Most people have the idea that China is dead cheap, I did too but I was wrong. These days pretty much everything is made in China, and when buying these products in our countries it’s fairly cheap. But made in China products IN China can actually be expensive!

When it was time to buy the essentials for the apartment that I live in in Jiangmen, my brother, my dad and I went to the closest supermarket. We soon realized it was actually going to be expensive, for example we couldn’t find sets of plates or silverware, they would sell everything by the unit. I actually spent less money getting things for my apartment in France! To me that was just crazy, how can made in China be more expensive here!

Chinese people  LOVE shopping nonetheless. Whenever I head out to any mall in this city they are packed, and all the stores are crazy expensive. I’m talking 1000 USD for a coat expensive, and they are not even famous brands. Obviously only rich people can afford that, and I have realized rich chinese people are extremely rich. They are obsessed with luxury products, from cars to designer handbags and everything in between. When I went to check out the famous “Galleries Lafayette” in Paris, most of the people I saw actually shopping, were chinese tourists with more bags that they could handle from all the high-end stores you can imagine.

So where do none millionaires go shopping in China? Well of course you can find H&M at the mall , which is always my go to store. But most people shop online. There are two websites that are extremely popular in China, “Tmall” and “Taobao”, to shop for pretty much anything you can think of.  I have gotten blankets, earphones, and just things for the apartment but some people buy their shoes and clothes online too. You can actually buy food online too! Often,there are crazy sales on these websites as well,  every time I order something there just happens to be some sort of discount. My most recent purchase was a mirror, which was half the price because I bought it on December 12th (12/12) , why is that even a thing? I have no idea, but I can’t complain :p

To give an example of just how much chinese people love to shop, about a month ago there was a holiday called “Singles Day”. For some reason which no chinese person was able to explain to me, ” Singles Day” is about girls buying gifts for singles guys ( so that sucked because I didn’t get any gifts). On this day all online shopping records in the world were broken, when the internet giant Alibaba raked 9.3 billion dollars in sales! If you want to know more about Singles Day you can check out this article.

All the pictures are from the newest mall in town called Wanda Plaza. Shortly after another mall opened up just a few blocks away, Wanda plaza mall and towers started constructions Now I have more options to window shop because I can’t actually afford anything at these malls :p