It is commonly said that you can buy anything in Beijing, you just have to look hard enough and be willing to fork out the cash. Whilst this applies for crack cocaine and firearms, what I was referring to in particular is imported food products.
Normal Chinese supermarkets are a bit of a letdown in this domain - occasionally Carrefour has a dedicated aisle or two which sells ‘Frosties’ breakfast cereal or ‘Nutella’ chocolate spread, all of which are pricey, but in general its pretty hard to get your hands on what you’re after. Bit of a no-go.
Another option is Wudaokou or Chaoyang - two areas of Beijing where foreigners are particularly numerous. Here you may find small specialist dealers that will sell you Mcvities digestive biscuits, HP sauce and all those other necessities that us foreigners need (or think we need). All these things come at extortionate prices but the shops rely on the fact that these things can’t be bought elsewhere and so I’m sure they still make a fair amount of money out of us.
The king of foreign produce in Beijing has to be a German Cash and Carry chain called ‘Metro’ which is absolutely gigantic. Luckily Siqi uses her mum’s membership card that lets us get in. Here you can get all of the essentials required to whip up an Italian pasta dish (pasta, ‘Sacla’ sauces, and mozzarella cheese) and you can also stock up on your biscuits, chocolates, wine and spirits. However, like everywhere else, all this might risk putting a hole in your pocket if you fail to restrain yourself!
The final option for buying in international produce is to log onto the Chinese equivalent of eBay, Taobao. Unlike eBay which doesn’t allow the selling of food products online, Taobao probably has more international produce available than all the other places I’ve mentioned above put together. So far I’ve used it to buy a massive tub of Thai Red Curry paste, Thai Fish sauce, Kaffir Lime Leaves and some other bits and pieces necessary for putting together a Thai Red Curry. The amazing thing is that all this arrived the day after I ordered it and not too pricey either. I think that of all the options available in Beijing, this is probably the best choice and also the most convenient.
To sum things up, most things can be bought over here but it all depends on how much you are willing to pay. A simple pasta dish that might be eaten two or three times a week in the UK cost me 5 or 6 times as much as making any regular chinese dish over here - hence a luxury I can’t enjoy too often.
Chinese people have a popular proverb: 入乡随俗 that applies well for eating in China. If you want to save money - then eat like the locals, don’t try and take Europe to China, otherwise your student loan is going to dry up faster than you can say ‘Topup fees’. When in Rome…
A few days ago I wrote a post about an afternoon out I had with Siqi last week - for a stroll around Houhai lake and the hutongs of Xinjiekou. Unfortunately and for some unknown reason (probably my own clumsiness) the post disappeared, however, the photos have certainly not disappeared so I though I would post them back up on here for anybody who wants to have a peek.
A card that I received through the post today reminded me that its my birthday…
Only kidding! I hadn’t forgotten - although I must say that despite being another year older and no longer able to call myself a teenager I can’t say that much has changed overnight. Oh and for those of you who don’t know… I’m now 20 years old!
Thank you Nain for this splendid birthday card with the Welsh dragon - which goes nicely with the Welsh dragon fridge magnet you sent!
I went out last night for a catchup with Louis, a friend who I met when I had only just got to Beijing and who is in the same situation as me (both studying Chinese on our year abroad). We went for a meal together and then decided to head out to a bar he was familiar with at 鼓楼 (Drum Tower) later on.
Anyway, on our stroll back to his house in the heart of Beijing’s windy hutong labyrinth, we came across a massive crowd of people surrounding a car and a police motorbike and a person sitting on the ground. It is custom in China that if anything (a fight, an argument, an accident) happens on the street, instead of minding your own business, you must head over to find out what happened so you can spread the gossip when you get back home. Hence, me and Louis headed over and decided to put our Chinese listening skills to the test.
Strangely enough, when we joined the crowd, the policeman seemed to be ‘haggling’ with the Chinese man sitting on the ground (by the looks and sounds of things a migrant worker from China’s poorer provinces). The policemen was basically saying - whats the least you are willing to take? At first we were not quite sure what sort of transaction was going on here (a bribe maybe?) so we listened on. Eventually, it became clear that the guy who was sitting on the ground had been shunted by the shiny black Audi which was parked nearby and that the Policemen was trying to settle things on the spot by getting the Audi driver to pay some compensation (no doubt for medical fees) to the unfortunate pedestrian. We couldn’t make out much of what the migrant worker was saying due to his strong dialect (and by the looks of things neither could the policeman for that matter) but it became clear that he wanted at least 800 yuan compensation.
The policeman then turned to the Audi driver who said that he refused to pay anything at all, and that even if he was willing to pay compensation he didn’t have the money (it was a very very shiny black audi and the driver was wearing a clean suit and shiny leather shoes, me and Louis glanced at each other in disbelief). Eventually, after threatening the Audi driver with taking the matter to court, the policeman managed to get him to hand over 200 yuan which was given to the pedestrian who had been knocked down. The Audi driver drove off, the policeman hopped onto his motorbike and rode off and the man on the ground got up and hobbled off down one of the nearby hutongs. That was the end of the matter… fullstop!
No insurance details exchanged, no telephone numbers swapped, no trip to the local police station, no identity checks, no names taken. Me and Louis were astounded about how the matter was dealt with compared with what might have happened in the UK or elsewhere. This is the first time I’ve come across something like this in China - I’m not sure if it’s the standard procedure or whether the policeman was just in a hurry to get off duty and have some kebabs and a few beers - but its certainly something to be concerned about with the Olympic Games just a couple of months around the corner.
Jono
