A store in my Beijing neighborhood shut down a few weeks ago, and it has left me wondering if I should be so happy about it. The place was sort of like a supermarket, except it had nothing good—at all. It is how I would have imagined shopping in East Germany to be. Each part of the store was a separate, independently operated section, equally as objectionable as the surrounding embarrassments. The shop keepers did not care much about the customers, and almost all of the products were mediocre. It’s the kind of place where you could stock up on dried sweet potatoes, green tea toothpaste, super cheap Chinese liquor, and nothing else. One day I went in and noticed that the shelves were more pathetically bare than normal. The place had always seemed pretty depressing anyway, with its dim lighting and sad selection. It was as if I was being punished for not overcoming my laziness and going somewhere better. However, the empty shelves took it to a new level, like a nuclear holocaust was comi...
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