The Department Store

December 20th

 

KFC was next to the department store we walked to several times.  When we looked in the windows of the Colonel's franchise, Chinese were eating with chopsticks not fried chicken, but bowls of noodles. Strange. 

 

We entered the department store through heavy plastic sheeting in strips to keep the winter outside.  I think real doors would have been better.  The girls at the perfume and jewelry counters were wearing heavy coats.  We would think the employees were about to leave or had just arrived if we saw such bundling in America.   

At the back of the department store there was a grocery store.  Snow White and the seven dwarves were there.  A photo op for Emily.

Colorful cookie aisle.

Unrefrigerated eggs. Little speckled eggs.

Yummy.  Chicken feet.

Gets better...frogs

 

 

 

Padded pants little one.

Loved the ceiling....I may steal this idea and try it at home.

Interesting....not sure what the big black "caterpillars" were.

Leg warmers

Enviable mannequin hair

 

Cute, cute, cute 1960s

Real fur collars, don't ask what animal

The department store also sold big screen TVs, electric shavers, rice cookers, refrigerators and washers, shoes, purses, toys, and clothes.  In America five days before Christmas, the stores would be packed with people.  In China, there were hardly any shoppers.   The price of things in China is much higher than the US, and yet the average income is much lower.   

The stores are a tantalizing look into a country that exports most of its goods and only can dream about the lifestyle of the western world.

 

One day while in Hefei, Ben and I noticed what looked like a chore chart in the shop which sold tea.  We asked our guide about it.  It was the Chinese lotto winners.  Our guide then told us her father plays the lotto weekly.  Our guide said her father still hopes to become a billionaire and has wasted a lot of money.  She was quick to mention that her mother doesn't approve of his gambling.  Maybe we would have seen her mother out shopping if her dad had not squandered their income on the get rich quick myth.

 

 

Next to our hotel were the Golden Eagle shops.  Escada, Cartier, Armani, Versace.

Somebody must have money in Hefei. 

Teddy liked to be carried