Weining's market days bring together the mixed-ethnicity communities of the surrounding plateau: Miao, Yi, Hui Muslim, and Han traders and farmers converging on the county seat for a market that functions as genuine trade rather than tourist spectacle. The markets in the lanes around the main square are where cured ham, dried mushrooms, plateau vegetables, livestock, and hardware change hands, and where the social life of a dispersed rural population concentrates for a few hours.
The Hui Muslim quarter around the mosque has a concentration of halal restaurants and food stalls that operate independently of the market calendar; on market days this area is particularly busy. The Yi communities from the higher plateau often come in traditional dress — black felt cloaks, embroidered collars — and the combination of ethnicities in a functioning market environment has a vitality that the purpose-built folk culture shows elsewhere in the province can't replicate.