We will be on American soil in less than 5 days! I can't believe it! Maybe I'll share my excitement tomorrow. In the mean time, I'll give you a little taste of culture here.
Grand Openings are a big deal here. Especially when what is coming is something completely new to the area it is coming to.
Recently a new Grocery Store opened under our building. It's called:
The Big Thumb.
A grocery store doesn't seem too exciting, but our little village or neighborhood where we live hasn't had a REAL grocery store yet- just smaller stores that have some of the essentials- toiletries, rice, oil, flour, drinks..... But this is a real grocery store with produce, meat, and lots of other things.
The opening of this store was a glorious day for us- not because of what was inside, but because of its completion... which meant a little peace and quiet in this house. It's hard to describe what I mean by it being "under our building". We live in an apartment building... There are 3 buildings in a row facing each other that essentially sit on a giant slab on concrete with little "courtyards" of concrete in between them. Then, there's a whole little world underneath that opens to the street below ours.... mostly restaurants, little stores, and hair salons. I hope that makes a little sense.
So anyway, to prepare for an entire grocery store, a whole lot of tearing down had to be done.... or really bulldozing concrete and cinder block walls. We live on the 3rd floor of our building, but at times I thought that they might as well have been destroying the apartment below ours. It was SO unbelievably loud at times.... like shake the whole building and it sounds like a giant dentist's drill in your brain loud. bah. ANYWAY, slightly irrelevant.....
SO construction complete = peace and quiet. Until we woke up one morning to a band warming up. We knew it was THE grand opening. We quickly got dressed and ran outside cause we didn't want to miss it! People were lining the streets {in the rain} in anticipation.
The whole thing was a whole production over loud speakers.
The music was definitely the best part- the band played a song, then took a smoke break while they played some kind of techno remix of an American rap song.
Please enjoy the sweet melodies of the HX (our little town's) band.
I panned up to our building in the video so it would make more sense. The actual store inside extends behind all of the store fronts to the left of it.
My favorite part I didn't capture on video..... But an older man playing the saxophone, smoked a cigarette between every song (like most in the band were doing). So remember the "Meet me in the club, it's going down" song? Well one of the 3 songs they played during each break was the techno remix of this quality jam. We looked up at one point and the old man was breaking it down, cigarette in his mouth, saxophone in hand. I guess you had to be there.
Anyway....
The official program began with lots of important people giving speeches.
Then a real fancy giant ribbon cutting...
My excitement peaked when I saw this and thought, "Sweet!!! They are for real going to shoot fireworks out of that sound equipment box".... because fireworks are an integral part of ALL grand openings.
BUT my excitement was curbed when I found out it was just.....
confetti. apparently Hannah wasn't disappointed with her "HEN HAO!" there at the end.
BUT then the doors opened, and the masses stampeded in, and THEN the big fireworks went off- like the loud explosion firecracker kind. Its kind of a superstitious thing, but you'd think that people would still think through where and when to set them off.....
no, no. there was apparently no thinking......
Because they smoked out half of the store.
I thought to myself, "what if this set the sprinklers off? that would be hilarious" and then reminded myself that the chance of them having those was pretty slim.
Once we made our way through the smoke, into the grocery we found the masses of old ladies going crazy for the deals....
over rice. Because there is a shortage in this country {kidding}. I've heard stories of people being killed in this country over 10 kuai (about $1.33) off of cooking oil.
I think the biggest addition the grocery brought is meat. I'm pretty sure they only have pork, BUT until now you could only buy it at the meat market.... like think giant room with cut up animals all over the place. I'll spare you.
Just the way I've always wanted my pork fat- white with glossy. yum.
Welcome Big Thumb. Although I'm convinced all that you are going to be good for will be cans of sweetened condensed milk and tomato paste.... and convenience of course. We are considering you "The Man"as we will continue to buy our goods from the "Little Guys" around here. My veggies & meat will come from the farmers who come in from the villages, and my milk will come from the tiny store around the corner.
So there's a little glimpse into a grand opening. Most of the time, fireworks and music continue allllll day. Its quite the celebration.
Joyfully Entertained,
