[The email describes my attempts to buy a toaster in Chinese supermarket ]

Bumped into
eccentric American called Joe; another solitary
figure, this time clutching extraordinary Belgium maps
detailing such things as geopolitical struggles of the
world over the last millennium. All coloured shaded
boxes, arrows of invasion and influence, nuclear
proliferation, linguistic and cultural spheres of
domination etc etc. Stared at them mesmerised for many
minutes. Each one seemed to tell a story on an
enormously large scale of time and space (from the
human perspective anyway) and yet without words.
Whipping ourselves into great enthusiasm about the
possibility of deciphering such pictures, we decided
to form a discussion group in which we could attempt
to understand some of the larger patterns that have
been effecting human international relations over the
last few centuries. To supplement the maps I have been
burying myself into Kissinger and Chomsky. Spent
Saturday afternoon reading about such nefarious
documents as the National Securit Council resolution
68 of 1950 detailing the moral superiority of America
and the innate evil of the Soviet Union. Strange that
such dogma could have become official diplomatic
philosophy and therefore policy of the next 30 years.
Am looking into what was behind it, who was making
what decisions and in whose interests, discrepancies
between official history and the revelations of more
subtle investigations. I am thoroughly enjoying
myself.

To keep me alive during the quest and provide me with
great pleasure, I decided to buy myself a toaster.
This inspiration came to me on Sunday, a traditionally
unwise day to attempt to be a customer in the PRC.
Still, I was dedicated to my mission and was not going
to be defeated by the sheer volume of people that I
knew would be invading the supermarket.

The first thing to know about Chinese supermarkets is
that you are not allowed to take your bag inside.
There is therefore a bag check-in desk of sorts where
no order is apparent. After struggling through the
whose-arm-is-longest and the whose-voice-is-loudest
contest you may eventually exchange your bag for a
small plastic token attached to a rubber band. The
whole can be worn around the wrist in the manner of a
locker key at a public swimming pool. Of course, one
has to go through the same process in reverse once the
shopping is completed. The whole procedure seemed time
and energy consuming and the simple loophole of
stuffing my empty rucksack in my pocket dealt with
this one. Why bring a bag at all you may ask? Well,
such shopping is done by bicycle and hanging plastic
bags onto one's handle bard creates for a rather
unsteady experience as two ballasts (is that the right
word) swing the bike lower to the ground causing the
bike to veer centimetres closer to such passing
obstacles as jack knifed lorries shipping polluted
materials to Tibet or pedicabs transporting piles of
styrofoam. So why not walk? Too far, too cold, can't
be ***ed.

So, the long awaited second thing that you have to
know about Chinese supermarkets (this one in
particular) is that one has to enter on the 1st floor
(which for non English speaking peoples means the
second floor) even though one may only want to buy
food,which is located on the ground floor. Instead one
must ascend a long gangway passed signs advertising
cheap thermal longjohns etc until one is jettisoned
into a room of commercial hyperactivity. Of course the
ascent takes a good few minutes as there are perhaps
ten times as many people in the supermarket as you are
ever likely to have seen in the cosy world of Europe.
Jostle, jostle, jostle. Finally arrive and have to do
some more brain numbingly slow jostling just to get to
the correct aisle. Nearly bought a juicer for 98 yuan
(7 pounds), but remembered the mission at hand and the
difficulties of having to transport two kitchen
appliances through the jack knifed lorries etc. Found
the toaster of my dreams and had to do the descent
down the ramp and in contra flow to the ever invading
and ascending hoards who were up there leafing through
piles of VCD and discussing the merits of
refrigerators etc. Avoided using a basket as there
isn't enough room to sneak through small spaces in the
crowd with such a bulk. Used prior knowledge of the
whereabouts of cheese and bread, and my increased
height to slip my way through the crowds and find the
shortest queue (if it can be described as such, only
by someone more optimistic than I). This still several
times longer than anything you will have seen in the
west. Strings of people filing back into the aisles
and blocking the progress of people trying to shop
around them. Difficult to tell queue barging from
shopping, although others did not seem to make much of
a distinction. Victory, pulled the bag from my pocket
and squeezed all purchases within for the swift
journey back.

Toast, toast toast. What joy. Back at home had no
knife and so had to go and buy one down the road. Bit
too sharp for my purposes but the toast does somehow
remain intact enough. Toast and National Security
Resolution 68. Finally settled and resolved upon four
productive months of study in the cold concrete world
of Shanghai. A friend came around and watched the
Beach. Now I want to be in Thailand!

Hope all well.

love Dom
PS Can't correct errors in this letter as it is stuck
in overtype mode and my knowledge of Chinese
characters isn't good enough to go into the Options
menu and find the function.