Shopping!

Grocery shopping in China is crazy! I actually love it. I go once or twice a week. I can't buy as much as I could in the states, because once I buy things I have to carry them to the bus stop, on the bus, off the bus, back to my apartment and up six flights of stairs.

There are no carts at the grocery store - only baskets. It's a good thing, because if there were carts I'd buy way too much stuff!

Anyway, I do all my shopping in two legs. The first leg is at the grocery store. The closest thing to it in America is Walmart: it has household items and non-perishable food items. There is a very small produce section, and I think you can also buy meat there.

The name of our grocery store is Wong Ke Long. I think it is a brand name like "Walmart" or "Wegmans", not a generic name for "grocery store". It's funny, one of the American teachers here who has lived in China for eight years and is fluent in Chinese calls it the "Wonka", for short. "Wong Ke" usually comes out "wonka". So we call it the wonka long!

We take the bus into town and walk three blocks to the wonka. I sometimes buy bleach or shampoo from the second floor. Then we go downstairs and buy non-perishable food. For some of the other teachers this means cookies and crackers. For me it usually means oatmeal, canola oil, brown sugar, or rice. I generally spend about 30 kuai (kuai = reminbi = yuan; it's the unit of money here, and there are 8 kuai in 1 dollar).

Then I put my purchases into my backpack and walk three blocks back to the bus stop for the second leg. I overshoot the bus stop by maybe 10 feet and arrive at the outdoor market. It is essentially a wide alley that has fruit, vegetable and meat vendors on both sides for 1/4 to 1/2 mile. We generally only shop in the first half since the second half just repeats.

Some vendors just sell what is in season. Peas are out of season, but squash is in season.

My pattern is to walk up to a vendor, point to something and ask "duoshao qian yi jin", which means "how much does this cost for one pound". (A jin is half a kilogram, which is 1.1 pound). If the price is too high I say "tai gui le" which means "that's too expensive!" and move on. If the price is reasonable I say "hao" ("good") and put as many as I want into a bag. Then they weigh the bag and I pay for my vegetables.

Some things are very reasonable: potatoes cost .8 kuai a pound, carrots and celery are generally 1.5 kuai a pound. Soybeans and tomatoes can be 4 kuai a pound, and peas (which are out of season) are upwards of 7 kuai a pound.

You can also buy meat at this market. There is one vendor which carries frozen chicken breasts (YAY!), or you can buy a whole chicken (whole as in head, feet, everyhing!). Most of the chickens in the market are alive. You can watch them pluck the chickens - I usually avoid that part of the market!! When I bought my [first] whole chicken yesterday I said "bu yao" (I don't want) and pointed to the head and the feet. They looked at me like I was crazy and I said (in English - good call, Liz) "I don't want the head or the feet". I was pointing to my own head and feet. Somehow, they understood me!

There is very little beef in this part of China. So we eat chicken and pork. Pretty much anywhere we use beef in the States, we use pork in China. The pork process is the same - "how much does it cost?", "I want one pound". They have machines right there (the market is outside!) that will grind your chosen cut of meat. Sometimes I buy ground pork, sometimes I buy it whole. They will also sell you pork fat, which you can render to make lard (I have successfully avoided that, so far!).

Oh, you can buy fish (which are alive) there. They sell it to you alive and you kill it, etc. at home. I am not nearly brave enough to do that!

Also at the market you can get good prices on spices (which you buy whole and are freshly ground for you), grains (I buy flour and cornmeal from one nice lady), and beans. You can even buy freshly cooked beans, which is very convenient. In fact, I bought a pound of cooked kidney beans for 1 kuai this morning!

Here is a list of all the vegetables I can think of that are available at the market:
Leafy greens, spinach, water spinach, eggplant, onions, tomatoes, green onions, garlic shoots, bean sprouts, potatoes, peas, soybeans, corn, carrots, celery, bamboo shoots, cauliflower, broccoli, cucumber, peppers, squash, and a bunch of native vegetables that I don't know what they are.

Fruits include apples, bananas, oranges (which are green), pomegranates, pummelos, grapefruit, grapes, and kiwi.

When I have purchased all that I want to I head to the bus stop and take the bus back to the university.

The other option is to go to the morning market which is close to the school. It's a smaller version of the outdoor market and is set about 1/2 mile from campus. Most of the people who run the restaurants on campus buy their vegetables and meat there. The only thing is that it is gone by 10am. So when I don't have early classes I try to walk to that market. I'd much rather walk 1/2 mile than take the bus for a half an hour.