Orient Orientation: To market, to market

My grocery run on Tuesday evening was just for starters. Saturday’s run was the real deal—I took pictures, I asked where things were, I stocked up on food. One of the things that I couldn’t find on Tuesday was soy milk, so one of my goals for Saturday’s trip was to find it. Using the wonders of technology, I typed “soy milk” into a translation app I have on my iPhone and learned that “soy milk” in Chinese is “豆浆”(dòu jiāng). Prepared with this information and how to ask where something is, I walked to Lotus.

Lotus is a pretty big store—one-third of the store is food, and two-thirds are clothes, shoes, electronics, books, appliances, sports equipment, etc. Like a Super WalMart.

That's Lotus next to a KFC. There are a surprising number of
KFCs here.

The entrance to the grocery side of Lotus.

The bakery at the entrance.

One of the other things I had wanted on Tuesday was yogurt, of which there was plenty, but when I looked at the dates on the containers, all of them had already passed. The last thing I wanted to do was buy outdated yogurt and get food poisoning, so I held off on that and asked some of my colleagues about it. In China, the date on most food product labels is the “packed on” date, not the “use by” date like it typically is in the U.S. The skim milk that I bought on Tuesday actually has both the “packed on” and “use by” dates, but for most everything else, it’s just the “packed on” date. Very good to know. So I did get yogurt on Saturday.

On the way to the yogurt section. They really do have everything
at Lotus. Notice the "Free Dissection" sign in the background.

Gives new meaning to "fresh" food.

Back to the quest for soy milk. After I had searched again in the dairy section and the milk aisle (most milk in China undergoes UHT—ultra-high temperature processing—which gives it a typical shelf life of six to nine months unopened, and it doesn’t require refrigeration until after opening) with no luck, I bucked up the courage to ask one of the Lotus associates, in my broken Chinese, where I could find soy milk. She understood my question, but responded that she didn’t know, so she asked another associate who told me in Chinese to go straight to the next aisle (at least I think that’s what she said). So I did, and this is what I found:

The soy milk section.

It’s DIY soymilk! Yes, it’s powdered soy that you stir with boiling water. I must have stood there comparing the various options (as best I could using the pictures and the little bit of English on some of the packages) for about 15 minutes. One of the brands had instructions in Chinese and English, so using that, I was able to figure out the instructions for the brand that I ended up buying.

I think this was the only brand that had instructions in English.

Before I get into the making of the soymilk though, here is my cartful of groceries—all this cost just RMB237.40 (about $38).

My big grocery run.

Now, the making of the soy milk!

Wongmei soy milk. Each individual powder packet
can be mixed with 180ml of boiling water.

This is two packets worth of soy powder.

Voila! Soy milk! Now into the fridge to cool down.

Since I was in the “cooking” mood and had just bought some noodles and fresh veggies, I made my first real meal in the Citadines. I had brought some dill weed with me from the U.S., and there was a bottle of “all purpose” spice in one of the kitchen cabinets, so I sautéed some broccoli, Chinese cabbage, and enoki mushrooms and added that to noodles. It was actually really good! I was pretty impressed with myself. I also had some really good “Whole Wheal Bread” with raisins and walnuts.