The Chatuchak Market in Bangkok has everything in the world, but mostly it has fish. Hundreds of stalls and booths sell SuperReds as pictured above and an amazing array of other goldfish, Siamese Fighting Fish and pretty much anything else that swims, including sea snakes and sting rays unhappily imprisoned in plastic bags and turtles you buy to set free thereby increasing your karmic revenues.
In one corner of Chatuchak, several men gathered around a makeshift circle constructed of plastic. Within the enclosure, two rough-looking roosters were battling, attempting to upend each other and peck the others eyes out. The men loudly debated the bird's abilities and made wagers across the ring. Both birds were half bald by the time I joined the audience and were more bald when I left twenty minutes later. Cockfighting is an endurance sport for both birds and fans. I wandered next door, where a handful of men peered intently at a half dozen fruit jars filled with water. In each jar two of the famous Siamese Fighting Fish were thrashing it out, pulling chunks of each others fins off in ferocious, if tiny, displays of aggression. Already one jar had an obvious victor; his adversary floated at the top of the jar, lifeless. The fish-fighting men held their noses six inches from the glass to see the full drama.