Are “they” unsanitary or are “we” ridiculous?

Image Posted on September 17, 2013 Updated on July 8, 2015

Walking to work, I frequently come across a wee Chinese market consisting of various meat, fish and vegetable vendors who, with no obvious system of sanitation or organisation, distribute themselves along a filthy, hectic highway outside a half torn down estate of old apartment buildings, where many people gather to do their daily grocery shopping. It is not rare to see the same punters, at the same time every day, mulling over what looks like the same selection of produce as the day before. What IS rare (excuse the awful and somewhat inaccurate pun), is the selection of meat and random assortment of animal carcasses which are casually hung, drawn and quartered in the freshly polluted city air while shoppers come and go, fondling their potential choice of meat and, with no visible concern for hygiene or contamination, blissfully and ignorantly, go about their day. Even though this may have come across as a disgusted account of what I regularly witness on my way to work, I feel strangely envious of these patrons and their freedom from the paranoia of what lurks on the surface of all the uncooked and unregulated meat. A paranoia which growing up in a Western society of strict health and safety laws has instilled in me. The first time I came across this particular market stall, I recoiled in revulsion at the sight of it, but I eventually came to feel ashamed of my reaction. Maybe (and I ponder this as a representative of any culture who sympathises with my thoughts) our problem is that we are no longer biologically equipped to deal with what used to be the daily exercise of our immune system and our ability to effectively fight potentially harmful bacteria. Maybe we’ve too eagerly altered and expanded our food laws and regulations to cater to an increasingly weaker, Western stomach…maybe, just maybe, we’re a bunch of over-paranoid pansies whose sensitivity to the most natural contaminants has been enabled by the modern need for a cross-examination of everything we consume… Or, maybe, purchasing raw meat from the side of a dusty old road in the middle of Asia really is unnecessarily risking the contraction of a number of diseases that are carried by uncooked animal carcasses and I should listen to my truly British subconscious and stick to shopping at my local Western supermarket…and so the vicious cycle of my inner conflict continues. Sigh.