The main street in Changsha, Hunan, right before it cuts a bridged swath across the Xiang River, divides town drastically. To the south, where we went yesterday, is the touristy area, insofar as it can be called such, with nonsensical English names for stores (Mychoice Cafe, dadstaff, and Sushi Milk Tea are three examples), Beijing-style cloth slipper stores (sizes inevitably topping out at a petite 39 cm instead of my required 44), and attractive cobblestone sidewalks (although insufficient to keep split-pants-wearing toddlers from crapping in the gutters). At the time we went, there was actually a TV crew filming two lacquered girls giggling and gesturing into shop windows as their heels wobbled precariously on the cobblestones.

To the north, where we wandered today, is the street market, where the locals shop for groceries. At first it looked like the average packed alley, with laundry hanging everywhere, doorways full of old tires, omnipresent baozi and noodle stands, old men sleeping in lounge chairs, and ice cream coolers steaming mist into the air. Then, we came to a crossroads. Julian asked me, “Left, right, or straight?” Neither of us were anticipating the impact my 'straight' would have, mostly on him, as we continued walking and found ourselves in the center of piles of cows' and pigs' hooves, plucked chickens split down the middle showing their glistening organs, mesh bags of futilely leaping green frogs, people picking up these frogs by the legs and killing them by bashing their heads on wooden blocks before sectioning them for dinner, live fish flopping off their mats onto the sidewalk, people peeling the shells off still struggling turtles, snakes coiled in boxes, cages packed full of ruffled chickens and ducks, boxes of claw-waving crayfish, oysters lined up on cardboard, and, perhaps the least shocking on paper but the most unavoidable to our senses, sheets and sheets of drying hot peppers, hot peppers hanging from clothes hangers even, lending the air a thick, oily, spicy snap that caught in our throats.

Julian, the vegetarian, was properly traumatized by this whole scene, muttering 'Hooves! Feathers! Frog torture! Get me out of here!' and I kept expecting to feel something gutturally, but never did. In fact, I stopped to buy an ice cream bar right across the road from a table piled high with intestines and when I asked Julian what he wanted he sort of looked at me in disbelief before saying, like it should have been obvious, that his appetite had been kind, sorta culled. I have an intellectual aversion to the mistreatment of animals and I certainly wish that nobody was, in particular, peeling shells from live turtles, allowing fish to suffocate on the sidewalk, keeping way too many ducks in one cage, or cracking crayfish exoskeletons without boiling them first. But it didn't make me... not hungry. I am probably (certainly) a terrible person, but in my defense (as though there could possibly be one), my viscera's apathy is not unusual.

Changing the topic entirely... here are some less disturbing snapshots of Changsha:

Playing pool in a three-table ground-floor hall that doubled as a couple's kitchen, so as we lined up shots, a lady stir-fried sheep offal behind us, sending out that chili-choked aroma and causing me to cough at the most inopportune times, shot-accuracy-wise.

Buying water from a couple of 80 year old shop owners, being invited to sit down while we drank it, talking about their parents, the Japanese war, how huge our feet were, and how Changsha has changed and sprouted skyscrapers.

Walking by a fruit stand, expecting boring old soft apples and hard peaches and mushy old stupid grapes, seeing rambutan instead, getting a discount for how excited I got.

Getting a recommendation at a restaurant for stir-fried fish from the waitress' hometown, receiving a plateful of tiny whole fish and bitter melon, it being one of the best and strangest things I have yet tasted and yet still quite reminiscent of whitefish on bagels.