Chapter 66: Supermarket Encounter

  Driving out of Jason's horse farm, it took a while to get on the highway. When they got on the road, Ju An turned on the radio and tuned into the music channel. After a while, Wang Fan started searching for stations, and after turning for a circle, he complained in the passenger seat: "How come there is only one kind of music no matter how you tune it, it's too monotonous."

  "Ha ha, basically it's all country music, except for the news, if you want to listen to something else, play my CD, they're all from back home, one is Zheng Zhihua, and some Dick Cowboy stuff."

  Turn off the radio, Wang Fan opened the small CD package brought by Ju An, took out a CD and put it in, and the two of them hummed along with Dick Cowboy's song.

  After arriving in Niagara Falls, they asked several police officers and finally found a Chinese supermarket. After making several turns, they arrived at the destination. As soon as Ruan An parked the car, Wang Fan jumped out of the car and stretched his waist.

  "This place is quite big!" Wang Fan said, looking around at the surroundings of his residence.

  "Stop talking nonsense, go in and search for things, buy them quickly and hurry back home. We'll have lunch at home, what time will we arrive home and eat lunch?"

  Wang Fan stared with his eyes wide open, making an exaggerated expression, pointing at Ju An and said "Unbelievable, it can't be that cruel, I had two small breads and a cup of coffee for breakfast, it's almost noon now, if we go back home, it'll be at least 3 or 4 o'clock".

  "Let's do it, if you want to eat lunch quickly, don't dawdle, let's go," said Ju An with a smile. He pushed Wang Fan and the two of them walked towards the supermarket entrance. When they arrived at the entrance, Ju An pushed a cart inside and only then did he realize that this supermarket was quite large. The shelves were filled with all sorts of goods, and half of the store's employees were foreigners, which was very different from the Chinese supermarkets in San Francisco that Ju An had encountered before, where all the employees were Chinese. Here, there were more blond-haired and blue-eyed foreigners.

  He Wang Fan and two people pushed the cart to the side of the fruit district, Ju An took a look, good guy, originally wanted to go domestic, now it seems no need, domestic red Fuji, big duck pear here are all with clear origin written China, below also with their own producing provinces.

  I looked at the price tag of Red Fuji apples, which was 99 cents per pound, equivalent to RMB 7 yuan per catty. Since an American pound is equivalent to about 0.9 catties in China, it's a bit more expensive than domestic prices.

  Each domestic fruit was picked up a few, weighed, and then put into the shopping cart. Wang Fan looked at it for a while and said: "Why do you always pick domestic fruits? Take some foreign fruits too! Look at this big red imported apple, it's very expensive in China, but it's much cheaper here." While saying that, he was putting those big red apples into his bag, the kind that looks great but tastes terrible.

  Looking at Wang Fan still stuffing the bag, Ju An said: "What are you taking so much for? Now everyone at home doesn't eat this kind of fruit except for Wu Song. If you take it and can't finish eating it, I'll let you bring it away when you leave. American apples are certainly cheaper in America, haven't you seen that a pound of tofu here costs almost 10 RMB?"

  Wang Fan glanced at him and pouted: "I only took seven or eight." After finishing, he put his hands in his pockets and went to the cashier to weigh. He put it in the shopping cart and pushed it for a few steps before Wang Fan saw the American cantaloupe. He said to Ju An: "This round cantaloupe is different from ours in terms of shape, maybe the taste is also different, let's get one back to try."

  Wang Fan finished speaking and carried one onto the car. This thing was already weighed, and at a glance, it was almost five yuan per kilogram.

  He picked some domestic plums, famous Shandong dates and longan grapes and put them in the shopping cart. He walked to one side and saw a place selling oranges. After checking the prices, he found that the cheapest was California oranges, three pounds for one dollar. However, when he smelled them, they stank so much! He left with Wang Fan, who said gloomily: "Why not buy some to try? Maybe like our domestic stinky tofu, it smells bad but tastes good?"

  "Alright, take a few then. But don't put anything else in with them, carry them by hand yourself. I'm afraid of contaminating other things, and when you get home, everything will smell like California oranges."

  Wang Fan heard Ju An say this and shook his head, saying: "Forget it, let's just go back to the ranch with him in our arms. Who knows, maybe he'll even get brother smelling too."

  Following Ju An and Wang Fan, they pushed the cart for a while, and the things were already packed in a full cart. Ju An looked at it and found that there were still some things that hadn't been bought yet, so he found another cart. This time, one person had one cart, and following Ju An, he discovered new and interesting things - domestically produced celery. Ju An picked up a bunch, put it under his nose and smelled it, hmm, the fragrance was amazing! Looking at the price tag, Chinese people's food was indeed more expensive, almost 10 yuan per kilogram. Anyway, he bought four or five big bunches of celery, weighed them, and put them in the shopping cart.

  Wang Fan said strangely: "Why did you buy so much celery? You can't eat that much, it will go bad later."

  "It's okay, today we'll wrap celery dumplings for dinner. We've been here for so long and haven't had celery dumplings yet. As soon as I see this thing, my heart feels like it's grown grass, and I want to eat it to death."

  "You're really a foodie, but when you mentioned celery dumplings, I'm a bit tempted too. Let's go get some pork." Wang Fan said, and his pace pushing the cart also quickened a lot.

  Two people arrived at the meat counter, Wang Fan saw the price of pork and said: "This pork is not cheap anywhere, it's hard to raise a pig now, look here one pound is over two bucks."

  Ignoring Wang Fan's chatter, he pointed at a piece of pork that looked fairly lean and said to the shop assistant, "Give me this piece of meat, then help me grind it into minced meat."

  The young shop assistant's hands and feet were very nimble, and he also asked Ju An: "Sir, you are a Chinese descendant, right? Do you want to add some scallions or ginger to the filling? Generally, Chinese descendants who come to buy want to add these things." Ju An listened, damn, don't look at him as a foreign young man, this is professional, he didn't even think of adding these himself. He thanked the shop assistant and asked him to add some scallions and ginger together with the meat filling.

  It didn't take long to finish, and they ended up with over 10 pounds of meat filling. Wang Fan took the meat filling from him and put it in the shopping cart, saying: "Damn, you're crazy, ten or so catties of meat filling, when do you plan on finishing it?"

  "Old Thomas and the others, apart from loving to eat all sorts of bean products, are also super fond of Chinese dumplings. Every time I make them, they'll bring some along and finish them off in at most three meals."

  Wang Fan thought for a moment, nodded his head and said: "That's also true. You're the only idle person in the ranch, doing some logistical work for everyone can maximize your value. Don't let the Americans think that we Chinese are all good-for-nothings. Ah, it's bad, you've already ruined the image of us Chinese, not working every day, wandering around everywhere, and putting on a horse cloak, just like a modern version of an Eight Banners noble."

  "Damn you."

  Just as Jian and Wang Fan were about to speak, a standard Mandarin voice came from beside them: "You two brothers have just arrived from home not long ago, right?" Jian and Wang Fan looked over to see a man in his forties pushing a cart, with a woman of similar age standing next to him.

  Listening to the familiar Mandarin, Ju An replied: "I've been here for a few months, I'm Ju An, and this is Wang Fang who just arrived from China."

  A man in his forties said, "My name is Lu Guangyuan, and this is my wife, Chang Dongna. We both came from the capital city of our country and have been living in Niagara Falls for over a decade. We bought a farm in the suburbs where we grow flowers, grass, corn, and other things."

  "Hey, I'm good," said Yu An with a smile to the two of them. "I don't live in Niagara Falls City, I live in Lewis Town. I bought a ranch there and just started working on it, raising some cattle and sheep."

  Lu Guangyuan smiled and asked: "You're not that rich guy who spent tens of millions to buy a large ranch, are you?"

  Wang Fan curiously asked: "I said he's so famous? Even you guys have heard of him?"

  Lu Guangyuan smiled and said, "It's really you. During that time, the newspapers reported it, but there were no photos. It was said that a Chinese rich man spent tens of millions to buy a large ranch. Many American friends I know saw the news and sighed, 'It's true that they have money.' Now many Americans think that Chinese people are wealthy. Last time, I read a newspaper article introducing a Chinese billionaire's daughter who came to the US to study. She looked at a house worth over $3 million and said, 'This house is not suitable for living,' which shocked the American real estate agent. In the end, she chose a villa worth over $5 million and was satisfied. The newspaper commented, 'Chinese people really have money.'"

  "Actually, I don't have much money. When I was in China, I loved horse riding and thought of running a ranch to raise horses. That's why I bought that piece of land with mountains and water, which has everything we Chinese care about. It's just getting started, and there aren't many cattle and sheep yet."

  Chang Dongna smiled and said, "When we first came from China, we didn't know anything either. At that time, Old Lu had done several years of Sino-Russian trade and made a small fortune. Later, as the business in Russia became increasingly difficult to do, our children grew up, and considering their education, we moved to the United States and bought a farm. At that time, there were only a few Chinese people here, except for those who opened restaurants, it was just our family. It's been many years now, and there are already 60 or 70 Chinese people here. We often gather together, otherwise, come to my place at noon today, get familiar with the door, and let's interact more in the future."

  "What a lot of trouble for you all."

  The couple listened and agreed, feeling even more at ease and happy.