Culture tour — To The Provinces In Europe

Province — using this term is often perceived as an affront. But perhaps that will change and people will look longingly back to the real world, where life was simply more comfortable?

Consumo ergo sum — I consume, therefore I am. It is probably a global trend, even though consumption still varies greatly in terms of quantity and significance.

Perhaps something else is more significant for the local culture in Europe, not least in view of the discussions there — must we talk about a new world order? But first, let’s go to the shopping mall: more or less new, modern, spacious — and a mixture of “clearly structured” and “an invitation to get lost”.

It is a kind of adventure park with shopping facilities — already a long way from what can be seen in Europe. What is on offer in such shopping mall? Various car companies offering their ‘space labs for the road’, IKEA with a new concept, not as an outlet on a greenfield site; the purchase of an accessory for a recently purchased mobile phone fails:

We don’t have it.

I point to the boxes, take one, but find that it is empty.

It can only be ordered on the internet.

Is it the bonus of being somewhat exotic, the effect of the stranger or general friendliness — the young sales assistant helps me. Later, I quickly buy a pair of trousers and a jumper: the goods are to be placed on a special ‘box’ — I want to take them out and scan them.

No, leave them there.

Everything is listed on a display, I just have to confirm that there are two items, then I am asked if I have a membership card, select the payment method, hold my phone up to the scanner —…

… pling …

I take the underground back to the university, three stops away.

No sooner have I arrived at the office than I receive a message that the parcel has been prepared, followed by another message the next morning:

[长沙市]快件离开 【长沙长安转运中心】，已在发往 【长沙岳麓左家垅店】 的路上

[Changsha City] Parcel dispatched from [Changsha Chang’an Transfer Centre], en route to [Changsha Yuelu Zuojialong Branch].

About an hour later, there’s a knock at the door… —

…and a little later again: Long, a student who helps me with a few things. It’s about some orders I want to place on the internet. I had already looked at the items online. Long takes photos of them, various offers appear on the sales website (similar to Amazon), and the orders are placed…

Later I want to get some fresh air and buy some fruit. Another shopping centre — quite normal, like Kvikly at home, just a little bigger; the way there takes me past countless small businesses: ‘repairing everything that can be repaired if you have imagination and skill as tools’; countless small ‘finger food restaurants’. In the grocery shop: unimaginably low prices — only my beloved cheese… — Milkana processed cheese slices individually wrapped in multiple layers of plastic film, at least named cheese, available at an exorbitant price.

The pedestrian way to and fro is a kind of slalom course: a multitude of e-scooters delivering food — it seems that all the small shops are connected to the delivery system, and the mentality seems to be: ‘delivered is better than cooked’. Though this is one side only as the valuation of good food, enjoyed with friends, classmates or colleagues is still highly valued.

And what remains for me — apart from a certain fascination with technology? The economist’s question of how to understand the reorganisation of the economic world. Technical progress and digitalisation have at least a different everyday meaning here — something that takes some time to get used to when coming from a cosy village in the south of Denmark but also very different from today’s European cities; perhaps it is a ‘new cosiness’ and perhaps also a new way of working that needs to be examined more closely. — The more or less less posh car I ordered in the evening via WeChat to visit a friend (a kind of Uber service) doesn’t make me think about a precarious job, at least for now.