Surviving as a Shopaholic in China

As I write this, I am waiting for the first rice I’ve ever made in China to finish cooking.

I suppose it may sound a bit odd that out of the total 12+ months I’ve lived in China over the past few years, I’ve never cooked rice here before. In a survey of Americans I did for my final term paper last semester, rice 米饭 was one of the things that almost every single person associated with China from a young age. So, it would follow that I would make and eat lots of rice every time I come to China, right?

I certainly eat a lot of it – possibly more than anyone else I know – and I’m lucky I haven’t become obese or been diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes (which I’ve read can be caused by eating white rice excessively). But making it myself? I generally leave that task to the restaurants. In China, I prefer buying food rather than making it (besides, it tastes much better when prepared by chefs who know what they’re doing).

In fact, I feel like all I ever do in China is just buy buy buy. Handing over 6 months of rent for my apartment was a slight hindrance, but almost immediately after the all-cash payment which made me feel like I was renting a space for my mafia hideout, I was off buying new stuff to set-up the apartment. Internet, blankets, pots, dishes, cups, wine: you know, the basics…albiet those are all necessities and don’t really count as products that give way to a shopping problem.

But after the necessities were bought, the real shopping started: DVDs, clothes, shoes, scarves, magazines, books, planning tailor-made clothes, and, most recently, artwork from the US. I just have a need to buy something new and non-food related every few days.

[Side note: I’m extremely excited to be a first-time art owner. I bought a piece from Leonid Afremov. I typically cannot appreciate art the way it’s intended to be appreciated, but Leonid Afremov’s paintings are so beautiful and vibrant: the first time I saw them, I was instantly enchanted.]

I typically try to limit my purchases to in-country, otherwise things might get a little out of control. But buying things in China can be tricky. Unless the brand/store is a familiar one, quality is iffy and, in my experience, experimenting with new brands usually ends up with a useless product in about a month. That’s not to say that the quality of everything in China is poor, I just (generally) don’t know how to distinguish the good stuff from the bad. China is still a developing country – as easy as that is to forget with Shanghai and Beijing always featured in pictures – so quality control is not exactly what we’re used to in the US. If you think the quality of “Made in China” products are bad in America, you may want to wait on that shopping trip to China you’ve been planning. Come in about 10 years.

Sales in China don’t come close to sales in the US. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, after-Christmas, Labor Day, Fourth of July, Columbus Day, even Veteran’s Day sales put China’s stores’ sales to shame. And you’ll never find a sample sale here. All imported brands are super expensive – more so than in the US – and everything “Western,” from KFC and Pizza Hut to Marc Jacobs and Chanel, is idolized and adored. And that means: really bad sales. The demand is just too high for stores to submit to discounting. Chinese-brand stores offer huge discounts during holidays, but the prices compared to what you can find in the US still can’t compete.

I miss shopping in the US. Quality, price, familiarity of a brand and its clothes…oh, how I miss you all! Hopefully my Leonid Afremov purchase will satisfy my buying-in-the-US fix for a while. Or maybe it’ll start a new art buying craze.