I got up, got dressed, and went into the living room. That
was when I noticed the second difference. Outside my window was a brilliant
blue sky. The fact was probably related to the diminished traffic on the
weekends, but it looked so…nice!
Today’s primary mission was going to the grocery store
(again.) Our group was made up of Nate, Jessica, Dayana, Ericka, and Akeena. We
followed the same route across the street of death and down the little side
street that we’d walked yesterday. About half way down, I saw a little
warehouse market off to the side. It looked just like La Boqueria in Spain,
with all sorts of breads, produce, meats, etc.
“Why don’t we look around here?” I suggested, figuring we’d
probably find cheaper prices than the store.
“I don’t know that we can trust any of it,” Nate pointed
out.
We continued winding up through the neighborhood to find the
store. At one point, when we went to cross the street, a police officer blew a
whistle at us, and clearly indicated we needed to wait for the walk sign. I
wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Whistles haven’t really controlled me since
fifth grade recess. It’s a bit awkward and a bit humiliating.
We passed a big festival in a park with loud music and lots
of little kids. I thought about coming back to check it out, but it was getting
hot and right now air conditioning sounded really good. As we approached a big
sky scrapper called “The Renaissance Building” we realized the store was in the
building.
The grocery store reminded me a lot of stores in Prague. The
shopping carts were deeper than in US, although fewer people were using them.
Most people used the little plastic, hand baskets and just gathered a few items.
I bought some eggs, yogurt, pasta (which was fresh cut in the store), granola
bars, cereal, and Mirinda. I was mostly thinking of breakfast and snack food,
figuring that lunch and dinner may be eaten at work or on my way home. Nate
bought some chicken, soy sauces, bread, and milk. We decided to combine our
purchases and share the food.
The meat section was particularly odd to walk through.
Chickens were displayed with the head and feet still attached, and cut down the
middle with all of their organs intact and displayed. There were also whole
rabbits (skinned of course but still looking like a rabbit), as well as a
variety of seafood dishes and other meats. There was a strange squeaking noise
I couldn’t figure out. I looked up and back into a window. I realized the
butcher was killing many of these animals right in the back room.
A lot of the brands for things like cereal and yogurt were
pretty international. Some of the logos however—specifically the mascot
characters—were slightly changed to have more Asian features. Tony the Tiger,
Snap, Crackle, and Pop, as well as the Cheerio’s honey bee all had different faces.
We checked out and the entire purchase together cost about
320RMB (about 50USD.) It has not been my experience thus far that China is
super cheap. In fact we started talking that the pricing seems fairly random
and unpredictable.
The store was about 2 miles from our apartment building, so
we decided to take the subway back (it stopped just under the Renaissance
Building. Schlepping our bags through the subway, and then the ½ back to the
building was frustrating. I have to be honest, I started to miss my car (not
that’d I’d want to drive it in this traffic, but I do appreciate how easy it is
to go to the store, load up the trunk, and drive home.) I also missed air conditioning,
and dry air, and clear air, and walking through construction sites, and not
dodging motor cycles on the sidewalk, and all of these things that were fun on
Tuesday are all of a sudden…really hard.
We got home and put our food away. Maybe I’m just hungry I thought. I opened the package of granola
bars and decided to try one. No exaggeration, it looked like cardboard. Biting
it into, it was so dry, it shattered in my hand. There was absolutely no flavor
to it, and I briefly wondered if I had just eaten part of the box.
This wouldn’t even be
good with Nutella on it, I thought.
I got out my iPhone and connected to the Wi-Fi. Once it
clicked in, I sent an iMessage to my friend whose been working in Shuzhou for
the past month.
This is getting
frustrating I wrote.
A few seconds later, he replied: What’s that?
I wrote back: Its hot,
it takes forever to get anywhere, I don’t know what to order when we go out and I don’t like picking bones out of my
food, I don’t know how much anything costs…I mean it is still fun, its just
getting hard. And Italian food sounds really good right now.
I knew I was going to feel this way. I had days in Europe
when I felt this way. It is all part of the process of adjusting. Europe took a
lot longer to get to this point though. I was there for a couple of weeks
before the rejection phase hit. China must have me on the fast track.
In some ways, I don’t miss home, I miss Europe. In a lot of
ways, things here are like they were in Europe. The food is very flavorful and
very filling. The neighborhoods are quaint, charming, and teeming with life.
The public transportation is easy and fun and always an adventure. But I miss
wandering. I miss getting lost. I miss discovering awesome things on my own.
That’s when it hit me! I haven’t tried doing any of the
things that I liked doing in Europe. I haven’t tried getting lost or just
walking until I find something interesting. I only have 64 days left in China…I
need to get busy!
I went outside, crossed the street of death (which is more
like the street of purgatory on the weekends) and wound my way back to the
market we’d seen this morning. It wasn’t very crowded so I took some time to
walk through.
At first I tried to hold off judgment, but gradually my
nose betrayed me. It stank in here! There were all kinds of dank and fermented
odors. The produce looked great, but it smelled like garbage. The breads
smelled salty and stale. All of the meat smelled like it was rotting. Even the
booths that were selling pottery smelled bad.
I tried to quickly walk through the seafood section when the
corner of my eye was distracted by movement. Looking down at the display, I
realized that all of the seafood was still alive. I mean it was barely in
enough water to stay alive, but it was all clearly moving. There was even a
small bucket with tiny turtles. The kind a pediatrician might have in their
main office. A woman walked up and pointed at a turtle. The man running the
booth picked one up and after getting her approval on the size and price, he
set it on the table and smashed it with a hammer.
The PETA activist in me jumped a little. I made my way
outside, turned the corner and disappeared into the streets…maybe the Chinese market isn’t really my
scene.
A few blocks down, something smelled great. I saw a lady
frying little balls of meat in a pan of peanut oil. I walked up and pointed to
one. She held up five fingers and I gave her 5 Yuan. She picked up a meatball,
put it in a small paper cup for me, and handed it to me. “Xiexie,” I said,
pretty sure I’m still butchering it.
I walked back to the apartment building to eat my “lunch.”
When I got there, Jessica was waiting in the lobby. We’d talked about going to
see a temple this afternoon, so we decided to go after I ate my meatball. As
soon as I bit into it, I was pretty much done. Once again, it was filled with
tiny bone fragments.
“I’ll just get something from the little café,” I said,
pointing to the coffee shop in the corner of the lobby. I went up to the
counter and pointed at a piece of Cheesecake. The man rang it up and handed it
to me on a plate with a tiny spoon. I went back to sit down and try it. It was
in fact cheesecake, with an emphasis on the cheese. It was so salty, it took a
lot of control not to squint up into a face. It almost had a fishy taste to it.
I gagged down a few bites before giving up.
“Alright! I’m done,” I said putting it down. “I’ll go see if
Nate wants to come with us.” I really just wanted some water to wash out my
mouth.
This is hard!
No comments:
Post a Comment