Kunitzer in China

Saturday we went shopping at The No. 1 People's Department Store in downtown Suzhou. We needed to get some new electrical appliances (microwave oven, vacuum cleaner, electric razor) a rug, and a few new clothes. We wanted to try the department store because we heard the selection and the crowds are better than at Auchan (a French-owned supermarket similar to a Super Wal-Mart). We were right about the selection: it was like going to a Macy's - seven different floors and each floor specialized in separate items. We were wrong about the crowds: it was also like Macy's - on the day after Thanksgiving. Although there were a lot of people, there weren't so many that it was impossible to move, just so many that it was very difficult to navigate two small, tired children who everybody wants to touch and hold.

First we bought an electric razor. Fortunately they took Visa because we realized we didn't have enough cash for all the things we wanted to buy. Buying things at a Chinese department store isn't like buying things at an American department store. In USA, you take your item to the counter, give the sales clerk your cash, check or credit card, get your receipt, and leave. Not so easy in China. First you get a special ticket for the item you want to buy. Since I was buying an electric razor on the first floor, I had to take my ticket from the electric razor counter to the credit card office at the other end of the building. After they figured out how to process a Visa transaction, they kept my special ticket, gave me my credit card receipt and then gave me a different special ticket. I had to take this second special ticket to a different office where they perform the sales transaction. There they gave my second special ticket the official "Paid In Full" stamp (I think) and they gave me my fapiao (my official invoice). Then I had to go back to the electric razor counter to give them my second special ticket with the offical stamp. Then they showed me a brand new electric razor still in it's sealed box. Very Important - you must inspect the contents of the box regardless of its appearance of never having been opened because there is no guarantee that the actual contents of the box match the description of what is written on the box. So we opened the sealed box, inspected the contents, found everything to be in order (it helped that the manual was also in English) and went on to the next location.

There were some things on the 2nd floor, so we had to find our way upstairs. After navigating through the crowded aisles, we made our way to the elevator (because we had the strollers). We were fortunate enough to get on one right away, but we were unfortunate that the elevator was so crowded that we couldn't get out on the 2nd floor and we went up to the 3rd floor. Since a bunch of people were getting out we, we pushed our way out with them. We figured it was better to get out and look for something else than to continue being trapped on the elevator. Lucky for us we quickly found the vacuum cleaners. After having one of those bagless vacuum cleaners when we lived in Charleston, I only wanted another bagless vacuum cleaner. Trying to tell a sales clerrk that I wanted a bagless vacuum cleaner was impossible, so all we could do was start looking at the first one we saw. I made the sales clerk open the vacuum cleaner to show me if it had a bag or not. Of course, the first one had a bag. Piece of cake, I point to the bag and say "bu yao" (I don't want it - meaning the bag). I think she understood what I meant because she quickly went to another model and eagerly opened it up to show me there was no bag. True enough, there wasn't a paper bag, but there was a non-disposal cloth bag. This was not what I wanted so again I point to the bag and say "bu yao". Now she clearly doesn't understand me because every vacuum she shows me has either a paper or cloth bag. Disappointed, I just walk away shaking my head. The next counter also has vacuum cleaners and I see a Philips that I think is bagless. I make the clerk take it off the shelf, open it up, and find no bag! So I make her plug it in and turn it on, but she won't let me suck up any paper so I can see what happens. But this lady was really thinking because she shows me a manual in English for this vacuum and it's what I want. At this point, I thought it best to buy this instead of trying to find another less expensive model. So we go through the same routine I did with the electric razor - back to the first floor to make the Visa transaction (there only one Visa card reader in the entire store!), back to the 3rd floor and to the sales desk, then back over to the vacuum cleaner counter, where I open the box and inspect the entire contents and finally find that everything is OK.

Buying these two items has taken over an hour, so we decide we should leave and get the microwave oven some other day because it's not a high priority right now. My wife quickly changes her mind when she sees a simple, low-priced microwave with English writing on the controls. She figures the difficult work is already done because we already found exactly what we want and we'll pay for this with cash. Since I don't have to go back downstairs to the the credit card office, I just take my ticket to the sales office where I gave them my money and they give me my fapiao and my "paid in full" ticket. I takes these back to the microwave oven desk and now they want me to fill out some special paperwork. I didn't have to do this before and I can't read the form because everything is in Chinese, so I don't quite know what they want. Fortunately I have my cell phone on me, so I call one of my Chinese colleagues from work. I explain the situation to him and have him talk to the sales clerk. Come to find out that they don't have the microwave in stock, but they can deliver it on Monday and they just need my home address. I show the sales clerk the taxi card for my apartment, make her write my address on the form (in Chinese) and I put my phone numbers and signature on the form. One hour after deciding it was time to leave, we are definitely ready to leave.

Since we took a taxi to downtown, we need to take a taxi back home. And since the department store is in the pedestrian-only part of town, we need to walk back to the taxi stop. One thing we can count on in the pedestrian part of downtown is getting solicited by every bicycle-taxi driver that we comes within 1 city block of us. That's a lot of times to say "Bu Yao!" I'm sure the entertainment value of riding these things is high, but we're not here as tourists now.

And after we make it past these guys, we can count on getting accosted by the automobile-taxi drivers that are walking around looking for a fare. These guys promise us a taxi is ready and waiting for us and will guarantee our fare will not exceed a certain amount. We just laugh at these guys because we know they charge at least double the normal cab fare. Because they can see we are foreigners, they think we are rich and stupid. Well they've got us figured wrong, we're just stupid. Who else would take their two young children shopping at Macy's on the day after Thanksgiving? Maybe it will be better during the October Golden Week.

I'm sorry to disappoint all those people who were wringing their hands in eager anticipation of seeing me in a pair of crotchless pants, but they just didn't fit.

And for all those people who have been biting their fingernails in fear of Chinese diapers filling up our American landfills, you can now sleep better at night dreaming about crotchless pants.

Believe it or not, these things are real. Just as real as the wet spots left behind where crotchless pants have tread. I'm beginning to understand why I haven't seen any carpeting since I've been in China.

It's actually quite amazing that kids here know what they are supposed to do. This kid didn't have any wet or dirty pants, and he was clearly younger than my 2-year old daughter. My 2-year old, on the other hand, nearly gets a party thrown for her when she uses her potty chair - even when she misses and needs to change into some clean clothes.

Although I haven't actually seen any kid shake the dew of his lily, I also haven't seen any parent ever clean up any type of spill or trash or mess. It kind of makes me wonder what kind of germs are on my hands while I am eating. Especially since I never see soap in the bathrooms.

Good thing my wife came well-stocked with anti-bacterial hand wipes. Unfortunately, she did not come with a 3-year supply of anti-bacterial hand wipes and already the stock is running low. I think her diligence in keeping the girls' hands clean is now waning because she recently made a very keen observation: there are no sick people here. It seemed like it was very common in Charleston, SC to see people with a cold or runny nose or allergies or a flu bug. Not a lot of people, but enough that you knew something was going around. My wife and I just haven't seen people with any type of sickness here. I don't know if it's because people have better developed immune systems because they are exposed to more germs starting at a very young age. Or if it's because there are so many people here that look so much alike, that it is difficult for me to know if somebody has been whisked off to a quarantine camp for Asian bird flu because they sneezed in the poultry section of the supermarket. Regardless if there is less sickness here or not, I'm still going to recommend that my wife get some crotchless pants because one can never be too sure.

Monday, August 28 was a long work day. I left my office and traveled with some colleagues about 2 1/2 hours to a small city called Haimen. A small city by Chinese standards means it's under 1,000,000 but still bigger than Charleston, SC. To get there, we needed to cross the Yangtze River. (Sorry James, the place we crossed is nowhere near the Three Gorges Dam.) I've heard the Yangtze River is the 3rd largest River in the world - smaller than the Amazon and the Nile, but longer than the mighty Mississipp. Crossing the river was actually quite impressive - not because of the size of the bridge (granted it was a cable-suspension bridge larger in size than the new cable-stayed bridge in Charleston, SC but it was less than half the size of the cable suspension Mackinaw Bridge in Michigan) but because of the amount of freighter traffic. Even though the haze and smog limited visibility to less than 1 km (0.6 mile), I could easily count 25 ocean going vessels and an equal number of tug boats. And that was on just one side of the bridge! 100 km (62 miles) upstream from the port! Charleston Harbor is one of the busiest ports on the eastern seaboard of the United States, but I've never seen the kind of traffic in Charleston that I saw when I crossed the Yangtze. You don't need to have a degree in Economics to see why the price of steel and oil keeps going up: it's all supply and demand. Chinese capitalism is putting such a high demand on these commodity resources that supply can't keep up fast enough to keep prices down. I'm sure the Saudi Arabian, Nigerian and Venezuelan oil field owners are grinning ear to ear. And I don't think it is going to let up for a long time to come. Even though the Chinese government is trying to slow down the rate the economy expands (to 8% annually!), they are also targetting a 12% annual increase in the consumption of commercial goods through 2011.

It's amazing what kind of thoughts go through a person's head just by crossing a bridge. What's even more amazing is how quickly those thoughts can change just by getting to the other side. Upon crossing the Yangtze, we have clearly moved from a Chinese middle-class standard of living to a Chinese lower-class standard of living. The road we drove on wasn't bad. In fact it's a relatively new highway with three lanes going in each direction, a median filled with well-manicured bushes, and a wide shoulder next to each outside lane. And smooth...oh, to have such roads in Michigan!The thing that's really strange about the highway after we cross the Yangtze is how quickly the traffic has disappeared. The highway had become eerily devoid of other traffic. Several times we had gone 15-20 minutes at 140 km/hr (87 mph) without seeing another car, truck or bus in either direction. This just does not happen in the States - three lanes in both directions and not another car in sight during the middle of the day! And it's not like we're in the boonies either. In fact it's more like one giant sprawling village, mile after mile. Gone are the high rise offices and apartment buldings. Now I found only 2-story homes and a lot of farming. Not the kind of agri-business farming so typically seen in the States, but the kind of small parcel farming you might see if all the homeowners in a typical residential subdivision in the States converted their entire lawn to a tract of farmland. And it was like this mile after mile - lots of houses, lots of farming and very few cars. With all these houses, I'd normally expect to see some cars, but after I took a closer look, I began to understand why there was so little traffic on the highway. It's because there wasn't any traffic amongts all these homes. At least, there wasn't any car traffic. There was a lot of foot traffic, bicycle traffic and scooter traffic. And that's because these people don't have a car, they don't have a garage, they don't have a driveway and they don't have a street. Most just have a dirt path about the size of a rail trail, but in a lot worse condition. For most people in China (meaning more than 750,000,000 people) owning a car is far from possible because they certainly don't have the money, let alone the infrastructure.

We got to Haimen, spent all day with the supplier, had a large Chinese lunch (8 cold dishes and 12 hot dishes - stangest among those was air bladders from fish cooked with some kind of leafy green vegetable in a creamy Chinese mystery sauce - yum!), spent all afternoon with supplier, then turned around and went back home.

What's really amazing is how one's thoughts can change after 12 hours (I told you it was a long work day). On the return trip back to my office, it was becoming difficult for me to see all these homes we had passed earlier in the day. All of a sudden I realize that almost none of these homes have any type of electric lights on. Since I have nothing else to do this late, I start counting the homes without lights, and three times in a row I count higher than one hundred. Everytime I think this country is becoming an economic juggernaut, I'm reminded of how little inertia there is due to this amazingly large mass at rest.