First, Aunt Pam finds the word in Chinese for hearing aid. Don’t ask me what it was, because at this point, I still only knew ‘hello’ and ‘thank you.’ We headed to the electronic store. This is much like a Best Buy I suppose, but this is three stories high and instead of shelves, every person working there is behind a glass counter and they are selling their own stuff. It could take HOURS to find a hearing aid battery in here, because nothing is organized very well. I mean, sure, maybe there is a whole block of DVD player sellers all blocked together, but I mean, where are you going to find a specialized, tiny, little, battery? Aunt Pam asked a lady there if they had it, but the lady wrinkled her eyebrows and blabbed to her neighbor, and concluded that they didn’t have anything like that.
The lady had referred us to a place where she thought it could be. I stayed in the car for this trip, because before we started this hearing aid search, we had also gone to a few other stores, and by the looks of this store, this probably wouldn’t be where we would find our little battery. After about 5 minutes Aunt Pam and Papa come out of the store, and judging by Aunt Pam’s face, we had won the battle. Aunt Pam told me that I needed to come inside and see the store, because it was different than any medicine store she had seen. I walk in and find myself standing in a Traditional Medicine Store… and by traditional, I mean like herbs and crushed plants! There were all these little wooden draws behind the glass counters, each with a Chinese character marking what was in each draw.
On top of the counters were these big wooden bowls, where the “pharmacists” were mixing things into “medicines” for people. In the glass counters there was an assortment of things that they would crush to put into the bowl for mixing. Things like dried snake, dried seahorses, dried poop, dried chicken feet, dried squid, dried EVERY THING!
All I could think about was a witch’s brew… eye of newt, bat whiskers, mummified toenails, black cat fat, troll teeth, and broom sweepings. Hahaha, so yeah. It was interesting to see these people actually asking for different medicines and then seeing them be made!!! This was totally cool.
Now I’m sure your thinking, “So you found the hearing-aid battery IN HERE?”. Well no. It seems that every store in China has a store above it, and that’s where they found the battery. Upstairs, apparently had wheelchairs, hearing aids, canes, and pill cases; no eye of newt to be found :P
When we got in the car, Aunt Pam asked Nikki if people “actually used that medicine”? Nikki’s reply? “Hah, only OLD people!” So that proves though China is named one of the most modern countries in the world, you see the older side come out in the likes of this…a traditional medicine store. Word was that they had even made a medicine to prevent swine flu. There were no reported cases of swine flu in China… so maybe there is something to be said for the medicines, or maybe there’s something to be said to how well the government here can hide things…
So after lots of looking and lots of help from random Chinese ladies and Nikki, we found Papa's battery. Now try doing that 5 times a day for every little item that you need. Welcome to China.
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