Cabbage promotion draws a crowd in Beijing

At 5:45 in the morning the cabbage line outside the Old Drum Tower Outer Street New People's Produce Market is nearly two hours old. First in line is a 72-year-old woman named Wang, who awoke at 3, arrived at 4 and would wait until 8:30 for a single head of winter cabbage. Free.

Cabbage, or bai cai, costs about 4 cents a head, so Wang's prize was not quite a free refrigerator. She did not mind. Nor did another retired matron who passed the time singing patriotic tunes and a shaky but enthusiastic English rendition of "Baa Baa Black Sheep." And neither did two elderly combatants who shouted at each other in unprintable Chinese for inexplicable reasons.



"They are just fighting because they have nothing better to do", explained Wang, who declined to provide her first name. "We all know each other. We're all old neighbours."

But a few hours in line can also provide entertainment for people inured to hardship and tedium by a few decades of communism. "It doesn't matter if I get a cabbage," said one man, who like several people declined to give his name. "It's a nice day and I've got nothing to do."

With slideshow.