Chinese supermarket

While I don’t miss living in China I do miss the convenience of being able to get anything at all anytime day or night, delivered to your door for almost nothing. I have always sought out the Chinese diaspora wherever I have lived; I still see a friend I made in Uganda.

Of course my Chinese language skills are fading and I am keen to keep them. I see that the UN requires English and another from a list of languages, the only one of which I have is Chinese. So I need to keep it up somehow.

I often speak to Chinese people I see in cafes and restaurants. For example, on Saturday night there were a couple of girls at Thai Carni chatting away in Chinese so I went up to have a chat to them in Chinese. They were from Chengdu, a place I have been (as IELTS candidates used to describe as “hometown of the pandas”). They congratukated me on my Chinese which, if I were Chinese, I would have disputed but I am not Chinese so I said thanks a lot.

One sure place where I can practice my Chinese and feel like I am back i Chinese is the big Chinese supermarket in Kinondoni. It is like a little pocket of the Middle Kingdom and going there always makes me happy. I sometimes go at lunchtime and take advantage of the staff canteen they have there which is not really for members of the public, is 100% authentic Chinese lunch food.

Things I buy in the Chinese supermarket are;

Toilet paper
Mosquito repellent
Feng yo jing (insect bite soather)
dumplings (jiao zi)
Zhejiang vinegar
plastic bin bags (don’t dob them in pleeeease)
stationery

When I first went to China I was frustrated because all the shelves in all the shops were full but I didn’t want to buy any of it. Most of it I didn’t even understand and for the first few months I lived on Snickers bars and fried rice. Now I look at the shelves in the Chinese supermarket and I actually buy some of it.

Even though I have eight units of Chinese blood, I am still not drawn to the chicken feet although I have been tempted by the spicy tofu. Conditioner and shampoo look the same in China when you don’t understand the characters on the bottle and I used to have to buy two bottles from two shelves just to ensure I got shampoo. I ended up with so much conditioner.

Now I have the Wechat translate function so I just point it at the label and it reads it and translates it for me,. That would have been handy in 2010 in Nanjing. This trip to the supermarket resulted in dumplings, vinegar, feng yo jing and chopsticks (and illegal plastic bags).

When I still had money in my Chinese bank account I used to use Wechat wallet to buy goods in this shop but now Wechat has locked me out I cannot use it at all and slowly I am weaning myself off Chinese apps.

The supermarket is in a courtyard in which exists several other Chinese businesses including a reasonable hot pot place (if you like hot pot – I can’t see the point), a cafe, a nail bar and a staff canteen. When I first came to Dar I posted an advert in the shop in Chinese and got several students and it was that money I lived off for the first six months when I was waiting for my work visa to come through.

On several occasions in the Chinese supermarket, the owners have insisted that I have such a small amount of items that they will not take any money for them “Bu yao qian” they say. It’s definitely worth befriending the Chinese. Not only because they are usually successful businesspeople but also because they’re just nice and welcoming and friendly. To me anyway!

So I am voting for the Chinese supermarket being the best supermarket in town. It is like being in China, Chinese staff. Chinese customers, Chinese money and Chinese language. For me, it’s a like being in a warm embrace.