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Xiangwen lives near Russell Square, not that close to Chinatown. But he keeps coming to Chinatown for buying groceries every one or two weeks. One day in early April 2018, I followed him all the way from taking the tube to leaving the supermarket for watching his routine Chinatown shopping tour. He went to Loon Fung Chinese Supermarket, one the of biggest supermarkets in Chinatown that he always goes. He grabbed a shopping basket, walked into the shelves, and could always find what he needed without looking — he was indeed quite familiar with this place.
Xiangwen said he never buy things here that are also sold in local supermarkets, e.g., Sainsbury’s, because usually, it would be cheaper and with better quality there. What he buys in the Chinese supermarket are of some fixed categories: Chinese vegetables (tofu, solid tofu, Chinese mushrooms, lotus root, etc.), cooking ingredients (cooking soybean sauce, hot pot seasoning, etc.), and frozen foods (dumplings, pancakes, beef slices for hot pot, etc.).
Although Xiangwen is a frequent customer with a membership card of Loon Fung, he does not the quite like the environment there. The strong fishy smell in the meat area was kind of gross for him, and there is always a long queue. “But I have no other choice.” He said.
Actually, he does have a few other options. Xiangwen told me a friend of him once recommended UKCNSHOP and BestPlus to him at a dinner in Chinatown. They are two online Chinese supermarkets that sell almost everything one could find in a Chinatown supermarket. Xiangwen had never heard of these two websites. After checking them out at home, he still could not trust the quality of products in these online markets. Eventually, he tried it and bought some bag rice and bottle soy cause, things that are too heavy to carry from Chinatown to home easily.
“I wouldn’t try it if it was not recommended by my friend. I’m buying things to eat. So really worried about the quality.” He said.
Xiangwen tried to use online Chinese supermarket as less as possible. It was about two months for once, as he said, and he only bought heavy packed products and had never tried others. He also told me that before coming to London, another friend of him who had been living in London for years suggested that to avoid buying groceries in Chinatown because changing expiration date of the unsold was a common practice here. However, Xiangwen did not take that advice too seriously.
“What he said might be true. But I think there are so many customers buying things here, and this is London Chinatown. The supermarket wouldn’t go too far.” He trusted Loon Fung, which is indirectly discredited by his friend, much more than the two online supermarkets recommended by his friend.
When we left Chinatown, in Leicester Square tube station, he kept expressing his worries about the frozen things being melted soon.
“Can’t do anything. Let walk faster.” He said.
For Xiangwen, Chinatown as a market meets his daily shopping needs in the first place. Besides, his trust on Chinatown markets over online Chinese markets does not derive from a rational comparison of the markets or productions themselves, but from his confidence on Chinatown in which the market is located. As Sales, D’Angelo, & Liang (2009) put it, London Chinatown provides a “branded space” that invites trust and emotional ties of immigrants.