We are visiting a local fruit and vegetable market to practice our conversational Mandarin. The teachers assure me that this will prove useful, since my Mandarin ability currently includes being able to say sentences such as, “Due to recent phenomena of globalization and urbanization, the Chinese economy has developed at a rapid speed, bringing many opportunities for foreign investors,” but excludes knowing the words for “mattress” and “grapefruit.”

Shichang — outdoor street markets — are a more convenient, local alternative to supermarkets. My language teacher refers to shopping at a shichang as “接地气”，which is roughly the Chinese version of doing as the Romans do. Chinese consumers tend to prefer shichang to supermarkets, mostly because their produce is perceived as cheaper and more fresh, though those qualifiers are hard to prove. I think it’s mostly because shichang have a community aspect difficult to find in the aisles of a supermarket. The shichang are right outside your apartment. Locals know the vendors, many of whom have sold fruit on this street for years.

This shichang is set up like most others. There are rows of vendors and peddlers scattered on both sides of the street. Some display household items — brooms, dustpans, buckets, fans — on wide blankets. Others fill the trunks of their pick-up trucks with watermelons. On her cart, one vendor perches succulents, houseplants, and a yellow canary.

There’s a scarce number of vendors on a Friday afternoon. The road is not pedestrian-only — cars still whizz by with little regard for the speed limit — and a frantic Volkswagen nearly scrapes off my left side. My language teacher explains to me that city officials eventually noticed the heavy neighborhood traffic, requiring some street vendors to relocate to indoor shops. Since many couldn’t afford store rents, they decided instead to leave this shichang.

“This is not the best shopping time,” my teacher says. Besides the conspicuously foreign students from our language program, there are few other shoppers wandering the shichang.

A vendor catches me eying the tiangua she has on display and immediately rushes to my side. “Try some, sweetheart?” she offers.

“How much does five-hundred grams of tiangua cost?” We are tasked with finding ten different fruits, then asking vendors the price of half a kilogram. She dusts off a melon, weighs it carefully.

I recall a news broadcast I watched on TV a few weeks earlier that focused on the relocation of shichang in a major city. The argument for their removal was that these markets pose safety, legal, and health threats to the population — hindrances that would thwart the development of a “harmonious and civilized society.”

China’s dwindling shichang may be a result of the country’s increased support for urban management programs. Chengguan, China’s para-police force responsible for managing urban life, have become infamous for brutal crackdowns on illegal street vendors and other peddlers. In 2013, chengguan gained notoriety for beating Deng Zhengjie, a watermelon vendor, to death. Photos of Deng’s body circulated online, generating widespread condemnation of chengguan brutality. Intellectuals, bloggers, and other netizens contend that a downside of China’s dramatic economic growth is that it proves disastrous for those who, like Deng, are caught along the margins of society.

I am also responsible for finding at least three kinds of dried fruit, which people tend to pair with congee, tea, or dessert, so I step into the shade of a store selling dried goods. Flies buzz over crates of sunflower seeds, sweet dates, seasoned walnuts, sun-dried blueberries. The store is run by an elderly couple, who sit toward the back, fanning themselves in the dimness.

I ask about ten questions. What kind of fruit is this? Are these almonds? How do you sell them? They answer enthusiastically. I pass a hand over a bin of dried blueberries, come back with a palm full of dust.

“Everything is more expensive now,” the wife tells me. “This is not the best season for selling.”

I buy a bag of sweet dates — which the husband tells me sells best — and start eating them on my way back to my dorm. They’re extremely sweet. Weeks later, while eating them, I pry a date to find a shriveled, burnt larva curled at its center. I spit out the sweet things in my mouth, throw out the entire bag.

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There are two kinds of translations you must complete in order to fully grasp the nuances of another language. Besides translating actual words, there’s some translation that goes into adapting your habits, thoughts, and actions into ones suitable for a different culture. Who I am in China differs from my American counterpart: I try to be more agreeable, question authority figures far less.

In a newspaper-reading class, per my teacher’s instructions, we parrot sentences from the article we just read. She holds up each phrase on a flashcard, and we read: Expand social security coverage. Eagerly await the improvement of national policy. Challenges the government must tackle. Build a harmonious society. These bits of language are insights into how a culture considers certain issues, or perhaps how it is conditioned to consider issues. There is never a policy that proves a failure (it merely needs improvement), never an issue that cannot be tackled.

At the shichang, I am asking another fruit vendor many questions. How much does this watermelon cost? Cherries? This melon? He weighs all the fruits for me, but I am not interested in buying anything, just learning Mandarin in conversation.

“Where are you from?” he asks.

I think about saying I’m Chinese to quell further small talk, but I say, “I’m American.”

I am suddenly, uncomfortably aware of how I don’t fit in this particular landscape. I am uncomfortable with the fact that we are a group of non-Chinese students practicing Chinese with street vendors. Many of us will come back to China for business, international relations, financial opportunities. It would benefit the growth of the Chinese economy, but would not benefit people like this man, a man who likely travels every day from a low-income, rural area into this city to sell his fruit before it rots.

Living in a foreign country comes with a kind of responsibility of acknowledging the space you’re in, how you might not fit in it perfectly. I’ve heard from a lot of Chinese Americans that going to China triggers a sort of identity crisis. The people, the traditions, and language are familiar, yet there’s something alien — as if you were looking at the face of relative you haven’t seen in years, or hearing the first lines of a ancient poem you’ve long forgotten. Or maybe you are the alien — something that could belong in the landscape from a distance, though not at close range.

I decide to buy a watermelon from the vendor. It’s heavy. I carry it back with me, never eat it.