You likely heard of the recent stampede at a Chongqing Carrefour in China that killed three people and left 31 injured. After the incident China banned the type of sales promotion that led to the incident, which was a time-limited 11-yuan discount on vegetable oil.
These sorts of sales are common in large scale Asian mega-supermarkets, as are other selling techniques that one might typically find in an outdoor market…yelling, hustling, even physically pulling customers toward their products.
Danwei has some good coverage of the incident, including a translation of an opinion piece written for the Southern Metropolis Daily, by a Chinese blogger and popular historian called Ten Years Chopping Timber. In the piece the writer argues that the “time-limited sales promotion” in this incident, an 11-yuan discount on vegetable oil, was merely one facet of a whole host of larger social problems.
But many of the people who lined up are retired or laid-off city dwellers whose manpower under normal circumstances not only produces no benefit, but continues to eat away at their assets—they live solely on a pittance of retirement allowance or social security. As opposed to doing nothing, why not stand in line to buy vegetable oil that has been discounted 11 yuan? When a poor person’s labors cannot create new wealth, then any amount of savings counts as earnings. Thus, when low-income groups encounter benefits that are extremely limited, it is even worse than the three knights who died for the sake of two peaches. These peaches won’t stop with just three nights, I’m afraid; they’ll take the lives of thirty, or three hundred.
If you’ve never been do an mega-store in Asia it might be hard to approximate what it’s all about. I can remember when I first came to Korea and going to one of these stores on a Saturday afternoon for the first time, and thinking the chaos was at least 10-times what I’d witnessed even in the most crowded stores in New York City and London.
The following is a YouTube clip filmed at the same Carrefour market as the above incident. It’s short, but you can get some sense of the madness, as the narrator describes having to be led out of the gridlock of a Carrefour food section by an employee.
5 responses so far ↓
1 itchy // Nov 15, 2007 at 3:17 am
“…you can get some sense of the madness”?
“Welcome to China”?
That video clip only shows people shopping and some crowded aisles…and commentary from some shoppers who may or may not have paid attention to exit signs.
Three people dying and over 30 getting hurt because of a mad rush for veggie oil is mind-boggling, but the video doesn’t come close to even suggesting chaos. I see crowded aisles like that every weekday after 5 p.m. and every weekend at the neighborhood Asian supermarket, at Trader Joe’s and Safeway. Welcome to San Francisco.
2 A.S. // Nov 15, 2007 at 9:01 am
I think “some sense” indicates that the clip isn’t taking you inside the malestrom on the fringe of the chaos. Sorry if you were let down by the promise YouTube normally offers, but this is China. You’ll notice the photo at the top isn’t of the highest quality either. That’s because it’s about the only photo that exists from that day.
The fact that the woman is leading them through the store to get from one section to another so they can get to another level seemed significant to me. That doesn’t happen in your local Asian markets in San Francisco, which are usually old, converted grocery stores from the 70s and 80s and not comparable to big box stores over here.
3 cmc // Nov 16, 2007 at 2:06 pm
can’t we all just get along?
4 Pete // Nov 16, 2007 at 5:32 pm
As it happens, this is my local supermarket. 100 metres away from the entrance to my apartment block I can turn my head and look down upon it even as I type were I not afraid of making spelling mistakes.
The Shapingba district where I live and where this happened is, I am sorry to say, host to a rather alarming number of somewhat bullish members of the new Chinese middle class who don’t see much purpose in walking around someone when they can barge right through them. A week or two before the incident happened I went out to catch a taxi, turned and went straight back in again. The ‘queue’ - thanks, no doubt, to bargers - had degenerated into a fist-fight which had, in turn, attracted a hundred or more spectators. Catching taxis from there frequently myself, it’s not infrequently I find myself glaring someone down - usually a middle-aged woman - to stop her trying to get the jump on me. It’s a trial.
No, this has nothing to do with the impoverished. The impoverished of China are one heck of a lot more decent in their behaviour than the middle-classes who look down upon them. You’re not going to find the impoverished in Shapingba and certainly not going to find them shopping at Carrefour, 20% off or not.
5 A.S. // Nov 16, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Interesting, Pete thanks for posting an account. So you’re saying that this barging and running over people is a middle-class phenomenon? I’m surprised because I feel in Korea its more of a older generation, lower class practice, found more commonly around where I live (Busan) than in the Seoul area. Koreans themselves say this. My favorite is when an older woman will throw her purse across a bus to reserve a seat.
That said, Koreans, again particular to this region (or, again, so people here say) is the reputation for always being in a hurry. Running over each other on their way to the subway, people smashing into one another while running around corners….I assume these sorts of events are tied into the version of hyper-capitalism you find here, which could be similar to the middle classes in China you’re talking about.
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