Just now on a pedestrian flyover near the Sijiqing Bridge, I saw a man selling a single, live, adult snapping turtle in a shallow plastic washtub. There was an inch of water in the washtub and the man was moistening his fingers and flicking them along the turtle's reticulated shell. Once in a while a pedestrian crossing the flyover would stop to prod the turtle. I asked the man how much for the turtle, and while giving the traditional marketplace hand sign for the figure, he accidentally flicked water in my eyes and mouth and now I'm anxious about turtle-born disease.
He was asking for 1,500 yuan, about $240. Nothing doing. The turtle would ootch its neck if people rapped it on the shell. I thought of the baby snapping turtle I found in Croton Park in the Bronx. Readers will remember that little guy.
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