> After checking out WalMart and Carrefour this week to get our pantry stocked for our new apartment, I found myself pulling out my phone to capture the display of the most horrendous assortment of mystery meat, heaped and hung for purchase.  OMG-really!  Do people really eat this?  My stomach is churning and burning just thinking about the wall of carcasses that confronted me as I shopped for something to eat that wasn’t staring at me with beady eyes or cloven hooves.

I discovered that both locations, especially WalMart, are for locals and not Lai Wai’s like myself.  No international food, aka Special K, peanut butter, etc. was carried and no dual signing in English/Chinese.  I guessed on some cleaning products based on the pictures and just gave up for the most part finding familiar foods.

Now you would think that fruit is fruit but there are some crazy varieties in China that I have to investigate.  I also learned that you have to get the produce weighed and tagged in the department or risk the wrath of the cashier upon discovering an unpriced item.  Just as in other situations where you have to line up in China, you learn quickly to shove and push to get a place in line and then hold firm or be shoved to the back quickly by everyone else.  Back in Seattle this week, I was definitely less polite than before due to this indoctrination with crowd behavior.  Oh well!
 

But back to the mystery meat topic at hand, there was also a wide variety of seafood swimming in tanks and ready to be killed for dinner.  I’m more comfortable not seeing my dinner alive so this is just not going to work for me.  I just don’t connect with a fish wagging its tail in a tank–those are pets not dinner.  For now, I have no idea what I will be finding to eat but I can guarantee you it won’t be from the wall of carcasses at WalMart!