In Chinese culture, there is a fine line between aquarium and supermarket.

I am in a full Asian squat, staring deep into the soul of the king crab a mere foot from my face.

This is the first time I have seen one in real life.

Its sheer size and vibrant colour are awesome.

This monarch’s small, calculated movements through the water convey a sense of power I'd never associated with these creatures.

I’ve read somewhere that these glacial crustaceans are capable of migrating over 100 kilometres in a single season—a fact I'm struggling to reconcile with its current tai chi-like movements.

Then, in a plunging streak of bubbles, the regal creature is snatched from its tank by a brave employee, bagged, priced up, and handed to a ravenous customer.

Fresh food is important in Chinese culture

I've been wandering around a Chinese supermarket in Héféi (合肥), doing my best to absorb some of China's fantastic culture.

As I stand back up, legs on fire, and look around me, I’ve got fish swimming on my left, turtles lounging on my right and, in front of me, 12 different varieties of crayfish.

I look over at a pile of live prawns on ice, their sign reads 半价, which means "half price."

Mouth hanging open, I watch customer after customer walk over, poke the prawns, shake their head, and then opt instead for the wetter but otherwise seemingly identical prawns in another tank less than a meter away.

Every day on my trip to China, I’ve seen how much importance the Chinese place on fresh food.

At first, I thought it might just have been a necessity of the hot, humid climate and the late introduction of refrigeration—but it is more than that.

Fresh food is firmly ingrained into the Chinese psyche, through both their language and culture.

The Mandarin word for fresh (鲜) is constructed from the words for:

• Fish (鱼)
• And for lamb (羊)

Live or freshly-killed/harvested food is thought to contain more qì (气), the vital energy or life force that's known to westerners as "chi."

Confucian and Daoist teachings about following nature rather than dominating it, by eating seasonal and local food, are also hard-baked into the Chinese consciousness.

In the cavernous fruit and vegetable section, I’ve never felt so out of my culinary depth.

I consider myself a fairly healthy and adventurous eater, and I've been getting stuck in as best I can during my travels in China.

Still, here I don’t even feel confident assigning the fruit and veg to the correct category.

Just like the French with their wine, the Polish with their vodka, and the Scottish with their Buckfast, the Chinese obsess over their máotái (茅台).

Máotái is a potent Chinese spirit, usually distilled to around 53%.

It is made from fermented sorghum and wheat, produced through a unique, high-temperature, multi-stage solid fermentation that takes a full year to complete before distillation.

The result is a richly aromatic liquor with strong umami notes and no western equivalent.

There are adverts for it everywhere you look, usually featuring some handsome young man in a crisp suit extolling the virtues of his particular bottle.

Different body standards for men and women

For completionist reasons, rather than twisted ones, I peruse the underwear section of this supermarket.

Rows upon rows of boxes of women's knickers, adorned with wafer-thin models, line the shelves.

Like in many East Asian cultures, a slender female physique is revered in China, and the acceptable standards of slimness and fitness are very different for men and women.

One box of male underwear bears the description 特大肥佬裤, which means “extra-big, fat person underwear.”

It sports a full-length shot of someone who looks rather like the actor John Goodman, busting out of a two-piece suit while staring right down the lens.

In the bottom left-hand corner of the box, there is a close-up of the underwear in action.

Even the most casual observer would note how implausible it is that the crotch close-up is taken from the same model as the primary image.

Similarly-large underwear sizes for women are apparently unavailable.

This little gem would have been easy to miss. Good job I've been paying such close attention.