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Convenience

 Life doesn't exist in the East of China until 10am, with shopping malls and gyms opening on the hour, and closing at the same time at night, 10pm. I was shocked to observe this since it was always thought that Chinese people worked hard long hours. It's normal for shops to open anytime between 9 and 9.30am in the UK, closing between 4 to 5:30pm, though more recently larger supermarkets open between 7am to 11pm if not midnight. The concept of convenience is important in China, with everything being able to be delivered as quickly as possible through the use of an APP. However, Supermarket 'culture' doesn't exist here to the same extent as the West. With it is more common to go to different shops for groceries, meat, fish, and confectionary, to the Western mind, or especially the British expat, this is far from the concept of 'convenience' as supermarkets provide all these products under one roof, and all household related shopping tasks can be done under one roof. Though, I was fairly happy with the supermarket Carrefour as I had no idea how to order anything online yet. 


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