Ask an Expat, part 3
Written By: Due-East on May 27, 2011
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| What follows is the third and final installment of our interview with expat Steve Holt… |
| Q: What are prices like in China? |
| A: That depends on what kind of money you make. If you’re rich in the US and making US dollars, things are really cheap to you. Your money goes a long way. If you’re making Chinese yuan, though, your money obviously doesn’t go as far. Things are getting more and more expensive here, especially food. |
| Q: What’s the shopping experience like in China? |
| A: That’s a pretty broad question. I’ll answer regarding grocery shopping or shopping for necessities. Store employees here (at least where I live) are generally very friendly and helpful and willing to go out of their way to help you find what you want if you’re a foreigner. I’ve had several employees at the store where I do most of my shopping drop what they’re doing to help me find things I’m looking for. That’s always really nice. The shopping carts here are weird. All four wheels pivot, so steering them is really hard. You have to kind of swing your body out from the cart and use your body weight to keep them from careening out of control into the other shoppers. Because of this horrible design, people often drag the carts behind them using one hand, like an oblivious four-year-old dragging his new puppy around on a leash. The poor puppy is on his back, slamming into every obstacle in his path. That’s pretty much how carts are used here a lot of times, and it ends up blocking up the entire aisle. |
| Another funny thing I’ve run into is that, while sales people are very helpful, they also often just make things up in order to get you to buy things that are more expensive than what you’re looking at or to get you to buy something else when what you want isn’t in stock. For example, I was with a friend one time when he was considering buying a collapsible chair. He asked the store clerk about the chair he wanted to buy, and since what he wanted was out of stock (except for the display model), the clerk proceeded to tell him how much more stable the other chair was, the one that was in stock, even though it was clearly inferior in every single way. I went to buy some shaving cream once, and when I was about to pick up the cheaper one, the sales person there working in that section proceeded to tell me to buy the more expensive brand. We had the following conversation: |
| Me: “Why is it better? Because it’s more expensive? Because of the brand?” Clerk: “Because of the brand and because it’s better to use.” Me: “But how is it better to use?” Clerk: “It’s better……….” Me: “Uh, yeah…Well, I’m gonna try this brand out for now, and next time I’ll try that one out, ok?” |
| She clearly had no idea what made the one product better than the other, but it was more expensive, so she wanted me to buy it. |
| Q: Having spent all this time rehashing some of the good and bad things about life in China, how do you feel right now? Would you consider your move here to be a good decision or a bad decision over all? |
| A: A great decision. I really love it here! |
| Q: Great, glad to hear that. Maybe we’ll check back with you again in a couple of years if you’re still here to see how you’re doing. |
| A: Sounds good… |
| That does it for this installment of Ask an Expat. Stay tuned for future episodes. If you have a question that you’d like to ask an expat, leave a comment with the question, and we’ll do our best to include it in the next interview. |
Tags: Culture Clash, Expat story, interview
