WHEN China opened its retail market in the early 1990s, foreign mega-chains flocked in, vying with local retailers for a bigger slice of the world's most populous market. In the ensuing battle for customers, many traditional small street-side shops were marginalized. Some were converted into convenience stores; others simply vanished into thin air.
Xu Guanxiu is one of the survivors.
The 50-year-old woman has operated a little shop for 15 years in an overcrowded neighborhood on Hefei Road, just one block away from Shanghai's landmark Xintiandi area. She sells beverages, beer, cigarettes and Chinese wines.
"Actually I have a lot more in stock, such as soap and toothpaste, batteries and lighters, even red envelopes (used for gift-giving during the Chinese New Year)," she said. "But they are just for those elderly customers who have gotten used to buying daily necessities from me over the years. I do not have them on display because they are far from popular."
"It's a hard time for us little shopkeepers," she added, with a shrug.
Disorderly home
The once popular neighborhood grocery stores used to dot residential areas, both in old, traditional back-alley lanes and in newer residential neighborhoods. Small, sometimes shabby and dim, they were usually run by husband and wife teams on the ground floors of their own homes and covered only about 7 or 8 square meters. Stock was piled up higgledy-piggledy. Was it a store or a disorderly home with its front wall knocked out? Sometimes it was hard to tell.
In these mom and pop stores, the husbands normally did all the heavy stocking work, and the wives served as cashiers. People called them "lao ban" and "lao ban niang," meaning boss and boss's wife, a form of flattery aimed at securing a good bargain. In older days, when the majority of people worked in state-owned factories, "lao ban" conjured up notions of market capitalism and was an enviable title indeed.
These shops were typically known as "yan zhi dian" in the Shanghainese dialect - literally, cigarette and tissue shops. But their stock of wares went beyond those two items to include an array of daily necessities such as candies, soy sauce, soap, skin cream, needles and light bulbs, to name but a few.
Before starting on her own, Xu worked in a state-owned factory. It was the birth of twin daughters that sparked a change in course.
"I couldn't go out to work anymore because I had to look after the babies, nor could I idle at home because we needed more money to raise the children," Xu recalled.
Since she had little education, no lucrative contacts and even less money, opening a little grocery store seemed the only avenue to pursue. With a simple conversion, the family home was turned into a ground floor store and sleeping quarters in the attic upstairs. The front is open to customers, and the back serves as storage space.
"It seemed simple. We bought stuff at a price and then sold it on at a higher price," she said. "We initially sold whatever we thought people needed in their daily lives."
Her store is called Shuang Shuang, meaning "two." Not only does it refer to the birth of her twins but it also harks to the Chinese belief that good things always come in pairs.
Inside the shop, a worn-out wiping cloth hangs loosely on one wall, several narrow staircases lead up somewhere private and an overworked refrigerator stands in the corner. Most striking is the enduring atmosphere of a boss's wife toiling away in a traditional "yan zhi dian."
Xu keeps the store spick-and-span, alleviating that once dusky environment of neighborhood shops that tends to drives modern buyers away.
"I start everyday with a simple clean-up of my store, wiping the counters and sweeping the floors. It's my own house after all," she said. "Businesses like mine are low profit, so grocers like me are tight-fisted with money. We don't spend much on fancy decorations."
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