Mullet-ude and Carrefour

_____Guangdong Fashion

Fashion explodes with youth. In southern China, the middle and high school fashions are more aligned with Hong Kong and Japan, so you get lots of spikey, mullet-headed, streaky-haired girls and boys with baggy outfits, cloth shoes (a hundred varieties of converses, vans--both high and low and the like). Pants are low-riding with low slung belts and chains, baggy in the hip and tapered at the ankle. (Kinda like in Italy, actually). Even their school uniforms are worn like this; it's really cute. I think girls order uniforms a size larger so they can get that look.

I caught my gramma reading the magazines I brought here. She was browsing through Men's Non-no, and exclaimed, "You know, Japanese men's clothing is quite lovely, isn't it?" My gramma is so coooool

_____Hypermarket

I went to what is called a "hypermarket" today with my aunt, cousin, and gramma. It's a Carrefour, and you've most likely seen one if you've been to France or Belgium or South Korea. There are about 10,600 Carrefour stores in the world, and about 55 in China, (but zero in the US, probably because of the competition of Targets, Costcos, and Wal-marts). But, they really have the market here. (Hmm ... I wonder if Wal-mart actually owns shares of Carrerfour, or possibly owns it. Do you know?) In Shanghai there's 7; in Beijing, there's 5

Basically, in Zhuhai, it's one sprawling supermarket with employees in aprons on the first floor just like a Ralph's or Safeway

(except the products are local brands), and a big, discount retailer like a Wal-mart on the second floor selling electronics, clothes, home accessories, etc with employees doing demos, and so on. You can push one shopping cart through the entire store, because the floors are connected with an escalator belt that you can push your shopping cart onto, instead of escalator stairs.

We were buying some tangerines at 1.50 RMB per something grams, and I asked my gramma, "Why don't we just get these from that little corner fruit vendor on the way back home? It's probably fresher anyway." She replied, "No way! It's actually cheaper here, at Carrefour!" (And yes, when we stopped by the fruit stand, it was 3.50 RMB).

Big Box Retail: 1

Local Fruit Stand: 0

Big Box Retail wins again.

Back at home, my gramma was sitting down on the couch and somehow pulled a half-eaten tangerine from her pant pocket. She said, "Yeah, I stole it ... but I stopped eating it ... cuz it was sour!" My gramma is so cooool!!!