Maybe it's because I've reached that magical point where things really start to piss me off here. Usually I am a fairly civil down-to-earth kinda guy adopting the shake of the head but accepting that weird stuff occasionally happens here.
Went to Walmart today to buy a hat for my gf that I saw there last week. When I came in I walked through the food area and noticed one of the cleaning ladies picking something up from the pile of rubbish she just had broomed together. Out came 2 big shrimps that had fallen down from the ice table. She looked at them carefully then brushed them off a bit and put them back on the table. Uhm,, the dirt on the floor aside it doesn't take many braincells to know that shrimp can go bad pretty darn quick and there was no way to tell how long they had been on the floor.
Anyway,, after having promised myself never to buy "fresh" seafood from Walmart again I walked up to the clothes department and discovered that the grey hats had sold out. There were plenty of other colours but my gf wanted the grey one so I dared to trouble the 3 fuwuyuans standing nearby disgussing last night's episode of "Ugly Mother". "Do you have any more of those hats but in grey somewhere?" I asked getting the usual up-n-down stare from half the staff on the floor. "Yes but we can't go and get them from storage right now since we have to stay here" is what she replied (roughly,, my Chinese isn't so good yet). So after once more having realised that service isn't a big deal here and having tried to argue that the other 600 fuwuyans could look after the clothes while she helped me out I decided to walk down to the soft drinks and stock up on diet cola.
Since Pepsi stopped making Diet for Kunming it's been increasingly hard to find cola without sugar and Coca Cola is taking advantage of this by jacking the price of CC Zero up to 4.5-5 kuai a bottle. I wanted some but after having scoured the isles for 10 minutes coming up with nothing I again dared to ask a fuwuyuan. She repeated "cola without sugar" and took off to another isle where the no-sugar products were. No cola though so I asked her again if they had any cola without sugar and she said no.
Then I asked specifically for the Coca Cola Zero (many people here haven't got a clue that you can get diet coke) but when she was about to answer me the top most annoying thing happened (again). Chinese guy walks over, taps her shoulder and starts asking her stuff completely ignorant that she is with another customer. I guess I could live with that if the salespeople would just tell them to wait a second but as usual she immediately turned her attention to him instead.
Having tried that before I just kept talking ( a little bit louder ) to get her attention back,, when after 30 seconds it finally worked she turned and said "Look,, we don't sell coke or pepsi without sugar here at all". Nice,, a Walmart that sells imported dates from Algeria for 60 kuai a kilo and imported (crappy) cheese for 25 pr 200 gram doesn't even sell diet coke.
Needless to say I am not going back to that place. I can ofcourse accept that things get sold out and that brands dissapear but the lack of service and the way that woman handled the shrimp just doesn't cut it. It's not the local noodleshop we are talking about where you don't expect hygiene is in the Michelin class but from a place like Walmart you would hopefully get better.
You can bash me all you want for not robotlike chanting "This is China" and go on with my business but I don't really care :)
Kunming to hold UFO forum this month
发布者David you troll you.
Interview: Sahra Malik
发布者Thought it sounded strange as well. A quick google later told me that coffee trees don't grow well at altitudes higher than 3500-4000 feet and they don't particularly like extended periods of frost so clearly the coffee isn't grown near Zhongdian. It wasn't clear from the article but the coffee they sell probably comes from Southern Yunnan.
Expert: Kunming's property prices could drop by 30 percent
发布者Bucko. I seem to remember that you've bought real estate around these parts recently. How did it work out? Did you have any doubts as to the possibility of a ruptured bubble? My girlfriend wants us to buy a place but I see a lot of the prerequisites present for a rupture over the next 1-5 years although the "Chinese characteristics" might play enough to keep it away for now. Did you find it daunting to buy a place blind that wont be ready for quite a while? Did you meet any obstacles as a foreigner that a native Chinese wouldn't? Aren't you the least bit worried that in 15-20 years some developer will have you kicked out for peanuts and the promise of a new apartment (and 2-3 years of waiting for it) in the larger building he is proposing? I know I am since "rights" as I know them don't mean the same thing here.
Expert: Kunming's property prices could drop by 30 percent
发布者The delusional frenzy isn't going away until people realize that demand just doesn't meet supply these days. Unfortunately the government has been pounding the Chinese with propaganda about buying and owning property for so long that very few even want to consider that there might be a problem or 10. I have a major issue with the fact that you can't actually own the land that your property is situated on and frankly I doubt that leasing land from the government and the fact that you don't seem to have any legal options in cases of disputes (ie massive corrupt real estate developers) is something you can build a solid real estate market on in the long run. Something's gotta give.
Kunming government worried about drought repeat
发布者Get back to work Jesus. Them dead aint gonna resurrect themselves ya know, and while you're at it: How's that "feeding the poor" thing coming along? With those Multiplying Fish skills and scrolls of Water-into-wine it really shouldn't be much of a problem. Did you just take a 2 millennia break you slacker?!