Hey, check out what this crazy Laowai wants to buy...

Today at the grocery store, we went through our weekly routine - show up at the store right when it opens, and then divide and conquer. What we mean by this is that the grocery store occupies two levels (normal for supermarkets in Beijing), and it makes sense for us to split up at first and then meet up later. So Cara heads straight to the produce section on the second floor and Michael heads up to the third floor to get a grocery cart. Why do they not have grocery carts on the main (second) floor? A fine question, and one we are still unable to answer.

Michael has to work the grocery cart across the entire third floor to get to the escalator ramp that leads back down to the second floor, and then weave clear across the second floor to get over to the produce section where Cara is. Along the way he'll browse the beer and tea options, pick up some vacuum-packed peanuts (for making peanut butter), snag a few tins of tomatoes or garbanzo beans or coconut milk, and then rendezvous with Cara. Cara will then deposit her first load of fruits, at which point we part once more. Michael leaves the cart with Cara and darts off to pick up yogurt, milk, and soymilk. By the time he gets back to Cara and the cart, she has fetched all the needed vegetables to go with all those fruits, and it is time to head to the checkout lines.

This morning, as we transferred our groceries from the cart onto the conveyor belt, the customer ahead of us in line did something so completely Chinese that we knew it had to be the topic of the day's blog. He stared intently at the items we were preparing to purchase, saw an item of interest (Michael's "afternoon tea," a mixture of tea and coconut milk packaged in an aluminum can), and reached over to pick it up. No, he never made eye contact with either Cara or Michael, nor did he say anything. He just presumptively reached over and plucked one of our items off the conveyor belt and gave it a good once-over before placing it back on the conveyor belt. We are confident that such behavior would be unusual in the 'States, where the least such a nosy person could do after inspecting someone else's groceries would be to say "Hi" or "I was thinking about buying this item myself. Is it any good?" Not so in China. In China, privacy is essentially nonexistent, especially for foreigners. So to paw through our groceries is not only normal behavior for the Chinese, but there's absolutely no obligation to introduce oneself upon doing so.

On a side note: although foreigners rightly comment that products in China are incredibly cheap/affordable, it can sometimes be shocking when confronted with an items that is unusually pricey. Take, for example, cat litter pans. A simple, rectangular plastic basin. No moving parts, monochromatic, no logos, no batteries required. Just a pan. 298 Chinese yuan, at the grocery store. That's about U.S.$35. For a plastic bin in which cats poo. The mind boggles.