Shanghai's 'other' market

By Wu Yiyao in Shanghai (China Daily) Updated: 2012-10-06 10:10

The tree-lined streets of the area surrounding the market are home to a vibrant mix of local and international residents, with scores of cafes, tea houses, shops and restaurants.

Street-side vegetable stalls and old house blocks stand side by side with contemporary art galleries and trendy boutiques.

Every other Saturday, Jiashan Market provides a colorful, yet peaceful space for visitors and business owners alike, to share the day, have fun, meet friends, or make new ones.

Amid a wonderful smell of herbs, balms, barbecues, teas and coffees stand bottles of wines, jars of jam, and cans of essential oils, there are also simple stalls selling fashions including vintage dresses and original jewelry, often crowded by visitors from all over the world.

This kind of local market is all about people still living around the corner from where they work; where everyone can relax among neighbors on street corners and in family-owned restaurants and shops.

Jiashan and the many other similar local markets in Shanghai, have always been ideal nurseries for new business - for local people keen to fulfill their ambition to start out on their own, and it's a spirit which lives on strongly today.

A stall owner introduces a product to a foreign customer in Jiashan market in Shanghai. [Photo / China Daily]

Yan Song is the mother of two and the wife of a senior foreign executive who has started her own business making balm oil, and Shanghai's weekend markets, like Jiashan, are where she sells them.

She says she started sharing her remedies with the rest of Shanghai to offer them a respite from the unforgiving heat of summer, and the chills of winter.

The original idea behind her skin care brand, Shanghai Naturals, is that it soothes the skin, after a stressful day being buffeted by the chemicals and toxins of the city.

Its all-natural ingredients are mixed by hand, and include shea and coco butter, aloe vera, avocado oil, beeswax. She sells body butters, beeswax-based salves for chapped lips and cuticles, and oils for the face and body. Markets all over the city sell her products.

"Using the products is a pleasure, but hearing the stories behind the products, trying them and sharing them with friends is probably more of a please," says Xiao Yun, a 26-year-old resident, Jiashan market-goer, and regular Naturals buyer.

Amelia Heaton-Renshaw also got her big break from selling her own homemade produce in local markets, in her case, chutneys and jams.

Once an engineer, Heaton-Renshaw, 28, left her job three years ago and started her workshop armed only with her mother's recipes.

Traditional English jam, marmalade and chutney made of fresh strawberries, tomatoes and cherries are packaged in jars prettily wrapped with cotton squares and raffia.

Amelia started selling on a lane near Donghu Road three years ago, one of only two there, alongside an organic food stall.

She also sold from the back of a blue cart, deliver her products to neighbors.