Now let’s say you want to buy some produce at the supermarket. Naturally you’ll make your selections, bag em up, and bring them with the rest of your grocceries to the front of the store. In China it’s a little different.
You select your produce and then before going to the front of the store you stop at this station manned by the gentleman in the red sweatshirt in the above photo and he weighs it, puts a price tag on it and then swipes your bag through that red sticker machine which puts a sticker tie around your bag.
Ah nice, so your vegetables don’t fall out of the bag— not quite, it’s more to keep people from adding more produce after they’ve already weighed their produce. Also notice he removes the bag when weighing (those are my potatoes btw), this is certainly because most Chinese people would complain that the bag adds extra weight.
Shoplifting is very common in China. Let’s say you buy something that comes in a box or a bag at Wal Mart. They will open the box or bag (say a blanket or whatever) and check to see if you’ve put anything extra inside there.
You might be thinking that’s insulting or presumptuous but of the two boxes i’ve seen checked both had extras inside.
The bargain hunter just sort of made a “Alright, alright” face as the clerk removed and scanned the items. The clerk was more like “well played, old chap” than angry or punitive.
In the US people would be all “What the fuck, I didn’t put that shit in there!”
Hahaha…. So true so true!! People here always try to add extra junk and then have the shocked “how the heck did that get in there” look…. Oh gosh!
That is very true! It does happen often when expats first travel to those chaotic markets. When my mom and I first began shopping at these local markets we saw that many foreigners seemed flustered when the men took their groceries and began weighing them.
However as loud and busy these markets are it is a lot cheaper and way more convenient to shop at there for the variety of produce they have.
This process of weighing and tagging your fruits and vegetables is also very common in Latin countries too so we being from Mexico weren’t very surprised.