the wall

there is a street around the corner from my apartment complex that we call market street. this is because the market is on it, and along this street are all sorts of shops and street vendors: noodle places, other small restaurants, the soup lady, fried bread guy, baozi lady (bread with meat or vegetables inside), bing people (fried tortilla like things with stuff inside), fried chicken/squid lady, fruit and vegetable people, etc. it's a very happening place, this whole row of shops and vendors. we know that technically the vendors are not supposed to be there because they have no license to sell stuff and no actual shop area, they just bring their "shop" on a cart and set up there each day. i think all those people are migrant workers, of which my city has a lot. many of the small restaurants and noodle shops are also run by migrant workers. in the past, we have become familiar with some of the people who work in these little restaurants, only to come one day and find that all the people running the shop have changed--people in a family will take turns coming out to run the business and the other people will go back to the country to the farm. so, often we would walk along this street, buy things from vendors for dinner, go into a restaurant, go there to buy our fruit and vegetables.

now, imagine this entire street length full of activity placed behind a wall.
yes, to the right of this wall, are ALL the shops and vendors, behind a wall, the entire length of the street. they are still there, just behind the wall. i walked down the road and was basically appalled. why?? now many of the vendors aren't actually there anymore, because when your business is behind a wall, your profits are probably going to decline... we have been hearing for months that all these shops are going to be torn down and the market area remodeled, but nothing has yet to happen except for a few buildings had been gutted and turned into rubble. but surrounding those, plenty of other shops and all the vendors just continued along as normally. then one day there was just this wall.
you can see in this picture the tops of the store fronts behind the wall. people still live back there and open up there shops everyday. there are small openings in the wall every now and then, so it is possible to get behind the wall, but you can't really see anything that is going on back there unless you actually go back. the market area itself has a slightly larger opening in the wall, and so far the market is still open as normal. i saw they were putting a new roof on the market recently. other than that, everything behind the wall is the same as before (except for some shops that have closed--like the baozi lady and the fried bread guy), and also less vendors. so why the wall?? why not make the people actually move and then actually remodel stuff? why tear down a couple buildings but not all? why build the wall, but not do anything else? i really am at a loss to understand this. slowly there is less stuff going on back there... it's sad.

here is "my" noodle shop, the first place i went to eat in china by myself (you can also see at this link a picture of the market street without the wall), and this picture is from this summer with some visitors from the US:
it has been a favorite place ever since i have been here. every visitor from the US who has come has been taken to this place. for months we had been hearing that it might be closing soon. well, it's still open, just now behind a wall:
i guess they are lucky to have their shop right by an opening in the wall. i haven't been to this noodle shop in a few months now though, because we kept thinking it was going to be closed, so we started going to another a little bit closer to where i live that is actually run by the same family, so they have the same menu as the other place. it's not the same though... well, the food is the same, but there was something familiar and "mine" about this place that is now behind a wall. the family who owns both shops is from western china and is muslim. they sell only dishes with lamb and beef, no pork, and everyone who works there wears special head coverings. in the shop that is now behind a wall, for awhile it was always this guy in a spurs jersey who made the noodles by hand from dough, right there in the shop, and then puts them directly through the window into the pot. fresh noodles, the best!!
if you ever visit, i will take you to the noodle shop behind the wall. and if it isn't there anymore, i will take you to their relative's shop.