Sounds of Shaoyang: Itinerant Salesmen

There is hardly any sound more Chinese than the door-to-door salesmen who carry their wares on shoulder poles: peasants selling their produce; tinkers who repair pots, sharpen knives or take away rubbish.

As well as those there is a whole class of people who's lives depend on collecting plastic bags, paper, bottles from the local rubbish carts.  On my way to my office to upload these files, I threw three bags onto our cart, and passed by a few minutes later to see a middle aged women with three clean and well-presented children, picking through my rubbish.

Many others are less open.  Each night - like town foxes - others come with torches and descend upon what other people have left behind.

Dried Noodle Seller                     download

The most melancholy sounding call around these parts.  A tall thin man with two deep wicker baskets at either end of his shoulder pole. 

Recycling                           download

You know this guy is coming from a mile away.  He takes anything from cardboard to glass to used electical equipment, which is taken to a special are of town, much like the medieval glassmaker's or silversmith's street, except this is the recycler's street, where fridges and tvs and electric cookers are disassembled.  . 

Female Tinker                             download

A one-eyed woman who walks around with a plastic sack on the end of a pole which she carries on one shoulder.  Its hard to see what exactly she is collecting, but listening to her voice, there is a note of despair.  At this, one of the lowest rungs of the Shaoyang social ladder, competition for waste increases dramatically, while livelihoods become more and more marginal.