One of the delights of Shanghai is the continued existence of small shops and street-side retailers. Despite the presence of western behemoths like Carrefour, these independent entrepreneurs continue to hawk their wares to pedestrians. On weekends especially, scores of flower sellers descend on our street. We gravitate to one man (not the one pictured above), a fellow whose marketing strategy extends to giving out free flowers to passing children so as to cultivate emotional ties to their parents. Many of the flower sellers are migrants from Anhui Province, one of China's poorest, and a perennial source of cheap labour for the building sites and restaurants of Shanghai.
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