As life in China returns to normal after the pandemic, hawkers are hitting the streets. They look to at least supplement their income amid an uneven economic recovery in which jobs and wage growth has been sluggish. For decades, street stalls and hawkers - common elsewhere in Asia - have been banned or tightly regulated in many Chinese cities, with authorities seeing them as unsightly. The tech hub of Shenzhen, which banned hawking in 1999, will ease restrictions on street stalls from September. Lanzhou in the northwest said this month it would designate areas for street stalls as it sought to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.

---