Shanghai Surprise

Back in the 80s, my BFF and I lived in Japan for two years.

Shortly after we moved there, secured a place to live, and realized that I was teaching at an archly-conservative Catholic Women's Junior College, we went grocery shopping for the first time.

My Japanese at the time was limited to a few jerky head bows and the lyrics of a song that was popular at the time: Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto. I was, quite clearly, over my head.

Okay, I'll admit it. After that first turn around the store, I cried.

I'd gone straight from Queens University to the backwoods of Higashi Urawa in rural Saitama prefecture and I was hit with a wave of culture shock like nothing you've ever seen.

Nothing in my previous travels to Europe prepared me aisle upon aisle of canned foods that I neither recognized nor could read.

The store had a live fish section, and even they looked menacing. There were melons encased in coffin-like boxes, tied with little bows, and costing 10,000 yen -- at the time, about $100.

After that first trip to the grocery store, SO and I went straight to McDonalds. When in doubt, supersize me.

All those memories came flooding back to me when I did my grocery shopping at the new T&T Supermarket on Cherry Street last night.

It feels like a western supermarket but if you didn't know any better, you'd think you were in Asia.

There are a range of products from China, Japan, the Phillippines and Thailand. All in-store announcements are made first in broken English, and then in excited, rapid-fire Mandarin. I was one of a handful of gaijin (foreigners) happily perusing the aisles and filling my cart with noodles, curries, Hello Kitty goodies and Asian favourites.

It's funny how something that once felt so foreign and uncomfortable can now make me feel so nostalgic.

A good lesson, perhaps, in embracing diversity.