ByGD
It was called a night market, but looked more like a night mall. In any case, we foolishly visited during the day. There were no shoppers and hardly any stalls or shops were open. Maybe it’s for the best, because it was easier to appreciate the unique and slightly magical atmosphere of the place. It reminded me a little bit of the Night Circus.
We meant to go back at night but never did. Did we miss the magic? Or did we only miss the commerce?
ByGD
Stupid gimmicks are not a purely American invention. As evidence, take the Ice Bar. It took me a while to figure it out, even after an attendant explained it to me.
In celebration of Qingdao’s MixC Mall grand opening, this big box was set up in one of the mall lobbies. Any customer who met the minimum spend – I think it was something like $100 – could gain entry into the exclusive “Ice Bar.”
The Ice Bar did not actually serve drinks inside. It was just a refrigerated room, kept below freezing. Once you proved you had spent enough money in the mall, they gave you a big blue coat. Then they let you go stand in the freezer for something like ten minutes.
I know air conditioning is not as common in other countries as the U.S., and in late May it was already hot in Qingdao. So I could see the cold room as a refreshing break from excessive heat. But the Ice Bar was inside the mall, which was air conditioned to a lovely, comfortable temperature.
ByGD
As luck would have it, the largest MixC shopping mall in China had just opened in Qingdao a couple weeks before our arrival. It was so new, the roller coaster wasn’t even working yet. Yes, the roller coaster. Shopping malls are not usually on my itinerary, but on this trip my fifth-grader was taking the lead. We ended up spending a couple days at the mall, and I mostly didn’t mind it. It was the biggest blow to American provincialism I had experienced in a while. I think of myself as being way beyond thinking America is the end-all, but even I tend to think that if America excels at one thing it’s commercialism.
We’ve got nothing on China. It would take days to explore the Qingdao MixC shopping mall, which contains a theme park, Olympic standard ice rink, and IMAX muliplex cinema, and you would not see a single American store. And it’s not even the only mall in town. Eye-opening.