Yide Road Wholesale Markets

This guide to the Yide Road Wholesale Markets in Guangzhou traces a stretch of riverbank that has been a trading ground since the last years of the Qing dynasty, when three separate stalls dealt in fruit, fish and vegetables. You'll hear how the road took its current shape in 1920 and how a seafood guild formally organized here in 1946, turning the block into a licensed dried-fish market. It follows the same families who still haul dried squid and abalone through these doorways, and the other trades that later crowded in alongside them. Listen for the porters, the shouted prices and the rattle of hand-trucks as you walk the street.