This is not Chung Hing, but has the same feel. Photo by Don Qua
While it might seem unfair to compare a local Chinese grocer to the large big box chains, our shopping experience spans both, so I feel I should review both. Chung Hing, or in Mandarin, Zhong Xing, is our local Chinese grocer. While it is an average sized Chinese grocer, it seems to serve our needs well. Trip Review: Chung Hing: A.
This mystery shopping test was done on Friday March 13, 2009, accompanied by my daughter. She rarely goes with me because she believes, and rightly so, that grocery shopping is boring. I try to impress upon her that without someone doing the shopping we would run out of food and therefore starve because we have no direct conduit to a grocery store built into our house. Trip review: Nofrlls B+, Walmart B
___Nofrills, Kennedy/Finch, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Objective: Sale priced tetrapack apple juice and general weekly shopping.
There is much written on the internet about Overseas Chinese (huachao, or huayi), and not so much about Chinese Overseas, as in Mainland Chinese people that visit overseas. I live in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, a part of North Eastern Toronto. My neighborhood has many Chinese people that visit from mainland China.
___Our Chinese visitors come to stay from 3 months to a couple of years. Most are retired, called here by their married kids to help raise their grandchildren. For the most part, these visitors from China are devoted to their families and add a lot of flavour to Toronto culture. They bring with them traditional Chinese values and thinking from an era of China that may be long gone, or at least buried deep in the past.
In true Canadian spirit, we must talk about snow and winter. This winter is unique in that while it has snowed a little more than an average year, there has been very little melt. This means that, not surprisingly, the snow accumulates. In downtown Toronto, snow may be carted off in trucks to a local park and dumped, but in most residential areas, it is simply too expensive.
My neighbour S has a snow service that clears his driveway with a truck. The truck has a plow and scrapes the snow backwards towards the street. Once on the street the snow is pushed up onto the side of the curb.
