After living in China for eight years, Victor Paul Borg finds the calls to shut down wet markets in the light of COVID-19 as misguided and tinged with cultural inconsideration 

The reopening of wet markets in China last week has been causing ripples of disquiet around the world. Evidence suggests that the coronavirus outbreak began when the virus jumped from live animal to human at a wet market – a kind of market of fresh meats and vegetables and sauces, as well as animals traded live and slaughtered on the spot. These markets have gained notoriety for being crowded, musty, unhygienic incubators of infections.

America’s frontline health supremo in the current outbreak, Anthony Fauci, claimed recently that unsanitary conditions of wet markets are a direct cause of the current worldwide health emergency. He added that China has to be forced to shut down these markets for good.

A pedlar with basins of turtles and salamander.

Dozens of American politicians – as well as the Australian Prime Minister – have now denounced the World Health Organization, which says that wet markets could be safe with “adequate facilities, proper regulation and good hygiene practices”.

After living in China for eight years – and preferring to shop at the local wet market – I find the calls to shut down these markets as misguided and tinged with cultural inconsideration. 

In the beginning I also felt ambivalence: I was drawn by wet markers’ colourfulness and exoticness, repulsed by unhygienic food handling. I flinched at slabs of meat hanging from hooks, flies settling on them in the summer. And the goriness of shoppers buying rabbits and fowl and fish alive, then having them slaughtered, gutted and taking them home whooshing in plastic bags. 

My mind was made up: wet markets were places I wanted to photograph, not places where I wanted to shop.

Later I learned that appearances often deceive, and that trust of the source – and what you see – is the safest bet when shopping in China amid widespread food scares. If you see the animal slaughtered at the local wet market – ideally slaughtered in front of you – you can rest assured that the meat is freshly-slaughtered.

Years of horrific food scares have taught Chinese people that you cannot have that assurance of freshness or unadulterated product if you buy the meat or fish in a glass counter or Styrofoam package in a supermarket or, worse still, if it’s processed and frozen and you can’t see whether it’s actually what it says it is on the package.

Wet markets offer peace of mind: fowl, rabbits and fish are slaughtered in front of you; pigs and cows are slaughtered before dawn and sold by late morning. That makes refrigeration superfluous. Pedlars build a rapport with the customers, reputation is everything.

Cured rabbit hung out to dry in winter.

An effective ban would save key species from the brink of extinction and reduce the incidence of future outbreaks of zoonotic viruses

Wet markets have other benefits. Produce is cheaper and they make shopping a form of social engagement and ritual. Haggling over prices is common; shoppers seek fresh ingredients in season.  The local market also serves as an outing of sorts, particularly for the elderly and proletariat. They befriend other regulars and pedlars and engage in chitchat and gossip. They can have an inexpensive breakfast – steamed buns, boiled dumplings, soups, noodle dishes and so on – washed down with a glass of soy milk.

Statistics show that over a third of the current food basket is purchased at wet markets. Shutting down these markets would amount to financial and cultural impoverishment, particularly among low-income groups. 

But not all wet markets are the same. Some hold darker, more exotic offerings in their interiors or fringes: wild and exotic animals. Some of these animals are now farmed but most are caught in the wild. Among the latter are animals highly valued for their purported medicinal and talismanic prowess; demand for some of these animals has pushed them to the brink of extinction.

Meat being carved from pork bones which are sold and used to make broth.

And this is where the problem lies: zoonotic viruses like the coronavirus emerge from wild animals, jumping to humans either directly or through an intermediary animal.

The Chinese government has now put a moratorium on all trade in wild animals – including farmed exotic animals such as bamboo rats – while a new law is churned out.

The question now hinges on whether consumption of all non-staple animals is prohibited or whether farmed wild animals can now be considered established farm animals and exempted from the ban.

This is where the world’s attention has to be, on ending the trade and consumption of wild animals – and helping China achieve an effective ban. It will not be easy given the size of the multibillion industry. But it would save key species from the brink of extinction and reduce the incidence of future outbreaks of zoonotic viruses.

As for the markets that merely peddle staple foodstuffs – these markets are also common in South East Asian countries – they would benefit from spots of improved hygienic practices without going as far as making them culturally sterile.

The vegetable section of a wet market.