towels. Each was manned by someone bored out of their mind and a sign indicating a price of either 7.1 cents or 7.5 cents or in some places just 6.8 cents per pound.

I found a hidden market. One of the holes-in-the-wall that are always 15 feet wide and 30 feet deep ended up going a good thousand feet in before making a sharp U-turn and having a similar hallway. The market was lined with whole animals, parts of animals, grains, fruits (at least 6 banana stations), and lots of unidentifiable things.

My roomate is sitting about 9 feet away from me. He is wolfing down fried rice that comes from yet another person whose life it is to stand on the street and cook things for people who want them when they want them and then go home. He eats so fast that he chokes and the snorts so violently it seems like he's trying to keep the rice from falling out of his nose. The back-street creature, you see, transforms in the night. The fruit people pack up their wares and the griller, fry-ers, and other heat-added product sellers emerge in droves. About half of the day time people sell their 'whatever' in a tiny shop the others have simply staked ground on the sidewalk. The night time is all sidewalk, and there isn't enough room so it spills over into the street. You can get a skewer (like a kebab) of anything. Everything edible has been skewered and organized on little tables that sit in front of tiny overly simple coal grills. You pick as many skewers as you want and pay somewhere between 8 and 60 cents per item and watch your food get heated, seasoned and spicied. Its really delicious, cheap, and fantastically awful for your stomach.

I have been reading in all of my classes that unemployment in China is a rapidly growing problem, because if the rate of GDP growth drops significantly below 8 percent a year jobs start going poof. I didn't understand this at all, and ventured the question in Chinese to my roomate. He drew the obvious connection that I should have realized which is that most jobs are people selling thing to other people on the street - even if people are spending enough that there is positive GDP growth then there could only be 35 banana sellers, and what a tradgedy that would be ... the job loss would be catestrophic.

This place is pretty crazy.