Miscellaneous rambling and musing of a Shanghai Expat woman.

I often go shopping for groceries at the nearby local Tesco and Carrefour outlets and I hate playing bumper car game with the locals. Occasionally when I intend to buy more or bigger stuff, I would like to use the shopping cart. Otherwise, I usually use the shopping basket provided. While you can easily find shopping baskets at the entrances, the same thing cannot be said about the carts. Don’t get me wrong. It is not that the shopping outlets do not have carts. In fact, there are LOTS of carts. If you are fortunate enough to find one, it is a nightmare navigating it through the masses of carts inside. While at the cashier, many of the carts have only a few items in it. Why do you need such a big cart while you only have 3 items to buy? Some of the Chinese mainland put their shopping baskets into their carts!?!? Grocery in the basket, basket in the carts. So clever! No wonder I can’t find any carts when I need them.

Back to navigating your carts in the supermarket; it is worse than driving around in Shanghai. It is really a result of some bad habits and “Who cares” attitude that the locals have. I absolutely hate it when some of them leave their carts in the middle of the pathway. One minute, they are pushing and pulling their carts. The next minute, they spot something interesting, leave their carts behind, and simply walk off to take a look. They can left their carts at the head of the pathway while they are looking at stuff at the end of the pathway. Amazing…

The other annoying thing is that they like to pull their carts along, instead of steer their carts. When you pull your cart along with one hand, it tends to move away from you. Not only does it block the whole pathway, the cart also hit other people, which can be very painful. The cart handles are designed so that you PUSH, not PULL!! When you push, you have a clear sight of where your trolley is moving. When the Chinese mainland pull their carts, it is like the blind leading the blind.

Very often, some will push their carts and unknowingly, hit someone or something in front of them. It seems like they do not realize they are pushing something physical in front of them.