I was ready for an adventure and decided it was finally time to take a trip to the Wangfujing Night Market. This is another popular tourist attraction, but not one for the faint of heart. The night market is most famously known for being the place where a person can eat scorpions, insects, starfish, seahorse, centipedes, and the genitals of a few animals. Anyone looking for an adventure or something exciting to do in Beijing should take a trip to the night market.
I had mentally prepared myself to eat everything, but the second I saw the scorpions I changed my mind. There were hundreds of scorpions skewered on sticks, and every one of them was still alive and moving. I had not expected to see this, and the site of the moving scorpions rattled me enough that I didn’t think I would be able to eat anything. As I walked through the market, I was able to see all of the food that it had to offer. The list includes: snake, tarantula, scorpion, bird fetus, duck neck, starfish, chicken heart, lamb genitalia, seahorse, silk worm, centipede and many others.
This is the selection one stand offered. One top are the scorpions, seahorse and starfish. Under the glass from the left are genitalia and on the right are the bugs.
After taking a short break to collect myself, I was ready to face the night market. I went to a stand with the skewered scorpions, and chose a stick with some very lively scorpions on it. The worker grabbed the stick and threw it into the boiling vat, turning the lively creatures into a fried snack within seconds. Before I knew it, I was holding a stick with four scorpions and there was only one thing left to do.
The scorpians are alive when they are put on the stick. In the background you can see one of the workers putting the live scorpions on the stick.
I bit the whole scorpion off the stick, and as I chewed the stinger caught my upper lip and stabbed me, causing me to begin bleeding. I finished chewing and swallowed the entire thing, and immediately asked the guy who sold me the scorpion if the stinger had poison or not. He assured me there was not, and since I still alive he must have been right. Other than the stinger stabbing me, the scorpion was not bad and actually was one of the most enjoyable things I ate at the market.
As I ventured further down the street I looked for what was next on the list. Since I had eaten many of the organs before, I decided that I did not need to eat them again. A man shouted something about a duck neck, and I didn’t need much more convincing. The neck was very chewy, but it also contained some meet on the outer portion and ended up being the best thing I ate that evening.
Next was the silk worm, a very small but thick bug that was fried so that it looked like it had a shell. The width of the silk worm made me nervous, but I didn’t think anything of it and bit one off of the stick. As I chewed, the juices from inside exploded in my mouth. I had not expected this, and the taste that resulted from this was not pleasant. It took an effort to continue chewing and eventually I swallowed the entire thing.
The silk worms are on the left side of the red tray. On the right side are lamb testicles.
I was told that the seahorse and starfish tasted similar, so I choose to eat the starfish because it was much bigger. It initially tasted decent, but as I chewed it tasted more and more like sand with some other unfavorable taste mixed in.
This is how they fried everything.
Due to time constraints, I had to leave the night market after the starfish. Although I didn’t mind eating the snacks while I was there, I later felt the effects of what I had ate. I had the taste of the bugs in my mouth all evening, and after eating two more meals that evening I could still taste the bugs. I expect to go back to the night market sometime during my time here, but right now I am in no rush to return.
Tarantulas on bottom. Lizards and snakes on top. Scorpions on the right.
Bird Fetus
Beijing Shore 