When it comes to street food, I am sure that its cheap and unhygienic characteristics are concerned by many people. I used to believe that the best way to improve the quality of street food is the government’s intervention and regulation. Being under control seems to solve all these potential problems, isn’t it?
However, I didn’t realize how complicated this problem can be until I came to a new type of street food and did some research by myself. The government’s intervention does not save these vendors as it claims, it almost kills them.
Last week I went to one of the night markets in Shanghai, which seemed prosperous with the encouragement of the Shanghai Government from the website of government affairs and some social media. It was the third time to visit the market for the sake of my mapping project. During the first experience, I talked to the head manager of this newly built night market. He rent it from the owner of the shopping mall nearby with the support of the district government. The government not only helps him to negotiate with the owner of this shopping mall but also gives some financial support to him to run this market. While he recruited all these vendors, consisting of the night market. He claimed that they( both him and the government) did not aim at gaining profit. All they wanted is to build a cultural environment for our citizens to have their night recreational activities. “ Culture is the most important element.” He emphasized, “based on traditional culture, we want people to consume.” He did not run any risks when running the market with government foundation and fixed rent handed in by stall owners. What he mainly needs to do is examining and verifying the qualification of food stalls.
The running mode of the newly built night markets is almost the same with shops inside the shopping mall. Vendors are fixed in one place, waiting for consumers passing through and buy or ignore what they are doing with high rent per day, although lower cost. When I was talking to many of the vendors in the night market, most of them claimed that they just managed to maintain a balance between income and expenditure. Government regulations increased their cost thus lowered their income.
As to the problem I concern most, whether food hygiene can be guaranteed, the answer is no. Although the manager kept emphasizing how much attention they paid to food, the vendors told me that they could sell food to customers which were completely different from what they claimed in the materials when applying for a position in the market as long as the managers didn’t care about it, which was exactly the current situation.
The result was totally out of my expectation. People pay no interest in the night market, while vendors are losing their advantages in the limited space. It seems that nobody benefits from the “encouragement “ except for the manager.
I am so confused, why are all this happening? Why do our governors spend so much money doing nothing?
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