鱉 Spotted for Sale in Beijing

choi

Julie Makinen, In Beijing, Turtle Man Heralds the Arrival of Spring. Los Angeles Times, Mar 27, 2016
http://www.latimes.com/world/asi ... 20160327-story.html
("Winters in the Chinese capital are not snowy, but they can be frigid and gray and fiercely smoggy because of the mountains of coal burned for heating")

Note:
(a) I have no idea that Beijing has forsythia or daffodil. It turns out daffodil is 水仙. I also did not know, until today, that Beijingers eat lizards.
(i) Forsythia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsythia
(There are about 11 species, mostly native to eastern Asia, but one native to southeastern Europe)
(ii) Narcissus (plant)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(plant)
(iii) Taiwan does not have forsythia, which grows in hardiness zones 5-8, whereas Taiwan in zone 11.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardiness_zone

Taiwan does not have daffodil in gardens, either.

(b) 鱉 in English is softshell turtle.  See Trionychidae
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trionychidae
(a taxonomic family)

(c) "Sizing up his prospective customers — two white-collar women, one of them a foreigner, no less — Turtle Man stuck his neck out.  'One thousand, five hundred,' he said, meaning yuan, or $230. 'It's 8 or 9 pounds!'   Then, laying on the pitch thick, he added: 'It's a hundred-something years old!' "
(i) lay on (vt): "to apply by or as if by spreading on a surface <laying it on thick>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lay%20on
(ii) lay it on thick: "Fig. to exaggerate or over-state praise, excuses, or blame"
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/lay+it+on+thick