In a small city in the northern part of Anhui Province, China, there is a huge and old dog trading market, which is less than a kilometer away from the local high-speed rail station.  Every day, the world’s most advanced high-speed trains howl through the city, but they haven’t had the slightest impact on the existence of this historic place.

Unlike the pet shops in western countries, this dog market—like most dog markets in China—is a semi-outdoor place. The sanitary conditions here are poor. The smell of dirty dogs, sweat, excrement mix together, attracting flies to hover endlessly in mid-air. Both sellers and buyers are highly mobile. Many sellers do not have fixed booths, fixed sales hours, and fixed product categories. It is precisely because of this uncertainty that many weird things happen all the time.

Every morning, most sellers will put or squeeze all of the dogs neatly in the cage. The dogs and their owners will excel themselves in the coming day to get more sellers' attention.  Some dogs have been well-groomed, with clinking and shining ornaments on their white hair.  Some dogs will cooperate with their owners to make some difficult movements, or obediently follow their owners’ complex instructions. Some dogs don’t have a peculiar appearance and can only attract more attention by roaring loud. At the same time, some people are happy because they have bought their beloved dogs, and even laugh out loud. Some people are sad or disappointed because of the bleak business. Some people cry because they are forced to sell a dog that has followed them for many years. This is the magic of the dog market. People come together for similar purposes, but the moods and results turn out so different.

The rise of the internet has added more absurdity to this originally weird place. “Almost overnight,” a seller who has stayed here for a really long time described to me, "everyone took out their smartphones, created their own accounts, and started their own live shows on various live broadcasting platforms to sell their dogs." The internet unknowingly infiltrates our lives like water, but here, in this dog market in a little-known town, I have seen the terrible power of the internet. Everyone holds a pole in his hand, and each pole is enough to hold several mobile phones. Many sellers enthusiastically introduce their dogs behind the phones and then put the phones next to the dogs to let the audience see their products clearly. I’ve asked them why they are using multiple phones at the same time. “Fool, it can let me broadcast live on several different platforms at the same time”. This is just a dog market, but it is also a microcosm of Chinese society. Technology is changing people's lives all the time, but at the same time, in this ancient country, many things have not immediately disappeared. These things are mixed together to form a peculiar sight.

“It’s lucky to be a human,” the seller continued, “or at least it’s better than to be a dog because we choose our lives, but dogs can only be chosen by others. Some dogs will be picked away by the rich and lead a more luxurious life than humans, but for the rest of them a tragic fate is awaiting them”.