Things That Are Different in China: Grocery Stores

December 9, 2009

tags: Beijing, carrefour, China, chinese, food, grocery stores, meat, seafood, shopping

by mhorama

Compared to Stop & Shop or the Big Y, Carrefour, the closest large scale grocery store near us, might as well be from a different planet. First of all, it is located at the heart of a pretty good sized shopping center. The basement houses B&Q, a large, Home Depot-esque home improvement store. The ground floor contains shops, boutiques, and restaurants. When you enter this section of the store you get your first inclination of just how crowded this place is. Think of the busiest store you can, on Black Friday, then double the amount of people and enthusiasm. This will give you a rough estimate of the maddening crowds that swamp Carrefour constantly. There are hordes of people here, hordes. Bobleo and I have figured out that the best time to hit Carrefour is either really early or really late. Anytime in the middle is basically grocery shopping masochism. That is, unless you enjoy boiling to death while crushed in between shopping carts, while striped shirt checkout girls demand exact change.

Aside from being crowded, Carrefour’s intensity is due to the direct sales method of the staff. Imagine wandering into the fabric softener section to pick out a deal, then having multiple bottles opened and shoved under your nose at random. The staff here are constantly shoving things in your face. There is no browsing at Carrefour. Instead, I’ve found that the safest thing to do is to close your eyes and grab a bottle at random, then hightail it the hell out of dodge. You’ll experience similar scenarios as you shop in other sections of the store.

The meat and seafood sections are especially different from home. If live lobsters make you squirm, you had better not step foot here. Imagine tanks and barrels of live creatures: turtles, fish, crabs, and shrimp. There are piles of tiny, live shrimp mixed in with minnows and other sea creatures. There are beds of ice and refrigerated buckets where you can literally hand pick the fish or meat you are after. There are butchers who will gut and clean any fish you pick out, or hack an entire section of pig into whatever shape you fancy. It is really intense.

Then, of course, you have your more tame differences, such as the oddly flavored Pringles, or many corn themed snacks and candies. Prepackaged jellyfish, marinated chicken feet, and peanut flavored milk are just a few other curious things you may encounter.