Leason Learned

Never shop at Auchan (Chinese Walmart) on Saturday.  Never.  No really, never.  That was the warning that every expat that we discussed grocery shopping with gave us.  Like most of the "great" stories in my life, this one of course starts with "However, we...". 

However, we just got word that our air shipment will be here Monday!!!  I have to work this Sunday since the office traded working days to get more time off for Spring Festival.  This means that we had to go Saturday in order to have some of the basics.  Rebecca dragging three kids aged 8 and under to any sort of shopping district is just not at all feasible like it is in the states.  So off we go.

A brief description of Auchan before we begin:  There are over 100 check out lines.  It is roughly twice the physical size as a Walmart, with aisles about 20% narrower.  Very few things are in English, but thankfully the aisle headers were.  Jackie Chan has a lucrative sponsorship through laundry detergent.  About 10,000 people show up on a Saturday.  So I'm exaggerating, call it 7,500.  If you don't believe me, see the below picture of an aisle and multiply that by every single aisle in the store.

Thankfully we were taking a taxi, so what we could buy was limited to what two adults could lug around; we were in and out in under 2 hours.  Most of that time was Rebecca standing in line having people cut in while I wheeled the boys around outside.  She was getting annoyed and then she realized that they were cutting other Chinese as well; there was no offense meant to the foreigner, they just don't have the same system based on reciprocity with strangers that we have (i.e.  I don't cut you in line even though I don't know you because I don't want to be cut in on myself).  From what I read and hear, it's totally different with friends.  I can understand that thanks to my company's Influencing and Negotiating class, which actually did make the pill a little easier to swallow.  It's very strange to meet people who are incredibly good hosts (maybe the best in the world) and then go out in public and experience the opposite.

I also included some pictures below from earlier trips to show the types of foods available in the supermarket (yum!!!) as well as the highlight of the trip for the boys, an escalator that takes shopping carts.