Fish Specialties

by Yuan, Changming

In the largest open market close to Hua’s residence in Fuhua Square, she was thinking about how to cook the big softshell turtle for her husband when she spotted a large pile of dried sturgeon bladders on the roadside. Stopping at the stall, she found a woman of her age bargaining with the vendor while making her selections from the basket.

“For how much are you selling them?” asked Hua in a casual voice.

“Eighty yuan per liang [50g]!” replied the middle-aged fishmonger, with as much warmth as pride. “My fish bladders are the best in this entire market.”

“They would go well with turtle soup,” Hua told herself. “Ping will surely have a treat today.”

“A really good bang for the buck!” whispered another sixtyish woman, who had just joined Hua from behind and begun to do the picking.

“You really think so?” Hua asked in a friendly voice. “Which bladders are better picks?”

After giving Hua some good tips, the third woman began to chat with her by asking where she had come from, saying that Hua’s accent sounded very familiar but not like anything local.

“I’m from Jingzhou, in Hubei,” Hua answered.

“What a coincidence!” exclaimed the third woman. “We two share the same place of origin. I’m from Gong-an.”

As the two fellow Jingzhou natives kept chatting and choosing the sturgeon bladders at the same time, the first woman, who was undoubtedly the most fastidious about the seafood product, told the seller that she had finally finished her picks.

The vendor immediately stepped out from behind the stall and put the customer’s picks on the scale. Noting that Hua and the Gong-an woman were also ready, she proceeded to weigh their picks in turn. As a rule, the vendor sang loudly, “Okay, the first bag weighs 1.05 jin; the second, 1.15; and the third, 1.92 or... 1.9.”

After the seller completed her weighing and calculating for every customer, the first woman took out her cell phone to make the payment through AliPay.

While Hua was waiting her turn, she was shocked to see the Gong-an woman trying to put more fish bladders into her bag stealthily after both the weight and price had already been confirmed. Alarmed by Hua’s response, the Gong-an woman quickly stuffed an extra handful of bladders into Hua’s bag, undoubtedly in the hope of bribing her into silence about the theft.

Hua’s initial response was to call the fishmonger’s attention to this five-finger discount but, on second thought, she gave up the idea, knowing that when the vendor turned around, she would definitely fail to catch the Gong-an woman red-handed. Worse still, Hua would have difficulty explaining the situation on the one hand and evoke hatred from the shoplifter on the other, who might do something really nasty to her down the road.

While Hua felt nervous and awkward about herself being made a thief, or a thief’s accomplice, the first woman began to complain that though her picks and Hua’s were roughly of the same weight, it was obvious that Hua’s looked much larger than her own. Before the vendor realized what was going on, the Gong-an woman cut in on the first woman, “Stay in your lane, okay?! You’ve paid your picks, why bother about other people’s?”

Hua was feeling extremely uncomfortable about the underpayment she had to make when the fishmonger said amicably to the Gong-an woman, “You’re right, ma’am, everyone mind their own business. Now you’re paying me through WeChat as well?”

“Nah,” said she, “my cell phone is misbehaving this morning, but I have enough cash here.”

After the three women left the scene, the fishmonger returned to her seat behind the stall, looking smug about the three big sales she had just made within an hour.

Meanwhile, Hua grew increasingly guilty and nervous. Guilty, because she was a thief, though she had been made one by the circumstance; nervous because she feared that she would be caught sooner or later somehow by someone. But more than guilt or nervousness was an engulfing sense of disturbance in the heart of her soul. Having never done anything like this before, she was suffering from a bad conscience for the first time in her entire life. Cornered into such an awkward situation, she had no idea about what she should or could do about it. To get some peace of mind, she did some more shopping absent-mindedly then finally left the market in haste.

Arriving home, Hua asked Ping to shut the door tight as if she were to be picked out like a dried fish bladder by someone invisible.

“What happened to you, laopo?” Ping asked, surprised to see Hua panting with nervousness.

“Something really bad, I was a shoplifter today!”

“You’re kidding?”

“No, someone put extra fish bladders into my bag after the seller verified my purchase.”

“Easey peasey! All you need to do is weigh them again now. Then you can go back and pay the balance.”

“Gee, I never thought of that!”

Following Ping’s advice, Hua took out their electric scale and weighed the sturgeon bladders carefully. For reasons that were clear to her now, when she recalled how smug the fishmonger had looked, the weight was precisely what she had paid for!

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[Author’s note:] This story is based on the true experience of — and is thus devoted to — Qi Hong: