long live the chinese cabbage

yesterday one of my classes was cancelled in the middle of the day so i went outside for a walk to clear my head and get some fresh air. as i was walking, i noticed that there was an unusually large quantity of cabbage being sold on the street. in fact, like there were more vendors than usual, and they all had it. it seemed a little strange, but i didn't think too much of it at first because i have heard that the chinese love their cabbage. then, as i got into the more residential area, i realized that this was not a fluke. there was literally cabbage everywhere- in the windows, on the doorsteps, on the sidewalks, on the walls. i was pretty dumbfounded. as the sightings continued, i decided to start taking some pictures so i could remember the day the cabbage took over dalian. i still don't fully understand why everyone wants so much of it at once, but apparently it is a winter vegetable here, along with radish. the amount of radish being sold though paled in comparison to the almighty cabbage.

i'm sorry, this is probably going to be way too many pictures of this leafy green for some people, but it was just very impressive. i also chose these few out of like 200 pictures hahah. i was being pretty obnoxious with my camera that day.

this is one the cabbage trucks that i first ran into. i must have seen like 10 of these trucks just in the little area outside of my school alone. it looks like in the first picture they were just selling the them straight from the truck but other vendors were also taking them out and piling them up on the sidewalks. if you'll notice in the second picture, the vendor has a ton of cabbage behind his little presentation pile that he tried to cover with some blankets.


some of them were lined up outside of people's businesses, but these weren't restaurants. i think during the winter the chinese feel they must have cabbage available to them at all times. they do such a nice and neat job of laying them out.


here is some on the wall of a waterway. i guess the people in those apartments don't have enough room to store all of them in their homes so they must resort to using public spaces. everyone must be on the honor system here, i didn't see any cabbage thieves. i think they also want to keep them in the cold.


windowsill presentation. i really like this picture, maybe i will submit it to some kind of vegetable enthusiast magazine.

i'm not even sure if this is cabbage (it looks a little too green) but i thought it was so strange that someone hung up one piece of it up outside of their apartment. what is the reason?!??

this is dalian in a nutshell! you've got the cabbage, the little shop, the strung radishes, the trash, the bike, the hill, other random vegetables....all in one picture! layers and layers of things. although usually the bikes here do not look that new.

this poor little piece didn't make it home :( usually you think of trash as being soda cans, water bottles, etc., but in china, the trash is little bits of cabbage. if only that were actually true...
a met a few people along the way too. i was walking by this guy's shop and noticed there was some cabbage in it, so i thought sweet, indoor picture! however, as i was taking the picture, i realized that he could see me. i thought i was covertly hiding behind something outside the shop but it turned out to have a glass window, lol. so i figured i should ask him if i could take a picture of his cabbage first. he was like...okay...hahah. the first one i just focused on the vegetable, but then i figured he wouldn't care if i just got everything in it so i took this one. i'm not exactly sure what kind of shop this is.

everything looks all calm and happy in this picture but in reality things were out of control only moments before. i was taking a picture of this measly stock when all of a sudden that dog came running out of the doorway and started barking at me really loudly. it must have been his owner's store. my first thought was that i was about to die, but then i saw that it was just a tiny little dog and his owner was running after him telling him to stop. the dog ran all the way up to me and i had no clue what to do so i started dancing around screaming in semi-faux fear. at that point i thought the worst that could happen was that he would nip at me a little. finally his owner made her way over and scooped him up. so crisis averted. i didn't want her to think that i was trying to steal her pile so i told her that i had seen a lot of cabbage that day and didn't know why it was everywhere. she didn't seem surprised at all by my question, the invasion was definitely a new thing. all i could catch from her was that it was a winter food. i was lucky that she was nice!

when i was walking back to school i ran into one of my students. i was like oh my god, i have to get a picture of him with the cabbage. he didn't quite understand what i was asking him to do so he also picked up a carrot. i think the vendors were like what in gods name is that girl doing, but they just ignored me, so it was okay haha.


that concludes my much-lacking post on cabbage!