American Dollars for Chinese Food
Oh, jeez. Those guys look like they are going to rob the place.
So my girlfriend from China is finally here (more on that later once I have permission to talk about her), and, of course, one of the first items of business was to stock up on familiar Chinese food. Walmart proved to be a bust in this category, as their “Oriental” section felt like it was put together by a white guy who grabbed every bottle he could find that had a Chinese-looking character on it and threw it on a shelf.
I knew there were a couple of dedicated Asian markets in Salt Lake, though. Today, we finally went to one (Super Happy Fun Times China Market), expecting the prices to be a bit on the ridiculous side. But would you believe it? The few things we purchased at Walmart were actually cheaper at the Asian store! And they had everything a Chinese immigrant could want, including bags of tapioca to make your own milk tea.
Sarah kept saying she felt like she was home again, except that all the price tags had changed from 元 to $. Suddenly, a jar of kimchi is no longer an impulse buy. She is where I was when I lived in China, constantly converting in her head everything she sees to a familiar currency. But she doesn’t get the luxury of diving by 6.5 (ouch, the exchange rate has gotten low now). She has to multiply, and you never feel rich when you have to multiply.
Responses to “American Dollars for Chinese Food”
Comments RSS Feed – All CommentsSammy — 17 April 2011 @ 10:48 am
Is that the one next to the liquor store? When I went in there I was SHOCKED at how cheap everything was. I think I got like 600 bags of oolong tea for 2 dollars. It is…ridiculous. Plus don’t they have a whole meat/fish/produce section in there? Totally crazy.
Clark — 17 April 2011 @ 11:39 am
Yep, the liquor store is next door. And they do have a meat/fish and produce department. Even the watermelons were cheaper there than at Walmart.
Johnny Sun — 21 April 2011 @ 6:40 am
Seems Chinese goods everywhere and I also remember “kimchi”is one of your favorite when you was in China.
Hope Sarah is enjoying staying.
Hopfrog — 23 April 2011 @ 6:02 pm
Congrats! I know you gotta be a lot happier with her here and I would love to hear her impressions of life in the US when you get the greenlight to talk about such things. Gotta be such a big adventure for her right now.
Sounds like there is no “Chinatown” in SLC. There is a pretty big one here in Vegas and its amazing how many different Chinese food and tea products are imported here. I think they even put out like 2 Chinese language newspapers, its like a city within a city.
Clark — 3 May 2011 @ 10:33 am
There’s no Chinatown in Salt Lake, but they are supposedly building one that will be done next year.
Cleo — 21 November 2011 @ 1:26 pm
FYI, Lee Kum Kee has ONE (1) type of soy sauce “double boiled” with no chemicals and it is the only soy sauce that is tolerable. Stay away from Kikkoman (Japanese)!
Also, a food processor and a stand mixer makes cooking traditional labor intensive foods MUCH easier.
Good luck and Best Wishes!
Comment: