Carrefour

Groceries are a big deal for me. Many of my happiest moments as an adult involve cooking, serving, and consuming food and drinks with the people I love. Like a lot of people who grew up without a lot of money, I have some serious food issues that center on the way I think about food and the cost of food. These two things together make buying food and having enough money to buy it a source of both happiness and worry. Regardless of my worries, though, grocery stores are a happy place for me.

Because grocery stores are a happy place, and I feel out of place in Beijing, many of my outings involve grocery stores. Over the weekend, I visited Carrefour. Online, it is described as a “mega supermarket.” That title is earned and apt. The location I visited was directly across a street from the subway station. Perfect! Carrefour occupies the second and third floors of an enormous shopping complex with small stores on the bottom floor. I rode the flat, but inclined, moving walkway up to the second floor of the building and immediately marveled at the sights and sounds of Carrefour.

In front of me were pallets of goods from various departments that were on “special sale.” After walking through palletland, I found an impressively large electronics department. To my right was a woman hawking some sort of vacuum cleaner. She was demonstrating its performance using beads that she repeatedly dumped on the ground. The beads scattered farther than intended, and children gleefully chased them.

As I continued through the store, I spied a very bored looking salesman in the aisle with the pots and pans. He was looking at his cell phone while glancing into the throng of shoppers occasionally. Just a few feet away were three women aggressively (one of them grabbed my coat sleeve and jammed a bottle of Downy under my nose) touting the benefits of the various laundry aids on the nearest shelves. The store seemed to hold every item of clothing and housewares that any modern family could need. I reached the end of that floor and found myself in the “beauty” aids. I picked up some sunscreen and used my phone app to translate the bottle. Bummer. It, like many skincare items, contained a skin lightening agent. Not on my list of skin care items and certainly not FDA approved.

I found the moving walkway to the food floor and was transported to floor three. I found bread! Donuts! Dried fruit and snacks in every shape and variety. Meat including live turtles and fish. Food, food, and more food. At this point, I was pretty happy. There were yogurts of every variety and enough dried fruit and nuts to feed an actual army. After spending as much time as the noise level—very noisy with sales people behaving like carnival barkers—would allow, I found the checkout.

A man standing at the end of the checkout yelled, “Hey! What’s your name?” I told him my name and asked him the same question. He repeated his name twice for me and began to sing. I have no idea what he was singing, but then he yelled, “Hey, Amy, I love you!” I waved and silently wished all of my wishes for the cashier to finish ringing things up so that I could leave. Finally! I paid and moved to leave with my goodies. The man stopped me and asked me if I wanted a massage. No, no, and nope. It was a sales tactic. That was more comforting than if his declaration was intended in another way. He grabbed the collar of my jacket. I wriggled free, said, “I’m going this way,” and took off toward the exit. Whew! That was intense.

For me, much of making my way through Beijing as a foreigner is about experience. As I have new experiences, I know how to behave in the future. I will visit Carrefour again. My love of a good grocery store is a strong motivator. However, next time, I’ll be aware of the sales tactics and will be ready for them. I’m living and learning as I wander through Beijing.