Shopping in China

After 3 years, I have fully adapted to China shopping. At least, China shopping as an expatriate. While the cities I've lived in are more developed than many in the world, shopping is still never running to Target and finding the same items on the shelf each time. When you see black beans at the market, you buy them. Whether you need them or not. And if you're within a few months of Christmas and they're selling pumpkin pie filling, buy as many cans as you may need over the holidays.

My general rule: If you see it, and you may need it, you ought to buy it.

This rule gets me in trouble when I am running through Target in the states, as most everything in the store is something I might conceivably need. And its making for some funny purchases in Shenzhen. I've bought string cheese every time I've gone grocery shopping so far. We've now amassed a good stock of it, and I'm beginning to think its not going to disappear from the shelves. I found Comet at the local store, and at a local price. This was on my shipping list - Mom was to go shopping this weekend. So I snatched two bottles of it (they were on sale - 16 RMB total!).

When I got home, I realized two things.
1 - It will take years of regular use to go through 2 containers of Comet.
2 - The apartment provides cleaning ladies every day. They bring their own soap.