to walk through chinatown at dawn was to become part of a dangerous dance , because there were no back doors or alleys for loading , and all the wares went across the sidewalk , and although charlie had enjoyed neither danger nor dancing up till now , he enjoyed playing dance partner to the thousand tiny chinese grandmothers in black slippers or jelly-colored plastic shoes who scampered from merchant to merchant , squeezing and smelling and thumping , looking for the freshest and the best for their families , twanging orders and questions to the merchants in mandarin , all the while just a second or a slip away from being run over by sides of beef , great racks of fresh duck , or hand trucks stacked high with crates of live turtles .