Week 2: Things You Won't Find in an American Grocery Store

We had hoped to write our blog this week about hunting for an apartment in Shenzhen. However, due to circumstances beyond our control, we don’t have an apartment yet, so we’ll save that story for another time. As anyone who has moved, much less a long distance or around the world knows (shout out to Nathan and Bree most recently), apartment hunting in a strange city is intimidating.

One of the things we want to do in our blog, is give you a small sense of the taste, smells, and feel of the place we live now. At times it is overwhelming, discombobulating, and intriguing all at the same time and in different and unique ways. Today we just took some pictures of things you won’t find in an American grocery store.

The first picture is of a Ramen bowl, those delicious soup and noodle concoctions that have sustained generations of American college students. Noodle bowls in Asia nothing out of the ordinary here. But look closer at the picture. First, some celebrity is endorsing this particular brand of ramen bowl. Noodles over here are serious business and celebrities endorse noodle bowls. Second, look at the English. The bowl brags of a “hot tingle flavor”. Not quite sure what they mean by the “tingle” flavor.

The second two pictures are taken directly from the meat case at our local supermarket. We didn’t go anywhere special to get these pictures, we didn’t ask for special access, these are at the grocery store a couple hundred feet from our front door.

The picture on your left is of an open air tank on the ground of live frogs and eels in the meat department. I can assure you that people are not taking them home for pets. The picture on the right is of an open air tank on the ground of crabs and turtles also in the meat department. One thing you learn is that there is a very different relationship between man and meat. It is much closer and personal. The disconnect between man and meat that we have in the United States where it shows up perfectly cut, trimmed, and ready to eat is an anathema here. Everywhere you go in one of the most developed cities in the country, meat is being trimmed or the animal that you are about to eat is right before you. Animal rights does not exist.

The last picture is one that we took as we were checking out, paying the cashier. I can only imagine what the cashier thought as we took this picture. In all honestly, I’m not sure I want to see a smiling condom in the checkout line. I mean if I were a condom, I’d be smiling too, but in the checkout line? Coming from America, I am so used to copies of US Weekly and breath mints. Maybe here in China they keep the condoms and add the breath mints. Now there’s some real product synergies!

Hope all is well with all our friends and family and don’t be a stranger on skype. As we get settled we’ll send out more contact information including telephone numbers and pictures. Thanks for all the emails and thoughts. Have a great weekend.

Christopher, Daisy, and the next speaker of the House of Representatives Corra Balding