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Yesterday, Brittany bought an oven. Her apartment didn't come with one; the Chinese don't really bake. At all. And when you're living on your own in China, epecially as a vegetarian, meals can get pretty monotonous when you only have an electric stove and a microwave. So. Oven.
A toaster oven, to be more precise, which is the Chinese idea of an oven. That was fine for her though; small, so we could transport it and it would fit easily, and it's not like she was cooking ginormous things. We found one that was a decent size and at a pretty good price (on sale at 85% of the original price, even) and yup. Bought the oven. Sorta.
What we really did was we talked to (she talked to) the woman manning the little area the ovens were, who wrote down a lot of things and handed Brittany several pieces of paper, with the instructions to go to the 'cash counter' of the store. Papers in hand, we walk over to the cash counter, where Brittany pays for the oven and is handed some more reciepts. These, we are told to take back to the oven-area. We do. Another woman takes some the the reciepts, stamps them, gives us some more back, and tells us to go to another counter.
Over to the Information Counter we go. We hand them some of the reciepts and are given yet another handful of papers. Which we then take back to the oven-area, hand them to the woman, who then tells us to wait for a minute while they bring out the oven.
Now. I understand keeping stock in the back, but why does their system require five different visits to three different counters to purchase an oven. How does that make an efficient sense at all. Brittany supposed that it was a job creation type thing. I think it's more just that they have so many people, they need to keep them all moving from place to place so there's less of a pile up.
After we dropped the oven off at the apartment, we headed right back out again, intending to visit the Nanning night market and Snack Street. A long and slightly worrying bus ride later, we found the night market. Basically it was several alleyways/streets that got completely taken over by vendors (mostly clothing) and everyone in the vicinity squished into the tiny space to buy things. Very Chinese, in that the night market is obviously for the people who live in the country, not random foreigners thinking it might be interesting.
And it was interesting, don't get me wrong, but. There is this thing I've been noticing about China. Conformity? Covers everything. So the vendors? Pretty much all sold exactly the same stuff. You'd walk from one stall to the other and it was all almost the exact same thing. No variety at all. And this is everywhere. Honestly, it makes shopping (and gift getting) kind of difficult; if you don't like what one place has to offer...chances are you're not going to find much else anywhere else. We did come across a lot of terrible, terrible Chinglish on clothes, which were fun to read while the vendors looked on bewildered at our laughter.
I even bought a sweater. Brittany was the one who pointed it out to me. It says, "More Respect, Less Attack" in big letters on the front, and some giberish in cursive underneath, the material was nice enough, and it was being sold as an extra-large men's sweater, which meant there was a chance it'd actually fit my shoulders. The seller wanted 68RMB, which, no, and I haggled it down to 38RMB (about $6), a price I was okay with paying. After being able to look at it in the light, it was almost funny; the thing is very, very obviously handmade, from the seamwork. The thread is two colors (yellow, sometimes mixing into pink), and loose enough that I was afraid to pick at it much, for fear that it would just come apart. However, it's an easy enough fix; once I'm home I can go over all the seams with a simple straight stitch and that added precaution should keep things together.
Snack Street was a few blocks away from the night market, and that was an experience all it's own. ( If you'll turn your attention to the items behind the cut... )
So I experienced both a Chinese night market and a snack street. Haggled for a sweater, saw many things I would probably hesistate eating, tried some fresh juice drinks, and discovered an allergy to Durian. All in a day's night, in China.
A toaster oven, to be more precise, which is the Chinese idea of an oven. That was fine for her though; small, so we could transport it and it would fit easily, and it's not like she was cooking ginormous things. We found one that was a decent size and at a pretty good price (on sale at 85% of the original price, even) and yup. Bought the oven. Sorta.
What we really did was we talked to (she talked to) the woman manning the little area the ovens were, who wrote down a lot of things and handed Brittany several pieces of paper, with the instructions to go to the 'cash counter' of the store. Papers in hand, we walk over to the cash counter, where Brittany pays for the oven and is handed some more reciepts. These, we are told to take back to the oven-area. We do. Another woman takes some the the reciepts, stamps them, gives us some more back, and tells us to go to another counter.
Over to the Information Counter we go. We hand them some of the reciepts and are given yet another handful of papers. Which we then take back to the oven-area, hand them to the woman, who then tells us to wait for a minute while they bring out the oven.
Now. I understand keeping stock in the back, but why does their system require five different visits to three different counters to purchase an oven. How does that make an efficient sense at all. Brittany supposed that it was a job creation type thing. I think it's more just that they have so many people, they need to keep them all moving from place to place so there's less of a pile up.
After we dropped the oven off at the apartment, we headed right back out again, intending to visit the Nanning night market and Snack Street. A long and slightly worrying bus ride later, we found the night market. Basically it was several alleyways/streets that got completely taken over by vendors (mostly clothing) and everyone in the vicinity squished into the tiny space to buy things. Very Chinese, in that the night market is obviously for the people who live in the country, not random foreigners thinking it might be interesting.
And it was interesting, don't get me wrong, but. There is this thing I've been noticing about China. Conformity? Covers everything. So the vendors? Pretty much all sold exactly the same stuff. You'd walk from one stall to the other and it was all almost the exact same thing. No variety at all. And this is everywhere. Honestly, it makes shopping (and gift getting) kind of difficult; if you don't like what one place has to offer...chances are you're not going to find much else anywhere else. We did come across a lot of terrible, terrible Chinglish on clothes, which were fun to read while the vendors looked on bewildered at our laughter.
I even bought a sweater. Brittany was the one who pointed it out to me. It says, "More Respect, Less Attack" in big letters on the front, and some giberish in cursive underneath, the material was nice enough, and it was being sold as an extra-large men's sweater, which meant there was a chance it'd actually fit my shoulders. The seller wanted 68RMB, which, no, and I haggled it down to 38RMB (about $6), a price I was okay with paying. After being able to look at it in the light, it was almost funny; the thing is very, very obviously handmade, from the seamwork. The thread is two colors (yellow, sometimes mixing into pink), and loose enough that I was afraid to pick at it much, for fear that it would just come apart. However, it's an easy enough fix; once I'm home I can go over all the seams with a simple straight stitch and that added precaution should keep things together.
Snack Street was a few blocks away from the night market, and that was an experience all it's own. ( If you'll turn your attention to the items behind the cut... )
So I experienced both a Chinese night market and a snack street. Haggled for a sweater, saw many things I would probably hesistate eating, tried some fresh juice drinks, and discovered an allergy to Durian. All in a day's night, in China.