200% Satisfaction

I survived Wal-mart Shanghai. Barely.

First, though, I sardined myself in 97 year old diesel tooting bus and we drove in 1/2 gear at an intolerably slow pace towards the 180,000 square-foot mega-facility in Pudong (my side of the river!). Local papers estimate over 100,000 people came through the warehouse doors that first day. I think they all must have arrived at the same moment I did.

Living in this country you get used to a constant buzz of people. There’s such a space crunch on the sidewalk at any given moment that the Chinese have simply stopped trying to avoid each other. It’s a wasted effort; instead, as gently as possible, they careen against one another in a perpetual game of human pong. For a westerner, accustomed to a set sphere of inviolable personal space, this behavior can be incredibly disconcerting at first. Some spend their time in continual apology to the crowd at large (oh, sorry, sorry, sorry again, whoops, didn’t mean t…) but nobody’s listening for an apology so nobody hears or cares. Then there are those who are forever tensed and occasionally quite angry, venting at that unlucky sap who brakes the camel’s back each day or week. (My GOD! Can’t you PEOPLE LEARN!)

In the end, you adapt. Or worse, you bring the habit back with you and occasionally find yourself in trouble on the New York subway system. (What the fuck dude, watch where you’re going! Don’t sweat it man, I lived in China…)

Wal-mart, however, was something else. It was a swarm. An uber-hive of chipper, google-eyed shoppers ecstatic with consumeritis and flitting every which way marveling over 90¢ whole-chickens, fields of fresh fruit, acres of baked goods, oodles of noodles, and sky scrapers of Black Man Toothpaste (AKA “Darlie”… formerly named “Darkie”).

Parched after trekking through the two aisle (~three mile) Gobi dessert of Chinese ‘cereals’ <brrrr> I made the near fatal mistake of grabbing a cold drink and downing it. Now, unlike Carrefour who allows this, the local security guard was none too pleased. Bah humbug. I had worse problems, like paying for my now empty bottle. I looked towards the checkout (all 70 counters) and an awful rising-violin-note of despair sounded in my ears. People, thousands of them, wedged against each other like like wet sand in an hourglass. I could see the ironic headline: man starves to death waiting in supermarket queue.

My tasty beverage, cold and glistening like a jeweled ornament in its all too conveniently placed fridge had successfully tempted me into folly. Express items aisle? Bwah, ha, ha…

Truly though, emerging into the thick night air, I appreciated the never again risibility of it all all; certainly, I can argue to myself, as culturally pleasing as any stadium concert I may have attended.

I can’t say Wal-mart lived up to its promise though. In fact, I’m pretty sure it can’t ever live up to its promise to anybody:

 
 

   
I ate terrible Sichuan food afterwards… but there was a duckling wandering around the place, so that was cool.