I had to go up to The Coast today. (Surgeon, final check on my arm, all fine). Planned to drive straight home with no shilly-shallying up there in glitzy consumer-land. Straight home and and Get On With Things. I almost made it, but then I saw the big red and yellow sign: Asian Supermarket.
Well, I’ll just duck in and see if they have some ghee, I said to myself. Haven’t been able to get any here in town. ( There are a lot of things you can’t get here. Which I quite like, most of the time, no consumeristic temptations, no shops full of useless baubles) Also I want another fan - essential item for we ladies of a certain age. And in this sweltering heat. Sure to be some in there.
Pretending to myself that it would be a quick visit. Hah! Asian Supermarkets are one of my favourite sort of shops. I love how they smell. I love their Asian-ness and clutter. I love all the garish colours, the gold and red, the plastic crap, the coolie hats and bamboo steamers and woks and porcelain statues and coloured paper lanterns. I love the poetic names of Moon Cakes and Lotus Nuts, Lily Flowers and Angelica, the weird and unidentifiable products (‘Sweat’, “Pork-Floss’) - and of course the colourful labels and the spelling mistakes.
And the bundles of fake money to send off with the dead, so they won’t be out of pocket in the afterlife (Finances covered for both salvation and damnation contingencies )
The box of straw ‘Blooms’ - for sleeping the floor, I guess. A box of boomerangs next to it, just in case...
I love the varieties of green tea ( Japanese is best), and the tea packages:
The more you drink, the more satisfaction you have, Good Taste, Good Life, Grade: Supreme Level. Enjoy and share the many pleasures!
An hour later I carry my booty out to the car: Yes, the ghee, the fans. Also a colourful woven plastic shopping basket, three lovely pale green dinner plates we don’t really need, a red silk-covered spectacles case, some useful kitchen scourers (Cleanness Cloths, Good Help For The Sanitary Kitchen), some mosquito repellant incense (...adopting recent international technology, break-resistant, pull-resistant, belong to green product of environ, mental protection. The aged and children are even more suitable to use...)
Some black sticky rice and some coconut palm sugar - gonna resurrect that old black rice pudding recipe, star anise , bananas...coconut milk.
Curry paste, wasabi, sushi vinegar, a ‘Tasty Bite’ ready-to-eat, all natural Navaratan Korma ( A dish fit for kings...go ahead and pamper yourself. Ready In a Jiffy!). A completely weird-sounding ‘nature’ herbal tea, claiming assorted health benefits, an Indian Cashew curry...
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| 100% Fashion...OK! |
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| I definitely see 6 flower vases... |
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| So that lovely gal in the polka dot swimmers, with the rose in her mouth .... |
2 comments:
Ha! Everytime I'm in that neighborhood I steer clear of the place! Give me the shopping mall anyday! ...But so fun to read what it is actually like on the inside. I chuckled the whole way through your story. Now I REALLY know I don't ever have to go in!
Oh shopping malls are alright, in their place I suppose (ie. distant outer suburbs)
But they're just so homogenised 'Middle Australia'!...Personally I always seem to be drawn to the more extreme ends of the consumer spectrum i.e really cheap (Op shop, $2 shop) or else ridiculously expensive/quirky/obscure....
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