The Angry Customer

It's getting cold in Shanghai, so I decide to go and buy long underwear. I go to a large Chinese hypermarket near Xujiahui that has food on one floor and clothes, electric appliances, and everything else on the other.

After selecting my underwear (I learn the word for "stretchy" when talking to the saleslady), I take the escalator downstairs to pay at the register. The cashier, a young guy, about 30, is scanning my underwear when an older man with dark skin, freckles, and thick-framed black glasses walks up and starts arguing with him in Shanghainese. They argue for the next minute, and as the seconds pass, so does the volume of their yelling increase. After about a minute or two, the front half of the store is watching eagerly. They look extremely entertained, and I am sure they are wondering what the outcome will be. The store manager walks up and takes the baton from his employee, and they start agruing in Shanghainese.

Everyone still seems very entertained. The old man sticks his finger in the face of the manager. The manager is trying to escort the old guy out. But, like the Energizer bunny, the guy justs keeps going and going.

The checker finally rings me up despite the commotion, and I pay. Instead of leaving the store, I walk up to another employee, a guy in his 20s who looks the most entertained out of all the employees watching, and ask him what they are fighting about. He tells me the old guy says that he didn't get the correct change. In the background, the old man is still yelling, starting to walk out accompanied by several other customers and a few employees. The manager has already finished with him, and as he passes me, returning to his office in the back no doubt, he graciously explains to me that the frustrated old man is just arguing over a few pennies.

So, by now, I understand the situation. In China, I've already seen people getting upset like this more than a few times. For example, two guys walk out of their cars in traffic and start yelling at each other near People's Square the other day. I figure that after almost 60 years of communism, including the Cultural Revolution, there is a lot of accumulated tension, and people need some way to let it loose. I would, too.

So, today, I decide I will do my part to help the Chinese people let go of this frustration, to help them move into a new, more laid-back, easy-going era. You could say I want to do a little activism.

As I walk toward the door, behind the old man (still yelling!), I reach into my backpack and find some change. There's a 1 jiao (penny) coin and I tap him on the shoulder and say, "Sir, here, I want to give you some change."

He looks at me and says, "It's not just the change, that guy back there was mocking me before."

"Just ignore him," I say. "Come on, let's go." I like to think that perhaps my listening to his side of the story defuses some of his anger. The locals watch and they are starting to smile as I talk to him. He doesn't take the penny, but I am still trying to get him out of the store, tugging him a little.

I decide to let him go, and I turn around and head for the door, holding my newly purchased long underwear in a bag. As I walk out, at the counter in front of me, there is a woman who is selling tea, and she gives me a smile.