I like to think I’m settling in well but China always holds a surprise or two for me. I took a bus to Wanda Plaza today, the local Shopping Mall. The idea was to go to Walmart, yes very Chinese I know, to get some of my favourite foods. Pathetic but you’ve no idea how a digestive biscuit brightens my day. Bought some cheese too. Difficult to get in China. I went on the bus. The usual 1950s bone shaker but with brilliant Air-Con. It’s very hot here at the moment.
I went into Walmart and got my stuff. This supermarket like most in China sells live fish. I watched a man net a large fish from the tank and then clumsily kill it by whacking it against the counter. I don’t like this sort of thing. There seems to be a casual cruelty to animals amongst some Chinese that perturbs me. But I’m a sentimental Brit of course.
When I left a tent was being set up outside and I realised it was a circus troupe. They had a remarkably lifelike stuffed Lion and a Tiger on display………..and then they moved ! I watched the act. The Lion and the Tiger wandered round the cage, a very precarious looking cage with a pretty Mongolian woman encouraging them. Perhaps I should have been protesting but I was transfixed. The act was accompanied by Madonna singing *La Isla Bonita.* Well, a recording obviously.
On my way home it occurred to me that I had been in a big city, seen probably thousands of people but not one other Westerner. I know what you’re thinking. How could I know ? Well put it like this, I saw no one who could be described as White and no one who could be described as Black either. But…. I was welcomed and helped. I struggled to describe the cake I wanted in a coffee shop and a Chinese woman asked me if I wanted some help. The guy on the next seat on the bus smiled and wanted to talk. I’m not sure all Foreigners are treated so nicely in my Country……..