One of my favorite things to do when abroad is grocery shopping. Shopping for food is a great way to feel, if only for an instant, like a local -- or, at the very least, it offers some insight into the daily lives of people in the area. It also reveals a lot about their culture, and in turn, your own culture and all the biases you bring towards food as a result.

In Beijing, the stores were incredibly crowded and hard to navigate. Above all else, I noticed they were loud. In addition to the hoards of people shopping and speaking to each other, in this particular store (which was a large supermarket in downtown Beijing) they had an intercom system. Since I don't speak Chinese, I'm not sure what it was used for, though I assume it's something similar to the use of systems in the US. There were also people giving out samples who spoke in to microphones advertising their product (for instance, the girl toward the end at the yogurt aisle). The microphones amplified their voices through small speakers worn at the hip.

Some other things that, as an American, I found strange: milk sold in boxes, warm. Milk and soy milk could also be bought in bags sort of like what Americans use to package frozen vegetables (this milk was also unrefrigerated). Eggs, as you can see, were also unrefrigerated. Meat was laid out on counters of very little ice, totally unpackaged or guarded from curious customers.