Trip to the city

Walmart: Breaking borders in the name of capitalism.

Got home late from work tonight for the second night in a row - was 9.30pm when we rolled into the hotel today. Its not like I have anything to really come home to, and working late here sucks far less than in Japan, but its still nice to have "Me time". Means I'd have more energy to write here. Still, I decided to post once every 2 days, and I'm trying not to break that - at least, not yet. After working at a computer all day, however, the last thing I really want to do is come home and, well, work on the computer. I feel like a member of Kraftwerk.

So I'm staying in a "town" in south-east China, but besides the large number of people, there's not a lot of things to suggest its a town. I mean, where does it end? And where the heck is the centre? Its more like a series of housing complexes constructed around a bunch of factories, and of course a hotel on a hill. So on Sunday when I heard we were gonna trip into the city, I was all about it. Bring on some shopping!

And thus, shopping was brought oneth. We hit Dongguan central, and the reason I know it was central is because they actually had facilities for living! Not to mention a bunch of big-as would-make-America-proud department stores. I spent most of my day in the Walmart "Supercenter". The wonderful thing about Chinese stores is, they look big and flashy, but they still sell the same knock-off crap you'd find in any street market in Asia. Lets take an inventory of what I bought and how much it cost me, eh?

If this was the movies, that guy would have
a sniper rifle hidden among the balloons.

"Armani" Jeans/"Levi" Jeans 120yuan each
"Puma" T-shirt 50 yuan
"Dunhill" cardholder 40 yuan
"Armani" Belt 80 yuan
3 "DVDs" + 1 "box-set" of Heroes 35yuan
"Bvlgari" Sunnies 230yuan

Now, consider that this is actually expensive by Chinese standards. Also consider that 10yuan = 1.30USD or thereabouts. I spent NZ$100 bucks on a new wardrobe and entertainment. Which may, or may not, fall apart on me in the next 4 days (the zippers on the jeans are particularly suspect). I am a fake-shit consumer whore, and how.

I love Chinese salesclerks. I mean, they're this hybrid of street merchant and standard shop assistant, which means they have that "Can I help you?" approach, steeled by some backstreets resilience. I told this lady 5 separate times to leave me alone, but she kept bringing out new stuff for my approval. Didn't help that she didn't really take into account my size, and when I said I liked something, she said they didn't have it that big. That's just teasing.

Traffic highlight of the day was seeing a guy on a moped trying to cut diagonally across an intersection full of cars, with his young daughter on his lap, and his wife on the back. He wouldn't get pulled over for that though - after a week's observation, I've concluded that the minimum number of passengers on a 50cc bike is 2, not counting the guy holding the handlebars. Its a grey-area rule, just like the one that says all drivers must have 2 wheels in the adjacent lane at all times. If you don't check your blind spot and change lanes into another car, it's not your fault, it's their's for not warning you to bugger off with their horn early enough.

On a final note, I think that Pepsi is winning the cola wars over here. It certainly tastes better than Japanese Coke. And looks like something from outerspace when it's written in Chinese. Check it out.

That can't be right. "Pepsi" is 5 letters.