A Night Market Scene from a Beverage Stall

It was an unusual sultry June evening which the heat even made the air judder. After spending entire day studying at home, I decided to relax my mind by going for a drink in the night market nearby the neighborhood. The sun had just set beneath the horizon, the firmament turned from golden yellow to dark purple black. The night market was just about to open. And I walked into a small inconspicuous beverage stall in the corner and ordered a glass of cold black tea. In fact, it was the black tea that pressed me into the observation of the boisterous bazaar.

In fact, I was overwhelmed when the tea was served on the table. The first thing catching my eyes was the thick creamy white bubbles with a few spots of chocolate brown caramel on the surface, interlacing into a beautiful painting of a bodhi leaf like those would do on the cappuccinos. Then it kept amazing me as I looked down the surface because the color of the tea was very rare to be seen in normal beverage stalls. It was lucent red, easily penetrated through by the light and glowing like a chunk of garnet. With the impression of gorgeous jewelry, I smelt the fragrance of the delicate fresh tea like those leaves were just plucked from the trees. Then I took a slightly sip of the bubble tea. It was though a bit sweet but the leaf’s natural flavor was well preserved in it. And after a short time, the aftertaste of the sugary sweetness began to scatter in my mouth. And the sweetness of fresh tea had lingered in the jaw for a long time.

As the aftertaste remained in my mouth, I started the journey of observation over other stalls in the night market. First was the juice booth next to the stall I stayed in. The cubicle was replete with fresh fruits especially the papayas displayed on the stand with a green light spotting on, which made them look even fresher. Also the hue of the papaya milk was almost as soft as the sunset making me eager to taste. Then, on the opposite side of the juice booth across the street was a barbecue stall selling grilled sausages. I could only see the smoke started by burning the charcoal swirled up beautifully like a snake gracefully crawling to the heaven. Suddenly, as the roasted sausages’ fragrance spread, I felt a bit hungry when smelling the meat. It reminded me of the days in fifth-grades, I often bought a stick of grilled sausage on my way home as a snack after school.

As the firmament got darker and darker, the night market seemed to become more and more boisterous with throngs of people appeared on the street. The game stalls vendors looked ecstatic as if it was the first time they saw so many people in the night market. They vociferously bawled to passengers asking them to come to visit their stalls. Being a spectator, I watched people vehemently throwing darts beside the grill stall, fervently netting fish behind the beverage stall, and damping the ground by casting water polo to a Styrofoam wall which had been drew five layers of concentric circles and marked with different scores in the middle of the street. My ear was steeped in the strident music of the raucous marble games and the customers’ shouting sounds. I could feel something changing in the night market.

With the time passing, the night bazaar had congregated more and more people. It had become overcrowded with too many people gathering together. Tourists on the street could only limped forward slowly due to the cram. They were jostling and sweating together, and were voraciously devouring whatever the food in their hands. I could hardly see through the crowd to the opposite side of the street anymore. All I could see was their black heads overlapping with each other’s and moving ahead at an extremely slow pace as if they were impatiently lining for a superstar’s concert. Moreover, the atmosphere was jammed with the annoying roaring and clamorous noise. The scene was so vexing that I even came up with an illusion that the chaotic night market had become a Warfield:

Abruptly people started rapaciously quarrelling and fighting against one another! The vendors violently fisted toward each other simply because their customers changed from one stall to another. Teenagers furiously busted together only for a gaze or a word. Kids were, out of fear, crying and screaming at the top of their lungs in the middle of the street. Even the dogs were barking sharply adding the tumult to the disturbing night!

When I recovered from my turbulent delusion, I still felt awfully distressed for the congestion of people. The reason why I went to the night market was to relax. But I could only find affliction at the time. Therefore, I decided to think about something delightful to cheer me up. I looked back to the fruit stall where the fresh papayas were. To my dismay, almost all of the papayas on the stand were gone. It seemed that they all had been sold out. But somehow I saw an even sorer truth: the papaya milk, which I thought very beautiful was actually added in many ice cubes! In other words, the taste of the creamy yellow papaya milk was impossible to be as good as its appearance. The vendor’s dishonest trick was indeed resentful. Nonetheless, as I looked back to the swirling smoke of the grill booth, I was astonished to discover that the color of the smoke changed from light grey to heavy black after going out of the fluorescent light from the bulb on the iron stand above the stall and had since obstructed the light of the moon and stars like a huge bank of black cloud upon the head. As for the aroma of the roasted sausage, it was still the same smell, but it had become much stronger—too strong to abide. I was almost suffocated by the heavy smother, and the stinking odor had since stuck at my clothes. My appetite for the sausage was all gone. The night market had just become hateful to get in.

I was so distressed of the entire observation of the night market. The only thing I wanted to do was finish the delicate garnet black tea and leave. Thus, I drew back my eye sight from the outside and focused on the drink. Astounded as I was, the color of the black tea had changed. It was precious garnet red when it served on the table. Nevertheless, after a journey to the disordered night market, the ice melted, the tinge had darkened into the dim bloody red which was not pervious to light anymore. To make things worse, I even discovered some little black leaves at the bottom of the glass which would definitely bitter the drink. Also, the fresh fragrance of the tea could not be smelt anymore. I did not care that much at that time. I just wanted to leave the crowded night market as soon as possible. Thus I sipped a full mouthful of the black tea. However, I regretted instantly. The black tea had altered from the natural flavor of leaves into a total artificial sugary sweetness after the ice melted. Not to mention of the occasional bitter of the lees at the base. And the aftertaste had turned out to be pure artificial pigmental sugariness.

I did not finish the tea, nor did I have a leisure time in the hideous night market.