MARCHÉ DE TIANQIAO

A little south of Panjiayuan, this market is one of the few still to have survived the forced modernization of the city. There are birds, fish, but also locusts or some cats and dogs. For these markets, you must go on Sunday morning and participate in the collective enthusiasm of a Chinese in front of such a singer or other bird in beautiful colours.

Birds are in pretty wicker cages hanging in the lower branches of trees or posing one on the other, budgies, blackbirds, loriots, white birds to in red beak named «pearls», then the bird to the hundred souls, a rare species coming from Mongolia that is the whooping cough of the market… The value of birds is linked not to their beauty but to quality and to quality, to the purity of their singing. The Chinese (especially the older ones) are very attached to their birds, and you will surely see them, in the parks, in the morning of good hour, throw their singer's cages out of hand, so they en the hypnotize in the same way as we panic a salad basket at home before the centrifuges appear!

Fish: On the other hand, you'll enjoy the wide variety of fish that swaying in the dozens of aquariums. Black, fluorescent blue lanterns, reds with endless fins that give them the look of poles of sails, head fish of toad, eye of the red dragon, little parrot, so much fun que as varieties for these kings of the jar.

The Locust: And finally, you will enter the locust market. The locust appeared with the Mandchous for which he was more than a good symbol, a true companion. Remember in the film the Last Emperor of Puyi's attachment to his locust; it goes even so far as to turn our backs on all Chinese notables in the middle of the ceremony to look under his chair, the small box containing the locust. Today's Chinese are just as worried about their cricket as they were the old Mandchous. there are many recipes recorded in the Cricket Book (written about 400 years ago), which explains how to feed his cricket, treat him if he falls ill, etc. In the market you fall under the charm of tiny boxes of locusts, porcelain, finely carved ivory or bamboo, as well as small wicker cages that are finished by one or so, two mouse hairs, which used to excite insects during the organized fighting that pitted them (and gave rise over time to bets between spectators). Careful not to confuse black cricket, smaller size and intended to fight, with the green locust, much bigger and appreciated for the quality of his singing. You will see a man proudly release his criquet box from underneath his jacket, where the insect singer spends long hours warm in winter. Some of them have a fairly impressive size of around 8 cm. The life expectancy of the locust is 90 to 100 days.