Grocery shopping in a local market in China can be an intense experience – strange looking things, an array of funky smells, and packages covered in Chinese characters. For many foreigners living in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, this can prove to be too much. Rather than figure out how to do their shopping in the local market, they head to import stores to find familiar goods and English speaking staff. This is all well and good, but you’ll end up spending a lot more RMB on your groceries. Personally, I like to do a mix of both – I get my veggies, fruit, meat, and other items in the Chinese market, while I head to the foreign stores to stock up on deli meats, cheeses, and comfort foods like pasta and soup. To help you in your quest to shop the Chinese way, we’ve been covering market related vocabulary here on the blog. So far, we’ve covered vegetables and fruits. While these things are great, you may want some more substance in your diet…

Gimme some meat!

As such, here are some useful vocabulary words for buying meat and seafood in your local market:

All sorts of seafood in the local market.

Try to use these new words next time you go shopping. Maybe you could even make your grocery list in Chinese! Practice your pronunciation by following this video, which has some of the words covered in this post: