You're too tired to sell things from your store? (Reflections on Shanxi 山西)

Over the holiday, I went on a trip through Inner Mongolia and Shanxi. This had been my first time to either province and I saw some dunes in the Gobi Desert and a large gorge on the Yellow River on the Inner Mongolia/Shanxi border. It was overall really enjoyable and relaxing- great break from the grind of city life.

I'd heard that Shanxi is very polluted with all the coal mining, but the scale of the mining in the region was really beyond my expectation. Things were so dry and desolate, it really made Beijing seem like a tropical rainforest by comparison. Guizhou is also riddled with all sorts of mines, but by comparison even the small cities in Guizhou had lots of little shops and restaurants and the natural environment was quite beautiful. All the small towns we went through in Shanxi were full of abandoned store fronts and coal trucks- everything the same brown color. In fact, the only business I saw that was really thriving was a car dealership- which I think says a lot about the economics of the area. Dirt roads riddled with pot holes, but shiny new government office buildings next to a nice park.

One time, we were taking a bathroom break and a bunch of people went into the state-owned convenient store next to the gas station. With about twenty of us with various products in our hands, the cashier then said she was so tired that no one could buy anything. In fact, it seemed the only reason the door was unlocked was because there was some sort of inspector coming later that day. I couldn't believe we actually had to beg a cashier to sell us things in their store. I don't know what the local people do.

There seem to be very limited services for the average person and we actually commented on how much better the services were in Hebei province .  We were in the NW corner of the province and went through Shuozhou and Datong- anyone have any other observations from other parts of the province?

FRB, that would be funny if it weren't so freaking pathetic.

I've only been to Pingyao and Taiyuan in Shanxi, and Pingyao is pretty touristy, but a cool place. Taiyuan sucked. We stayed, inadvertently, in a um, pleasure hotel. I guess people don't generally stay the night there or something, although it was a fancy enough place, and expensive too. It was the middle of summer and they shut the air conditioning off at 2am, so we woke up in the middle of the night absolutely drenched in sweat. They also gave us shit about eating the free breakfast buffet in the morning, the assholes.

My mother-in-law has a small shop. The Chinese ghetto version of a convenience store we see everywhere. If she is watching her favorite show and somebody comes in and wants to buy something she just tells them they are sold out. Does not matter if the item is in plain sight stacked by the dozen. My father-in-law does the same thing bu he usually just yells out 不卖. They really do not care about anyone who comes into the store who isn't part of the neighborhood. They do not need the money, the locals keep them floating and the store is really just to keep them busy.

I think if it would've been a tiny local shop like that I would've understood it more- but this was a larger chain store in a gas station. There were several employees there and they were all "too tired". Blah.