A field visit to Taichung Fish Market: taking a walk around with the master

Compared with the morning and dusk markets in residential neighborhoods and near our own homes, which are more attentive to the lives of ordinary people... wholesale markets operate on a sales model entirely different from these retail markets. At first glance, wholesale markets may seem a little remote from the lives of ordinary folk, yet they hold the lifeline of Taichung's food sales and are deeply connected to the restaurant industry and to the vendors of retail markets. The wholesale market can therefore be called the best window through which to glimpse the midstream of Taichung's food culture.

The Taichung Fish Market is the second-largest seafood auction market in central Taiwan. Taiwanese people have always loved seafood, and as the largest seafood supply hub in central Taiwan, the Taichung Fish Market covers about two hectares. On an auction floor of 700 ping - strictly speaking, not especially large - the daily total trading volume reaches about 80 tons. Its sales range covers the greater Taichung area and even extends to other counties and cities such as Miaoli and Nantou. Thinking of this, I felt a determination rise in me that I simply had to go and investigate for myself.

Starting from there, I asked Chef Qing, the head chef of a Japanese restaurant I know well, to set aside a day and, in the small hours of the morning, begin at the Taichung Fish Market. Following in the chef's footsteps, from the Taichung Fish Market onward to the Jianguo Wholesale Market and Dongxing Market, I would personally trace the whole purchasing process of the restaurant industry.

At 2:50 in the deep of the night, I appeared by car at the gas station at the intersection of Zhongqing Road and Huanzhong Road, where I had arranged to meet Chef Qing. After greeting each other, the car sped along the Zhongzhang Expressway, and before long we arrived at the Taichung Fish Market on Huanzhong Road. The pale blue building was swallowed up in the darkness of the night, yet the auction floor was brightly lit and the atmosphere was at a fever pitch. Unable to hide my excitement, I stepped in right behind Chef Qing.

The current fish market on Section 4 of Huanzhong Road first took shape around the 30th year of the Republic of China, located north of the Second Market. After continual expansion and relocation, it finally settled here in the 96th year of the Republic of China. Speaking of the old fish market, there were no exhaust fans, the ventilation was poor, and cleanliness was not as meticulous as it is today. "It stank to high heaven. When I got home, my wife washed my clothes three times and still couldn't get the fishy smell out!" Chef Qing said.

The establishment of the "Hama Fish Wharf" greatly improved the sanitary environment, turning what had originally been a simple wholesale market into a mixed-use venue where the general public can relax and feast on seafood. Every day at around 2:30 in the morning, basket after basket of fish is continuously hauled into this enormous warehouse, stacked in crates or packed close against one another, moistening each other with their breath, alive only for a single "splat." The old scene of fishmongers shouting themselves hoarse and competing to bid is gone. Today the fish market uses computer bidding and open auction. On the walls hang several large electronic display boards. When the time comes, the wholesalers crowd around the operators, using electronic bid devices.

After the transaction is completed, the fishmonger who won the bid places a price slip in the fish basket and drags it back to his own territory. Those who come and go here are not only wholesalers; hardworking restaurant chefs like Chef Qing also come in person to select fish. As for most restaurants, they sign partnerships with specific fishmongers who deliver regularly to the shop. The rest then enters the retail markets, flows into the tote bags and pushcarts of mothers and grandmothers, and ends up on ordinary people's dining tables at home.

The seafood items sold from the fish market in a single day include well-known species such as: sea bass, largehead hairtail, red bigeye, and oysters... Pelagic or coastal, fresh-caught or frozen, wild-caught or farmed, each is different. With different seasons and dates, the trading volume of the catch fluctuates in regular patterns; on the whole, summer catches are poorer and the fish condition and appearance are also worse, while at the beginning or end of the month, because salaries have generally not yet been paid, it is what restaurateurs call the off-season. At these times, the number of buyers in the wholesale market also appears comparatively sparse.

Walking through the fish market, I thought of Tokyo's Tsukiji Market. The Tsukiji fish market, long called "Japan's enormous stomach," looks like a giant next to the Taichung Fish Market, which seems like a small sorcerer by comparison. Yet for an ordinary consumer who has at most visited a retail market, only by standing in person inside a wholesale market and witnessing that quantity of catch beyond all imagining - such as a grand lineup of yellowfin tuna, or fresh salmon and swordfish already gutted by fishmongers and ready to be sold to Japanese restaurants for sashimi, in great baskets and great crates, or even scattered directly on the floor, and countless tilapia... only by seeing with one's own eyes the process by which produce is auctioned and priced, and so understanding the whole chain of origin, fishing method, and sales method, does one dimly realize: from what we habitually call food and ingredients to the very constitution of "grain," "eating" turns out to be a profoundly political matter.

Strolling through the auction floor, Chef Qing pointed to the large rows of styrofoam boxes in the market and added: apart from the pelagic and farmed items, the catch in the market comes mainly from Penghu and Donggang, and a small portion is also shipped directly from Keelung. The dancing ocean, the beautiful island, the deep blue sea that wraps around the island, is doing all it can to nourish the people of the island.

Yet it was only much later that I gradually understood that what Chef Qing called "the catch mainly from Penghu or Donggang" described only the surface of reality. In recent years, the catch - whether wild-caught or farmed, local or imported - has undergone major changes. Because of overfishing, coastal fish stocks have shrunk sharply, and it is common for Taiwanese fishing boats to trade with Chinese fishing boats, buying inferior catch and then returning to Taiwan to sell it wholesale to downstream wholesalers.

I asked my father, who is back in Donggang. "This kind of thing has been going on for decades!" he said, not finding it strange at all. - And I thought of what Chef Qing called in the wholesale market "the catch from Penghu or Donggang." Who knows how much of it was truly caught by Taiwanese fishermen? And how much Chinese catch was mixed in? Meanwhile, the local aquaculture industry, drawn by the vast trading market across the strait, exports high-priced and high-quality seafood in large quantities to China and Hong Kong. The maritime culture that Taiwanese people believe in is often criticized as being no more than a seafood culture of mere appetite. Yet now, before our eyes, even the backbone of that seafood culture is gradually being lost. Faced with such an unbearable reality, I could not help but feel deeply alarmed.

When I left the Taichung Fish Market, it was still the deep of night. Dragging a weary body but filled with emotion, Chef Qing and I parted ways at the intersection. I was about to return home, while Chef Qing still had to go on to the next wholesale market. The day of the restaurant industry was only just beginning.