Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, October 17 – Dalang, the town next to Songshan Lake (where we live) is known as the “Famous Sweater Town of China.” When you get off the highway at a nearby exit, it even states that fact, even in English!... above the toll booths! It was hard to find information in English, but here is a little …. There are supposed to be almost 10,000 knitting and textile companies in the Dalang ‘cluster’! 3,000 of those are in Dalang itself. There are over 300 big companies, but also LOTS of small ones, some with just one knitting machine. Another place (I forget where I copied it from!) stated that “One in every five persons (in the world) on average has a sweater which is made in Dongguan (in which Dalang is the center of the knitwear industry). In 2010, the sweater industry in Dalang employed about 100,000 people and sold 1.2 billion sweaters, with 60% being exported! There are about ten sweater markets in Dalang and today we finally went to one. We chose the largest, the Dalang Woolen Trade Center. It is mainly a wholesale market, but some places will sell individual items and many have racks of samples for sale. The ground floor was full and had a good amount of activity, second floor was partially full, and the third floor was still empty, I guess there is plenty of room for growth! Here’s an interesting video on YouTube of one of the large knitwear companies in Dalang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEVt1ElQZRA There is also a HUGE knitwear Fair held annually in Dalang which brings in buyers from around the world. Pictures are all from the market today, the one of the outside is the North entrance and half the building length, the others all all different parts of the inside.
Live Poultry at Market
Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, June 28 – Yesterday, a Chinese friend who lives in the nearby town, showed me where the closest wet or fresh market is. It was much closer than I thought, not very big, but it had a little of everything, meat, fish, veggies, eggs, etc. This is the live poultry section. I told her that being a “city girl” I wouldn’t know what to do with a live chicken or duck; her reply was “Oh, for about 2 rmb (30 cents USD) they will kill it for you!” In the past, I’ve also seen live chickens for sale on the side of the road in some places, and people carrying them home live in plastic bags! At least you KNOW the meat you’re eating is fresh :-)
Tea Market
We are back in Shenzhen for a couple of days and had a very busy day today! We enjoyed getting to see many friends throughout the day J In the afternoon, we went to the Nanshan Tea Market. Since I love tea, of course I love tea markets! After my post about a week ago, I decided that I wanted to try honeysuckle tea. The nice thing about tea markets is that you can sit and taste the tea before buying it. The stores all have tea tables and are more than glad to make you a few different kinds to try. We sampled the honeysuckle tea (in the front white dish) and also some black tea (in the back metal dish). The tea you see in the cups is honeysuckle tea. I’ve always had women making the tea the times before, but this man spoke some English, so his wife stood back and he took care of us. I bought a large tin full of honeysuckle flower tea for 85rmb, or $13usd, it’s enough to last quite a while! Photo credit goes to Leah today
