Shopping
Being a foreigner in China has both advantages and disadvantages when you go shopping.
I have found at times that it can be frustrating, annoying as well as a lot of fun.
Generally when I go into the local supermarkets close to where I live, that I become the centre of attention, especially from older people. They are all very interested to see what “the foreigner” is buying.
Leaving your shopping trolley unattended, even for the shortest time can find it being rifled through to see what you have. I have even had small groups of old people having a great discussion about what is in my trolley and what I may or may not be going to do with it all.
I now ensure that when I get into a supermarket, that I quickly find a couple of items to put in it. If it is empty and you turn your back on it – it will be stolen from under you.
Once every couple of weeks I go to one of the two large Foreign Supermarkets – Carrefour (French) and Metro (German) – these are places where I can by my precious Italian Coffee – at a price, as well as good old Mainland Cheese, Anchor Butter and other items that I am used to – but no Vegemite, Cream or Curry.
These are some distance from where we live, so catching the buses is necessary, getting there is OK, coming back can be a drag, again everyone wants to see what you have bought – you will get people trying to look into you bags.
Shopping in the market areas is a lot of fun, generally if I am on my own I will often get ripped off – the mentality here is “all foreigners are rich”, but there are times when I do get a bargain – they are not all thieves, although, sometime I do wonder.
The stall holders, whatever they may be selling will call you over and rattle off in Chinese, expecting you to understand, most of the time I talk straight back at them in English, which gets everyone laughing.
The trick here is that if you don’t like the price – walk off. Most of the time they will come back, having dropped the price. Others will give you a calculator and get you to put the price down, you want to pay!!!!.
I was looking at a bright pale blue crystal – the sticker price was 2,000RMB – I obviously walked off, the woman chased me with a calculator so we went back. (I didn’t really want to buy it) She immediately dropped the price to 1000RMB – I still said no – then she put the calculator in my hands and I entered a price of 300rmb – she was shocked to say the least – she came back at 350RMB – which was cheap, but I did not want to spend that sort of money – she then got very abusive and said unkind things about my mother – I think.
When I have been to these markets with Xiaohua and she is a hard bargainer – they have accused her of being a traitor to her country, in trying to get things cheap for the foreigner. It doesn’t even help when she tells them I am her husband.
I cannot buy shoes here – my feet are too big and I cannot buy Levi Jeans here either. One thing about shopping here is that it can be a bit like Monty Python’s skit about the Cheese Shop (it is on the site if you don’t know it). They have everything, except what you really want.
Generally there is no “returns policy “here with the exception of the large Department Stores, which are all Government run. Being a foreigner can have its advantages – I have threatened to go to the Tourist Complaint Office a few times with much success, especially when I have bought dodgy DVD titles (hey are all dodgy here in fact) that do not operate.
Trying to find a specific shop here is really difficult – there are no telephone directories to look up. Of course asking anyone for directions here is a complete waist of time. All Chinese know where everything is!!!!!!!! – They would never ever admit that they do not know something, especially when a foreigner is around. It’s called “losing face” and know Chinese person like that happening to them. We have been off on real wild goose chases looking for shops, only to find that we were closer to them where we asked for directions, than where we got directed to. Asking taxi drivers will get you no where, they are all stupid here and can become very very rude. In the city a short while ago we were in a hurry and a bit lazy – we were only 2km from where we wanted to go – it’s the biggest tourist market in the city and the driver didn’t know where to go!!!!!
An indoor market I went to a while ago in Nanning city had two floors of the large old building just dedicated to woman’s bras and knickers – with a lonely little stall in one corner of the floors selling fishing gear – man that was hard to find !!!.
Customer Service is a totally unknown & alien term in most places here – I will make the exception for Carrefour and Metro though. I suppose when you consider that a lot of shop assistants only gets paid around 1-2NZD/hour, customer service doesn’t come into their heads. That is a very low pay even for this country. Mc Donald’s and KFC workers get 1NZD/hour and only work 3 – 4 days a week, don’t know how they live.
In fact Carrefour in my mind is a great supermarket – I who have never won much in the way of things in my life was eligible to enter their 8th Birthday Competition (you had to spend over 100RMB). I filled out the form, thinking hmmmm yeah right, a form filled out in English is going to get somewhere. To be honest I was not even sure that I had the correct telephone number. Anyway two weeks or so later Xiaohua had a telephone call and came over to my office and asked me what I did at Carrefour a couple of weeks ago. I told her and she responded with “you have won a Siemens Fridge Freezer!!!!. I couldn’t believe it. Although we had to pay the tax on it, it was great to win second prize in a competition with over 1,000,000 entrants. Sold it to one of my colleagues here.
They even have “dead people’s” shops here – you can buy coffins, dead people money, and incense, all kinds of strange & colourful things used at funerals here.
The only thing to remember is to have an alternative in mind when you go shopping here, chances are they will not have your size, the colour or pattern you want today – but may have it next week, or may not.