The compound of the oil refinery where I live is about 20 minutes outside of downtown. To access the western-style supermarket, the train station, or any of my fellow foreign teacher friends, I have to board the No. 5 bus for ride that lasts at least 20 minutes.
Today an elderly man got on the the bus clutching a basket. Choosing an aisle seat, he set the basket down on the aisle floor so that in plain view of the other passengers was this basket of live chickens. Blinking blankly at their audience, the chickens sported clipped wings but no apparent awareness of their impending fate. They were clearly on their way to be sold at the market for nice Sunday dinners all over Jiujiang.
Of course, myself and my two fellow foreigners were the only one who paid these new passengers any mind whatsoever.
My dad, no stranger to chicken farms, recently mailed me The New Yorker's food issue, the back page of which featured a first-person account of Prune chef Gabrielle Hamilton's first experience killing a chicken.
Posted by Astrid at October 24, 2004 09:54 AM