Ikea and Walmart

Today is Sunday, and I'm in a car again riding for about 2 hours in northern China to get to another factory. Last Sunday I went with Matt to Walmart, and the Sunday before that it was Ikea. I'm happy to report that we survived trips to both, and they were very similar to those in Atlanta. That said, I would highly recommend to anyone visiting these stores AVOID THE WEEKENDS unless you enjoy wall to wall asian chaos.

Our IKea trip happened to fall on a May holiday similar to our Labor Day weekend. My coworkers assured me this was a great time to shop due to all the sales.

We started in the food court, which was like a giant restaurant that easily seats 300 people or more. Oh, and by "we", I mean Matt, Dean, myself, plus 3 coworkers and 2 of their children. They heard we were going and decided to hitch a ride with us (another story). So we had an entourage.

I believe it would have taken us about 45 minutes to make it through one of the 4 lines set up to purchase food. Meatballs (looked the same as Atlanta), noodle bowls, and fruit were advertised on banners. The most interesting thing I saw was that they sell beer - Tsing Dao. It's the same price as an herbal tea at 5 RMB, and they were sitting next to each other on the shelf. A dollar right now is worth about 6.8 RMB, so we're talking about $0.70 for either. Which would you choose?

We chose neither since the lines were so long, and we headed to the goods instead. We had just moved into the apartment a day and a half before, so we were in need of a lot of basics like bedding, a crib and mattress for Dean, towels, bath mats, trash cans, etc.

Ikea is set up with 2 floors, with 3 distinct zones - big stuff on display, little stuff in large dumps for you to pick up and add to your cart, and a warehouse of big stuff in flat boxes for you to take home and assemble. The 2nd floor is mostly "big picture" stuff, meaning there are tons of mini rooms (think dorm room size) set up to show Ikea products in use. You can buy a few things, but mostly they're showcasing furniture that you grab a number for and pick up downstairs.

There were so many people that it was really tough to fit through the aisles. Ikea back home overwhelms me, so I felt super stressed and paralyzed within the first ten minutes. I probably would have left immediately if Matt hadn't stepped up and become the decision maker. This is partly why we ended up with an electric blue crib for Dean which I would never in a million years pick out back home. I don't mean that to sound like a don't like it, because I really do, but it's very different.

I suspect this same neon blue crib is available around the globe. I was surprised to see that most of the products looked familiar - the same as what you can buy in Atlanta. Even the catalog we picked up is full of Caucasian people, not Asians, though it did have the prices all listed in Chinese money. I wonder - do they just use the same catalog worldwide, changing the prices based on the country it's shipping to?

When I say change the prices, I should clarify that they are really just converting it. Cheap beer aside, I don't think the prices were any different than back home, which surprised me. The stuff is flat packed to reduce shipping costs, but the majority of the stuff is made in China. Shouldn't they pass some extra cost savings on to the locals?

My coworkers kept telling us everything there was so expensive, which to them it probably is. We are used to those prices back home, so we wouldn't have thought much of it if they hadn't reminded us every time we picked something up to look at it. It was kind of like having a flock of birds fluttering around us the whole time chirping "too expensive! Too expensive!"

We made it through the store in about an hour and 45 minutes using sheer willpower, determination, and a lot of Cheerios for Dean.


One thing we couldn't buy at Ikea was a stroller. We had a stroller for Dean back home, but opted not to ship it over because it was so big and bulky. We chose to bring a nice kid backpack with us as part of our checked luggage instead of the stroller, which turned out to be a wise decision. We've seen strollers on every street corner, but not a single kid in a backpack, so I don't think they're common here.

We headed to Walmart to buy a new stroller and a few other basic things we still needed, like wash cloths. The Walmart closest to us is 2 levels, with an escalator connecting the two floors. It's a super center, with the ground floor dedicated to food and the second floor to goods.

Again we encountered a madhouse of Asians. I'm starting to get used to being a minority and having people stare at me, and especially at Dean. He's like a magnet, drawing strangers close to us at all times. Walmart was no exception, although we did find a really cool cart with a plastic car attached underneath that Dean could sit in while we shopped, so we were able to hide him from view most of the time.

The Walmart store, unlike Ikea, was full to the brim with local foods and goods. I don't eecall spotting any brands I recognized, although we were trying to grab what we needed and get out of there as fast as possible. No wait - I take that back! There is a section of the store dedicated to import items. We browsed it briefly and discovered things like Hunt's ketchup. Matt picked up a bottle of honey roasted peanuts, but other than that, we didn't buy anything from that area. If I'd seen some imported USA milk I probably would have paid up to ten dollars a gallon, but no luck.

Thankfully the baby section was at the top of the escalator on the 2nd floor, so we didn't have to look too hard to find it. We picked out a nice stroller that reclines all the way back so when Dean's tired he can sleep horizontally. It set us back about $60, but I think a similar model if we could find it back home would be at $100+

Matt was happy to pick up a few local items in the grocery level of the store, such as roasted chestnuts, pickled cucumbers, some kind of rice thingy wrapped in leaves, and a roasted duck. We also bought some cups of fruit gelatin, whale crackers, and several big bottles of water. I tried to buy some apples, but when we got to the register they wouldn't let us check out with them. We think they were supposed to be weighed and labeled back in the produce section, or at least that's what we took away from the checkout attendant's little rant in Mandarin. Matt just smiled, nodded, told the man we didn't want them (in English) and set them to the side.

They didn't accept our credit or debit cards at the register, but thankfully Matt had enough cash on hand to cover our bill. I am so used to swiping a card to purchase everything back home that this is still a little different, but we're not surprised by it any more.

We made it home in one piece and with little drama from Dean, which was nice. We only covered a small portion of Walmart since we were focused on getting what we needed and getting out of there quick, but I'm sure we'll be heading back again soon.