Its not Like I Want All the Coke in China...

by Steve Reiss (Dalmdad Landscape Photography - www.dalmdad.com and https://www.facebook.com/Dalmdad.)

Longhua, Shenzhen, PRC:  The first thing I do when I get to my hotel in China is find a store where I can hoard some Coca-Cola.  This is a critical for me since I do not drink tea, good coffee can be hard to find, and bottled water is...well, just water.

The Real Thing - Chinese Style!

Typically, after eating lunch each day, on the walk back to the office, I would purchase my afternoon Coke.  Its hard for people that have never been to Longhua to visualize, but our campus is so large, there are portable grocery stores at strategic corners around the campus.  The stores are "portable" in the sense that they are tents, but they are fully equipped with refrigerators, freezers, and sell everything one would need to survive a boring Longhua afternoon.

So, for the first couple of days, Sara and Eagle would wait for me while I went in to buy my Coke.  Each day there was a full supply in the reefer.  I dropped down my 3 RMB (US$0.50) on the counter for my 600 ml bottle and it was back to work we went.

Suddenly, one day, I went in to the store and there was not one Coke.  I started to freak out.  How can there be not one Coke?  As I said, every day the reefer was completely packed.  Where in one afternoon did all those Coke's go?  Eagle and Sara ran some Mandarin interference for me and were told that the store near the main entrance to campus probably had some Cokes.  So, off we walked.

The main entrance to the campus is an incredibly busy spot.  Buses, bikes, cars, taxis, rickshaws, pedestrians, mongrel dogs...if it can move, it will be kicking up dirt and dust in this area.  Also, street vendors selling everything from bootleg DVDs to "Pineapples on a Stick" line the street.

I made it over to store, walked towards the reefers in the back and...again...there was not one Coke!  Where did all the Coke's go in one night?  Was there some rave I missed?  Geeze, it was a miserable afternoon!