REVTTALIZATION OF THE MARKETPLACF 15 the walls. 4 Another article reported that in a routine inspection of cooked meat products bo percent of packaged cooked meat, 8o percent of unpacked cooked meat products in stores, and 87 percent of unpacked cooked meat products on street stands did not meet the government's standards for hy- giene. "The majority of unqualified products were contaminated by bacte- ia, "the article explained. SIn the first half of 1996, the widely read Yang wanbao(Yangzte evening news)reporled several times a week on retailers or manufacturers that had been found to be engaged in unsanitary practices in the Nanjing area. Not surprisingly, these media reports affected the pur- chasing choices of Nanjing residents. One 24-year-old female avoided pork for a time after reading that nuch of the pork sold was not sanitary. Several other informants renarked that they tried to avoid buying processed foods because they doubted the quality of factory-made products An interesting twist in the relationship between the state and the vendors at food markets was that the government sometimes operated its own booths, which competed directly with the independent food vendors. Consumers comparisons of state and privately run booths mirrored their ambivalent at- titudes, in general, toward the privatization of the economy. Although con- sumers expressed an appreciation of the new choices offered as a direct re- sult of privatization, they still preferred to buy from state- run booths Consumers believed they were less likely to be cheated at state-run booths, where the vendors had no incentive to overcharge consumers. Finally, to control inflation and growth, the government established the maximum prices that vendors could charge for most fresh produce. These ceiling prices were printed regularly in newspapers and posted on large signs at the market entrances vendors were free to set the prices of their wares as low as they wished, but they could not legally exceed the price ceilings. In 1996 in Nanjing, during the Spring Festival the government even lowered the maximum prices for food, meat, eggs, vegetables, and fish ALLIANCES IN THE MARKETPLACE Researchers who study open-air markets in areas of the world outside asia have described the informal communities that can develop among the ven- dors and the customers. Studies of food shopping in developing countries emphasize the social value to consumers of making daily excursions to the market. Public food markets have been found to be centers of social activ. 14. See, for example, Hirschman 1984 15. Hua Li and Xiao Ding 1996 16. Yi Qiang and Wang Yi 1996 17. See, for example, Sherry iggo. Pp 13-15: Richardson 198