In Fuling, six years ago, we searched for several weeks to find a toaster oven. We found one in late fall. Here we found a whole row of them in the local supermarket. We didn’t buy one, because it is readily available, we aren’t sure we want it this time, and we’re looking for other things. In 2009, we spent part of the winter holiday in Beijing, part in Shanghai. We searched the big city stores for cinnamon, which used to be a product of Vietnam. We found stick cinnamon, but no powdered form. Our friends sent a box that included a small tin of cinnamon. Here we found cinnamon in its familiar form, at the French store, in the imported foods section, in our first week here.
In Huanggang, we longed for butter which was not to be found in our area. One day our colleague went to Wuhan to visit friends. While there, he went to a supermarket, phoning us to say, “I found BUTTER” and brought some back to us. We used it so sparingly that we had some left at the end of our stay. Here, in our first visit to the supermarket we found butter, imported from New Zealand. We’re not so sparing with it, because it’s readily available, and we probably don’t need as much butter as we’re accustomed to using.
Here in Shijiazhuang, our two single beds have been pushed together and one large mattress put on them. A sheet was on this bed, a sheet that fit it, when we arrived, something one does not take for granted here. Now the weather is getting colder, and I am searching for a blanket that will fit this bed. I assume that if a mattress of a certain size exists, the bedding for it must exist also. I would assume that because I am an American. The local supermarket does not have anything that size, so we went to the Carrefor, a French store, which in Shanghai, for example, is quite deluxe. We had been there before, so when we arrived again, one of the salesladies got a manager who spoke English. I explained the size I wanted to this young man who really wanted to be helpful. I learned from him that “Chinese people go to the supplier and have things custom made.” I didn’t get the word on where these suppliers might be.
Long ago, my mom told me to keep one thing, a small thing, that would make me feel “at home” wherever I go. In the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, this one thing for the Ingalls family was the china shepherdess, an elegant figurine so out of place in the frontier homes. Over time, it’s been a challenge for me to feel “at home” anywhere, maybe because I couldn’t keep that one small thing from place to place. Still, I fix my mind on a few things that would make life easier, and part of  my focus is on the search for these things. For now, that main item is the wool comforter for winter, in a size that will fit our bed.
It took me a while, but I found the manicurist here. So, although I do not have a blanket that fits, I do have cinnamon, Hershey’s cocoa, and sparkly nails. Maybe one should revel in being “not home” instead of striving to find home where it can’t be found.