Pinduoduo Review-Section Literature and the Healing Power of Wet Markets

I. PDD Review-Section Literature

I’ve come across quite a few people on Xiaohongshu discussing “Pinduoduo literature”: the moving words people leave in PDD’s review sections.

These words often come from ordinary people at the bottom of society, from rural communities: very plain, happy expressions of praise, or mild complaints. The accompanying photos often show very rustic, poor, dilapidated surroundings alongside cheap yet fashionable PDD products. Unlike the internet-savvy petty bourgeoisie, these people rarely get to make their voices heard, so they take writing reviews seriously. It is one of their few connections with the written word, and in that sense it really can be called literature. The suffering and philosophies of life that slip out unintentionally make it all the more heartbreaking and powerful.

Once, while scrolling through videos, I saw a grandfather in the countryside buying his granddaughter a synthetic-fabric puffball dress at a market. She was so happy that she bounced around, beaming with joy. It moved me deeply at the time, and what it taught me was that even the cheapest manufactured goods can bring people complete happiness. As a health-conscious member of the petty bourgeoisie, I naturally found the loose junk food and low-quality desserts sold in budget supermarkets and at markets utterly repellent: unhealthy mixtures of sugar, oil, and dubious food technology harming people who didn’t know any better. Later, I would occasionally think about how these things had once brought happiness and joy to so many people.

Sometimes I browse PDD reviews to see photos of the actual products, only to find people doing their best to keep their impoverished lives going. There is a beauty to it like that of Van Gogh’s *The Potato Eaters* or Käthe Kollwitz’s prints. Van Gogh and many other painters often depicted people who were stooped over, wearing bulky, ill-fitting clothes. Gradually, I came to realize that the people at the bottom of society around us really are like this; they also smile awkwardly and seem timid and withdrawn. But in seeing them, I also see a kind of strength: the strength of wild grass growing.

II. The Healing Power of Wet Markets

It’s something I practice myself and have talked about with friends: wet markets nourish people. I previously wrote “The Syndrome of Being Surrounded by the Petty Bourgeoisie.” “Ordinary people”—meaning the petty bourgeoisie who control public discourse, “people in modern society”—are often far too removed from the proletariat and from peasants. Their views of proletarians and peasants are marked by unfamiliarity, fantasy, and even hostility.

Wet markets bring people closer to the unpretentious, vibrant working people, to simple ingredients and nature. So this, too, is a way people can live. That realization can be deeply healing for petty-bourgeois malaise. Simply seeing more ways of living—seeing heaven and earth, seeing all living beings, seeing oneself—can broaden our horizons. This is also part of the positive significance of the community of working people on Xiaohongshu. In practice, Xiaohongshu has lowered the threshold for ordinary people to “be seen.” Kuaishou and Douyin have also given countless ordinary people a channel for posting videos, though the threshold is still relatively high.

Now, whenever I travel somewhere, the local wet market is one of my main stops. The wet markets in Yunnan have very strong energy fields. I recommend experiencing them.

III. The Petty-Bourgeois Gaze

Behind both PDD literature and wet-market healing, there is also often a petty-bourgeois gaze, a perspective that looks down from above. What is called healing is sometimes a sense of superiority, a fascination with the unfamiliar, relief at one’s own good fortune, and being moved by one’s own sentimentality. There is still a great deal of divisive thinking and ego rooted in class identification.

After spending more than a year lying flat in a county town in Yunnan, my feelings about wet markets and the big periodic markets have become more complicated. After all, the suffering there weighs heavily. Many simplified descriptions and expressions of praise are too glib.

Reshaping one’s worldview, outlook on life, and values is a complex and lengthy process. It is also a deeply meaningful process, one with a literary quality.