More Than One Billion

You know how they say that humans can adjust to almost anything? Well, apparently I have adjusted to the massive population of China. For the most part, I no longer notice all of the people everywhere at all times. Chris and I have also adapted to the Chinese time schedules during the week and plan our day to avoid the peak times. For example, when I was not taking any language classes we would always go to lunch at 11:30 to avoid the 12:00 absolute madness. Now we have no choice but to fight our way through, wait in long lines and stare people down for seats in restaurants. But, like I said, I don’t really notice it anymore. It is just part of life here.

Well, today we went to our local SuGuo Supermarket at about 6:30pm.

We walked in and there were no baskets. Okay, that is not too unusual. Then I tried to turn the corner to go down the dairy aisle. And I basically had to stand in line. To walk down the aisle. At first I thought maybe there was a special sale happening that I didn’t know about. I’ve been in the store hundreds if not thousands of times by now at all times of day and I have never seen it this busy. To get through I was having to bust through groups of kids, of ladies quarreling over which type of milk was better. I always feel sort of bad when I do this, because in the United States the person I was shoving out of my way would freak out but no one here really seems to notice. Hands, elbows, butt touches, stubbed toes, it is just all part of a normal trip to the grocery store. I must have been banged by a million baskets and rammed into by about one hundred kids. It was like a school event let out right into the back door of the grocery store and all the Moms and their kids were in a race to buy everything they possibly could before time ran out.

Then I remembered, oh yeah, we live in a country with over a billion people.

We ended up with beer, milk, diet Coke and eggs. I couldn’t break through any other aisles and all the commotion made me forget anything else we needed or wanted.