The market on Fuxing Lu is close and supplies everything you need in the way of fruit and veg and meat. And there are numerous street sellers in the area selling all manner of fresh vegetables and living creatures and exploding rice but in the run up to Spring Festival there have been more meat stalls visiting our community delivering fresh fish and meat to my neighbours.
I have seen the bloodshed that surrounds the culling of a chicken outside my front door and didn’t much enjoy stepping over the blood, guts and feathers.
In the west we are pretty squeamish about seeing animals killed. 
However someone has to kill animals in order for us to be able to eat them and I am grateful for that. It’s just that I don’t usually come face to face with the actual killing process. With the exception of goats in various African countries, I have never watched an animal bigger than a cockroach meet its end.
Today I was returning from work feeling excited about going to the Philippines tomorrow and was playing Nirvana at full volume through my headphones when I was stopped short by the sight of the chicken man with his mat of death on which lay the remains of the butchery.
I am learning to become less sentimental about the killing of animals for food. I am never going to be a vegetarian so I should just get over it. But somehow I find it difficult not to be moved by it each time I see it.