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Until this weekend, mine and Nicole's shopping has been mostly limited to the big supermarkets near us. For the most part, these are quite like their English counterparts. You have to stow anything you might later be accused of having stolen in a small locker before you go in, and they have ramp-like escalators that you can take trolleys up, but aside from that they're pretty standard. Apart from the food, obviously - you don't get tanks of live fish, tortoises and toads in Tesco! There are other things which we found weird at first, like the meat counter, where they have piles of terrifying-looking glazed duck heads and battered chickens feet, but it's beginning to seem quite normal now. I'm still fuming about the lack of salt and vinegar crisps (they have cucumber flavour instead) but as we can get really good chocolate I feel like I shouldn't complain.
The new developments, shopping-wise, have been finding our way out of the tiny crowded streets immediately by our house and onto the main high streets, which are 10-15 minutes walk away. We've found fast-food restaurants, electrical stores, book shops... but clearly the most interesting bit is the clothes shops! We first looked around on Saturday, with Julie as our guide, but I headed back in alone on Sunday for a better look. I should probably say at this point that, whilst we're treated like celebrities at school, just strolling around the city we don't usually get that much attention. At least, I've never noticed much more than brief glances and the occasional pensioner wandering over to inspect our shopping baskets. Shopping by myself on Sunday, this all changed! It was a busy street, packed with pedestrians, and everyone would turn to stare at me, whilst nudging their friends to do the same. At one point I was stood by a 60-something-year old man dressed like a member of the Scissor Sisters and still getting all the attention. I was feeling VERY self-conscious and quite embarrassed, so after only about 5 minutes of this, I ducked into a shop, hoping to be able to hide for a bit. Unfortunately, I picked completely the wrong shop for this. I was barely through the door, politely looking at some admittedly-quite-nice jumpers, when the first shop assistant descended on me. Within two minutes I'd been led to a mirror in the middle of this shop in order to try on one of the jumpers; ostensibly because the shop had no fitting rooms, but it's equally likely they did it just to make a spectacle of me, because literally everyone in the shop gathered around to watch. I struggled into and out of the jumper in the middle of a circle of about twenty grinning Chinese women, whilst the manager of the shop sprung out of nowhere to make everyone laugh by telling me "beautiful!" In the end I bought the jumper, because it was cheap (about £4) and buying it required less Chinese than refusing it.
The rest of my shopping trip was much of the same; lots of being stared at and being giggled at by shop assistants. I haggled half-heartedly and allowed myself to be ripped off buying earrings in the indoor market (I say ripped off, they were still only £1.50), then practiced my Chinese-style queueing by elbowing my way to the front of the cash desk in another shop to buy a top and some nail varnish. In another shop, I spent nearly a minute gazing in horror at the ugliest top I've ever seen in my life (words don't do it justice, but it was lots of big prints with random orange floaty bits hanging off in every direction) and the shop assistant who'd been following me mistook my morbid fascination for interest, and ran off to bring me similar tops in different colours. I'm still getting used to the Chinese way of dressing, which is random to say the least. There seems to be no age limit on different types of clothes, so it's perfectly normal to see middle aged women in mini skirts and old men in tacky slogan t-shirts - "so crazy!" on a miserable looking old man remains my favourite. Trying to find plainer women's clothes is nearly impossible, as most things have fur or beads or frills or glitter (or all four together) on them, and the accessories are almost always enormous and Sesame-Street bright. The nail varnish selection is brilliant though! I'd been getting a bit panicky about the availability of nail varnish, having been unable to find any in the make-up departments of any of the big supermarkets and department stores we'd visited. The most I'd found were 6 cheap-looking nail varnishes at a beauty counter in Walmart (oh yeah, we have a Walmart!), where I somehow, thanks to my dodgy Chinese, ended up buying an ugly purple and having my nails painted for me... again, much to the amusement of the shop assistants, who all gathered around to laugh and test their English on Nicole and I. Turns out the cheap high-street shops were the place to look!
My least favourite part of this weekend's shopping - Nicole's too - was on Saturday. We joined a crowd of people circling around a street act, expecting it to be, as it would in the UK, street-dancers or a magician or something. Instead, we found a guy holding four large monkeys on ropes. In his other hand he held a plaited rope which, although we didn't see him use it, looked like a whip. One of the monkeys was muzzled, and the guy was pulling the ropes about and shouting at them, making them jump and run about. The whole thing was crude and unpleasant to watch; there was definitely no affection between the animals and their trainer. Further down the street was a woman surrounded by white rabbits stacked in cages barely big enough to hold them, which made us both cringe as well. On the other hand, I watched a woman chase a chicken down the street on Sunday and, despite knowing that chicken would be her dinner that night, couldn't stop laughing. She managed to catch the chicken and, holding it by the legs whilst it stiffened with its wings slightly outspread, brandished it victoriously at passersby - that was possibly even funnier.
Monkeys and staring excepted, shopping was really good fun. Julie showed us an enormous book store where we can buy books to help with our lessons, and where they even have the proper English editions of some famous classics - including Wuthering Heights, although for some reason the front cover was a photo of a desert island. We've also found two McDonalds and a KFC, although obviously we are far too cultured to be interested in eating there... ahem... and I bought a bedside lamp to replace the one I broke with my over-enthusiastic cleaning when we first moved in. On Saturday we bumped into quite a few of our students, all of whom were really friendly and some of whom greeted us by name (they know our names! and only one of them called me Allan!) and Julie enjoyed witnessing all the 'hello's we get from strangers ("you are both so outstanding! Everyone wants to see you!"). My personal highlight was managing enough Chinese for a brief conversation with two women in a corner shop who were, as per, really kind and friendly - and, according to Julie, gave me a discount on the drinks I bought just for being foreign. So, all in all the weekend was a big success, and not least because we've got a much better idea of whereabouts in the city we're living. Still need to find the post office though!
Before I go, I'll just add that tomorrow, September 18th, is national Anti-Japanese Memory Day, which coincides nicely with the riots over Japan's purchase of *those* islands. We've been told there will be alarms and a parade to commemorate the occasion, although we won't be able to see the parade as we will be under temporary house-arrest "for our own safety". Apparently, we might be mistaken for Americans which could lead people to "take drastic actions". Oo-er. Winston, our waiban, will escort us to our lessons tomorrow to ensure our safety, and we've stocked up on emergency provisions (chocolate) for the day.
So, if nobody hears from me in the next week or so, chances are I've been lynched. Blame the Americans! xxx
- comments
Jo Thanks Winston - never knew his host duties would extend to acting as body guard. And glad you have found nail varnish supplies, I was particularly worried on that score! XX Mum