6: Carrefour

Yesterday Laurence and I were wandering around an underground mall, looking for a department store where she could buy some things she needed, when all of a sudden, I realized how empty the mall was. After touring Tiananmen Square, riding on the busy metro, and walking down some of the most crowded city blocks I have been on, the quietness was a bit of a shock. The only thing we could hear was our own walking and the quiet whispers of the shopkeepers.

Ironically enough, as quiet as the mall was, the set up of the shops was completely different. It’s almost as if the stores took on the characteristics of urban Chinese people, crowding themselves amongst the walls. There was a store that just set up its stuff in the middle of the path. You had to walk into another store to go around it. There were 6 bra stores that somehow thought that merging into one mega store was a good idea, but it meant that there were six different shopkeepers, each taking care of their own area. There was a small-scale department store selling clothes of a brand that had a shop right next to the store. There was a store within another store. It’s as if the city was saying, “You can’t escape me.”

Laurence asked me if I was overwhelmed by how busy the city was. In a way, I am, but I think that fighting it will only make you more tired. Letting yourself get overwhelmed by the jumble will just stress you out more. Just let yourself go with the flow, and through that, Beijing will let you in.