It was with fond memory that I wanted to designate Wal-mart as my weekly grocery store after I settled down in Beijing. I said so because I used to have great grocery shopping experience with Wal-mart in Virginia. It does offer low prices for the lower middle class workers of the American society. My first trip to Wal-mart in Wangjing taught me three things: home improvement items are pricey comparing to US. and it does not offer an in-house toilet, and the checking out counter is much shorter, no moving belt. One day, after having painstakingly selected the Christmas cards and other presents, I wanted to use the toilet urgently. I parked my shopping cart next to the cashier's area and left. 5 minutes later my cart was gone! None of the store clerks knew where my cart was! So I got furious and called out a manager. She explained to me if the cart was obviously deserted they would take the cart away and re-shelf the items in the cart. I was so angry that I spent much time selecting my merchandise and now i had to do it all over again! Of course,I did not care which cards to select anymore, I just grabbed a bunch of them and swore I would never come back to that store.

There is another Wal-mart in Wanda Square, I went there today after seeing Avatar in Wanda Cinema. I really wanted to designate that one as my official grocery store because it is on my way of daily commute. This store's cashier counter is pathetically short and for a mega store the counters are not enough! When i waited in line to check out, the cashier and her co-worker were handling a Chinese woman with three big boxes. Obviously something was going on and she had not paid. Nevertheless, I took my items on the counter and waited for the cashier to scan. Then this Chinese woman left the cashier and her cart and started making a phone call on the side. I was waiting...the clerks did not apologize and they were motionless...then i could not wait any longer so I asked the cashier to call out that woman who was still quacking on the phone. The cashier did not care, so I went to that woman and asked her to quickly check out so other people behind her could move on! She did not care, still quacking on the phone. I then went back to the cashier to ask her to scan my stuff. The answer was she could not re-set the register. Then I said i did not want these items anymore. They got panic and called out a manager. The manager came, reset the register. He said that woman had to re-queue after she's off the phone. No apologies, nothing. And that woman, still on the phone, totally ignoring what happened to me, to the cashier and most amazingly, to her merchandise!

So here's the Chinese Walmart, double standards, in US, the store is nicer, comfortable and the employees are professional. here, the store is just like a big local store, employees are not well trained, items not cheap. They want to integrate and localize, but these days, even the Chinese people themselves want international standard! Hey, Wal-mart China, you lost me as a loyal customer!