The supermarkets here are small compared to ours back in the US. Actually, they're tiny compared to ours in the US. Most of them are single little storefronts, bigger than the ones in Shaolin (and don't double as the family's living quarters), but not any larger than, well, I can't really think of anything to compare it with back in the US, because, we really don't have any stores this small back home. Figure about fifteen feet wide and ten feet deep. That's about the typical size. Inside them are the usual, same stuff that you see in every other Chinese food store. You get the occasional American products, and then you get the typical Chinese imitation. Water is for sale in little 600 ml bottles. And Coke is king here. You won't find a Pepsi product. Coca Cola must have pulled some smooth moves years ago with the right people. It's all over the place.
Can you figure out which is the real thing?
(It's the stuff on the bottom).
The DengFeng Home Depot. Your typical hardware store. Surprisingly, when someone in Shaolin needs to get tools, they come here. Kind of scary when this is typical of your only resource for repairing stuff. My first trip to Shaolin five years ago shot home a good point about supplies in China. The main pump for the village went out, and we were out of water for about two weeks. They had to get a new pump from Beijing. Which is about a ten to twelve hour drive, by bus. By little diesel engine three wheeled tractor, probably about two weeks. Now, pumps and the like can be found in DengFeng. But Chinese ingenuity rules here, and you have to learn to make do with you can find.
