Grocery shopping

I shop for American style groceries at this Euro-Mart.

Euro-Mart is inside the block, away from the street. Cars can't drive up to it, but most people don't have cars anyway, so it doesn't matter. I can park my e-bike next to the building. 

Grocery shopping in the Middle Kingdom is not easy, but it easier than it used to be.

I remember when I first moved to this country, I made a wild guess that grocery stores would arrive in this country by 2050. Fortunately for me, I was 50 years off. They arrived in the year 2000. Before that, you had to buy your groceries at the open market, stand in line as butcher carved pieces off a dead pig, or did bad things to a chicken.

Large grocery stores on the scale of Super Wal-Mart exist now. You can't get canned goods, and you can't get most packaged goods that you can get in the U.S. (no cake mixes, for example).

These large stores, RT-Mart, Carrefour, Tesco, etc. sell fresh fruits and veggies, packaged meat, ramen noodles, soy sauce, vinegar, mayonnaise, rice, frozen dumplings, milk, eggs, row after row of sugary drinks, cleaning supplies and cheap household goods (the quality is very low; makes Super Wal-Mart look like Neiman Marcus in comparison).

In my city, we used to have quite a selection of import grocery stores. Some have closed down and we have very few now.

We can get American goods but can't afford them in large quantities due to prices that are up to 4-5 times the price you pay in America. Who really wants a small can of Campbell tomato soup that costs over $5?

But sometimes a can of green beans, a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, and a bag of tortilla chips makes you feel like a human being. I can buy paper towels, Betty Crocker cake mix, salsa, refried beans, and lettuce.

Euro-Mart, an import grocery store, is 30 minutes away from where I live, by e-bike, through the worst traffic in town. I can't go unless I am calm and alert enough to handle the traffic. I can make there about once every two weeks.

Euro-Mart has a bakery, but I don't eat bread. It has a dining area both indoors and outdoors. It is two-stories high, so I start upstairs with an empty basket and carry it downstairs to finish shopping before checking out. They take my American credit card so I don't have to carry cash there.

Euro-Mart has another location in town that is further away from me, and it is larger and only has one floor.

At Euro-Mart, I buy enough to fill four re-usable shopping bags and carry them back on my bike. Two stack on top of each other on my floorboard, then one each hangs over the sides of the two handlebars.

When I get home, I drop the bags by my front door, temporarily park my e-bike near the door, then scoot them over to the elevator so I can get them up to the 8th floor where I live. I'm so very thankful for my elevator.

I'm also very grateful that I didn't have to wait until 2050 to see the arrival of grocery stores here.