
Like most people in China, I do most of my cooking on one of these. In fact, this is my new one! Bought it today!

The old one died. One of the legs on the pan support snapped off. The cold killed it.
Anyway, I have no intention of sending you pictures of all my kitchen equipment. I mention it only point out the methodology of sales and accounting used in my local kitchen equipment shop.
I selected my intended purchase. The charming sales person apologised that I would have to carry it home and install it myself as the people who usually carry out such functions are all trapped in railway stations and trains across the country, having already left for the holidays.
I confirmed my intention to go through with the deal at the advertised price and she carefully prepared a four-part A5 document detailing the type of product, the quantity, the price, her name etc. This I carried to the payment booth in the centre of the store and handed it over with the required, hard earned pictures of Chairman Mao. The clerk there copied all the details onto another four-part document then stamped each page of the two four-part documents. Twice. Two different stamps. Total 16 stampings.
She then entered all the details into a computer and printed out another piece of paper which she also stamped twice (18). She kept one page from each of the four-part documents and handed the rest to me.
I returned to the sales girl who was just finishing wrapping my cooker and handed her all the paperwork. She said “deng yi xia – wait a moment”, then disappeared into the bowels of the store. After about five minutes she came back with a totally different piece of paper and handed it to me with a smile. “This is your receipt.”
Oh, yes. It had been stamped twice, too (20). Now. What's for dinner?
tags: liuzhou cooking cooker shopping
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