I would like to apologise for not being regular lately, but I got a reason though! My family was visiting me in China. This is the first time my mom came to China and the contrast between foreigner and Chinese Mainland amazed my mom. Since young, we’ve head too much negative impressions regarding China (from friends and relatives who’ve been to China): Toilets with no doors, bad behaviour, bad hygine, when you buy souvenir and they will wrapped a broken one for you… etc. That’s probably the reasons we never choose China as our travelling destination in the past.

It was raining cats and dogs one afternoon, we were in a cab and was speeding to our destination. Approaching a cross junction, the cabbie slowed down slightly in anticipation of the changing traffic lights. The lights did turn green and the cabbie stepped on the gas. Unfortunately, as we were crossing the junction, a bicycle appeared out of nowhere. Given the wet, slippery road conditions and the cabbie’s speed, it was a miracle that the cabbie even managed to bring the vehicle to a complete stop! The cab only slightly bumped the bicycle and its rider, a middle age man. An argument broke out and soon enough, it become a shouting match and pointing here and there at each other. After a while, the bicycle rider got on his bike again an prepare to leave, still shouting and gesturing at our cab. He even kicked the cab just before he rode off. Our cabbie had no choice to continue driving and curse his own luck.

My mom could not comprehend some of the behaviour she saw while in China. Curious, she would always ask us “Why do people behave this way?” I guess it’s a default questions for newbies to China? In the begining, we tried to think of rational answers for her questions. Most of the time, we were lost for words and ended up laughing together. “Mom… This is China…” When speaking here to the locals, my mom will sometimes start in Mandarin and end up expressing the rest of her sentence in English. The locals, unable to comprehend what she was saying, would stare at her blankly. My mom, expecting some sort of reaction, stared back. A few seconds lapse before my mom realizes what is going on and she would repeat again in Mandarin. It is heartening though to see that there have been vast improvements in the infrastruture and behaviour of the Chinese mainland. Huge strides have been made in the past few years in preparation of the Beijing Olympics. There are still lots of room for improvement, especially the behaviour of the people in China!

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4 days after the opening of Marks & Spencer in Shanghai, I was shocked and saddened by the bizarre news that an Indian man fall to his death from 4th floor in the new store. Apparently, he had craned his neck to look down when the unfortunate accident happened. He died before police arrive at the scene. Read them here and here.

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I’m back from Chengdu on the 2nd where Marks & Spencer opened their doors in Shanghai during the October golden week holidays. I can imagine most of the British Expats in Shanghai would jump with joy dreaming of the cloths and food that they miss back home! So do Ron! It’s his favourite store and he does not need to travel to HongKong anymore to find suitable clothes as M&S usually offers them with European size. Bigger size are hard to find in China.

Compared to the M&S Asia stores in HongKong, Singapore or Philippines, the Shanghai store is much bigger, with 4 floors. Ladies’s fashion occupy the first 2 floors with lots of designer clothing under “Autograph” label. Men’s fashion can be found on the 3rd floor with shirts up to 18 inch neck, while food/household sections are on the 4th floor. I’m eager to see what they offer on their food sections and found that lots of biscuits and cookies are cheap because its closing to the expiry dates!

While it is fairly easy to find bigger size clothes in HongKong M&S stores, it seems that the Shanghai store caters more to local market demands at the moment. The selection of men’s casual clothes was also not as comprehensive in our opinion. The imported cookies on the 4th floor were quite popular as they were in discounted priced.

This is the first M&S store in China Mainland and it probably will not be the last. For us expats, its another place to get decent basic items for reasonable prices.

Another new store, ME & CITY opened at Nanjing East road. Weeks ago, I have been noticing some fairly huge poster in Shanghai subway stations of heart throb Prison Break actor Wentworth Miller.

The flagship store of ME & CITY is along the busy Nanjing East Road. Their silver colour carrier bags were certainly well-designed. Our carrier bags caught the attention of many curious people. In a way, we had become walking advertisting boards for ME & CITY.

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