But We're Not Home

Christmas shopping in Beijing.  Where do you head to?  A huge mall, of course. The silk-markets of this town have all been converted.  The girls say it’s "Indigo."  We head to Inidgo.  I go to an ATM, first thing.  I can’t use my we chat money and it’s unclear if I can use my credit card in any of the stores here.  Do they even still have an ATM?  Yes.  They do and . . . it works.  Good start.  I’m not in the mood to shop.   Not at all. I haven’t any idea what to get anyone besides scarfs and sweaters. I warm up buying something I’m familiar with: an espresso at Starbucks.

The first place I find myself identifying things that I can imagine buying is the Japanese chain Muji.  They take a credit card.  They say they will gift wrap!  There is an internal debate among the staff about box sizes and I interject myself and to clarify precisely what I want.  A nice young lady explains that this will be her first time to wrap anything, so I should be patient, which is fine.  How about you wrap these up these four things and I’ll come back later to grab them? 

The next place and the next place, and the subsequent place all look at me funny when I ask if they gift wrap.  “We gave you a bag, right?”  I am disappointed each time, but what does that matter?  It’s two days before Christmas and at a mall back home there would be a stand with someone offering wrapping to raise money for a cause, or to raise money for themselves, but we’re not home and they don’t do that here.  No one cares.    

Using a credit card always take extra time.  They look at it.  They look at the machine.  It’s an out of the ordinary, hassle.  The swipe it and initiate some smoke-signal-like connection with international authorization and it is nearly always a drag.  Always unpredictable.  I shouldn’t complain.  It worked in nearly every place thus far.  But I could feel tension, self- imposed perhaps,  in the air.  It’s not only a foreign manner of payment, it’s an old-fashioned manner of payment.   Soon, I have more bags than I can carry and it is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. 

Sunday, 12/23/18