西洋오랑캐

Sunday afternoon after I got a quick haircut, Jinhui suggested that we should ride our bikes to the area known as Moran in order to check out the Moran Market. Moran Market is a traditional market that is only open on days ending with a 4 or a 9, so with Sunday being the 14th they were totally open and junk.

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Originally uploaded by wdunn.

The bike ride was pretty awesome. The weather was decent and for some reason there were not that many people on the bike path so we were able to really power jam it on down to (up to?) Moran. The only problem we encountered were the countless tiny little bugs that were all about flying around in a swarm and totally getting in our eyes, up our noses, and in our mouths and junk. They were totally nasty.

After an hour or so of hard biking we arrived at the market. We parked the bikes and then entered the market place along with the rest of the masses. There was a sea of humanity wandering around the market place. As we entered I knew that right away I’d be in for a rare treat when I noticed that next to the table selling Buddhist religious items was a table selling porn and horror DVDs…and someone the two people running the booths were related to each other since the dude at the Buddhist table had to price check something with the lady selling porn.

Anyhow we made our way through the market and I saw a lot of really odd stuff. I think the most strange thing I saw, as an American, was the area where people could buy, have slaughtered, and chow down on various animals. I mean I eat meat, I am totally aware of where meat comes from, but there’s something about seeing animals pulled from a cage and dragged around back while crying that is kind of off puting. In America, that kind of stuff is throughly out of the view of the public (so long as you don’t watch videos released by PETA). Still it was not enough t0 make me become a vegetarian, just very different from where I come from.

The other thing that was kind of strange, and I don’t want to perpetuate any stereotypes, but the most common animal to be sold for consumption seemed to be dog. There were cages of them all just chilling out, waiting for their turn. Additionally I saw a sign proclaiming 고양이탕 (cat stew), which is something I had never seen in all my years here. I mean everyone knows that dog is consumed (though not with great frequency), but I’d never heard of cat meat stew.

Additionally right next to the area where one could buy, have killed, have cooked, and chow down on various animals, was the area where one could buy pets. This was pretty odd since chances are if they various rabbits, puppies, and chicks were not sold when they were small and cute, they would move over one row and be able to be eaten.

After checking out various animals we snagged some Coolatas at Dunkin’ Donuts, and then got on our bikes and power jammed it back towards our homestead.