The specific eating habits of the Chinese have been known since antiquity. Due to the lack of normal and wholesome food due to numerous wars, droughts, floods and other natural and external disasters, the Chinese were forced to be content with "strange" food. Insects, wild animals, and whatever food was available.
An important role in the formation of such a diet was played by numerous beliefs in the "miraculous" Chinese medicine. Many Chinese were of the view that if you eat a certain wild animal, then its properties will be transferred to a person, including strength, cunning and other habits that are inherent in this animal. Many centuries have passed since antiquity.
Now China is not only a decent country in terms of living standards, but also one of the most powerful powers in the world. Wars and external problems are in the distant past, but gastronomic preferences have not disappeared anywhere. Some Chinese still eat wild animals, insects, and other strange foods that would frighten a civilized person.
The Chinese living in the territories of megacities have long abandoned such food, and now most often such food is entertained by tourists who sincerely believe that all Chinese eat cockroaches.
The sale of carcasses of wild animals and insects is carried out illegally in the territories of some provinces, and this is associated with the same poverty as many centuries ago.
Not all Chinese have been able to achieve a decent standard of living, and in remote areas people live very poorly. Illegally harvested and traded carcasses of wild animals and insects are the only affordable food option.
The Chinese buy such food in local markets, with the existence of which the authorities have been unsuccessfully fighting for more than a year.
In most cases, sellers put on the shelves "official" goods, that is, those animal carcasses that can be sold legally, and wild animals and insects are sold "by hand" and "from under the floor."
Belief in traditional Chinese medicine is also still relevant in the territories of some provinces, but the Chinese are very rarely associated with such a gastronomic diet.
Therefore, the main reason why there is food on the tables of some inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom, which can terrify almost the whole world, is the poverty of certain categories of the population.
And while the purchase of carcasses of animals prohibited for sale and a large volume of insects will be many times cheaper than buying food acceptable to the human body, such an underground business in local markets will not disappear anywhere. It will actively prosper, as there are more than enough poor people in China.