major department stores to try and taobao to buy...

If language is a problem and you are just not into bargaining with the local vendors then the major department stores and supermarkets are definitely the way to go. Everything with a price, you get a receipt, and shopping is pretty easy. If you like to mix it with the locals and the farmers then a casual stroll through the open-air markets is quite an adventure. Make sure you're armed with plenty of small change and with the acceptance that you might get "ripped off" 1 or 2 RMB for the pleasure of the experience. In my city the extreme cold puts an end to the outdoor markets for about 6 months. Pity.

I will only purchase meats in the supermarket, I don't trust the meats from outdoor vender.

For fruit and vegy's outdoor markets are the best.

I have never in over 1 year shopped for food in an open air market.

The bigger and more western based the better.

If you talking commodities markets but I I don't do the talking, haggling I just point out what I want and hide . I love the interaction and crazy chaos. Major department stores are much the same as the ones at home. For produce it is a mixture. Markets are the preferred option but supermarkets are far different to western with all the snacky things and fresh produce.

Outdoor markets are great, unless it's freezing outside.

Outside markets are my favorite. Last time, I had fun with salesmen of maggots in Yingkou.

i found it really fun to shop in open-air markets.
 'friendaa last pricee, tell me'.. gooda for you gooda for me' 

I decided never to buy meat from open markets when:

I was at Walmart actually just getting vegetables, they have packaged chicken breasts already on the commercial freezers, but I was attracted to the open meat place where they had unpackaged meats placed on ice in open air...I thought it was interesting because i had never seen meat sold like that, where I come from it's covered etc.... I started using the provided handler to check out the meat and was just kind of fascinated at the new experience, until a Chinese woman came along with her friend, happily chatting away came and just started grabbing the chicken pieces with her hand, checking them out, holding the pieces in her hand and putting them back...she didn't even take a single piece to buy, as in she just touched them and left them like that for the next unknowing person to buy. I understand it might be normal here but jo!  I was left speechless...First of all I am sure she had been working all day, where and handling what, don't even wana think about it....

I am reluctant about buying in the open-air market for a simple reason: hygiene.

The lack of minimum hygiene conditions makes me to avoid these places no matter how cheap it could be compared to a supermarket. I have seen too  many disgusting behaviors like spitting right there where vendors sell their goods, peeing in the nearby of their selling points or simply being in the nearby of a garbage collecting point.

During the Summer, the hard bad smell that comes out of this place, it makes it unthinkable to buy from here no matter how good or cheap fruits, vegetables are.

There is also something that hit my nose all the time including during the very cold Winter: the bad smell, the hard bad smell that comes out of the used fish oil, the vendors cook their food with, in the nearby of the open-air market. This, hard and disgusting is, that sometimes I was about to throw up. No offenses to anyone who may even associate those smells with nice experiences of their childhood and somehow they are endeared with those places where they can recall innocent times.  Though I understand this is linked to a way of living, it doesn't mean it's healthy and secure for any other vendors who may sell their products in better conditions or for the buyers like myself.  In the supermarkets, I can have a minimum level of hygiene and am sure that I can avoid health issues. 

Nonetheless, common behaviors are found everywhere. Either in an open-air market or supermarkets, filthy people touch with their hand fruits, seeds, vegetables selecting one by one anything they want to buy. That is gross as I see how people go to the toilets (WC if you want) in the supermarkets, those places where you can't even pee, this dirty and disgusting are. When they use the WC they never wash their hands. You don't even want to imagine what did they do otherwise you risk to bitter the rest of your day. Then the same people happily go shopping selecting by hands, the hands they don't wash, the fruits and vegetables. There are no respect and concern for other people. While they pick in their noses or clean their teeth with their fingernails, they keep on touching the fruits and vegetables.  

Another danger to consider when buying in the open air market is that there are such places , on narrow streets, where vendors place their goods to sell along the both sides of the streets and let the vehicles pass by. All the contamination done by vehicles goes to the fruits, vegetables, meat, fish and so on. You don't want to buy anything at all  when you think of the high level of the toxicity the food contains under these conditions. 

Again no offenses to anyone who love to buy in the open-air market, I hope you enjoy it, but I rather prefer to pay more in the supermarkets reducing health issues risks as much as possible.