One of my latest experiences has been adventuring myself in a Chinese mart. Despite the inherent rudeness of the Chinese vendors wandering around:
 -Sorry, do you know where can I find pre-cook chestnu…
-“NO” 
Virtually anyone in the place knows where things are stored:

If I ever ask a casual representative: -Do you know where pre-cook chestnuts are?

The answers “-Sorry, I work in the warehouse, or  sorry, I work in the washing crabs department, or simply “Sorry I am just a janitor…” are ubiquitous. I mean, you should expect them.

Then, trying to buy alcohol turns into a semantics breakthrough session. The word “beer”  acquires new meanings:

-Sorry, do you know if you have Breezers with orange flavor?

-Bee..what? –Chinese conversations gets always stopped by the “R” phonemes, like RPGs stopping tanks in Iraq. Then, to get out of the mess, the female clerk bullshits me:

-That’s the only type of beer we have.

-Beer? No, that’s not beer, is kind of a liquor mixed with…In vain. Trying to explain this horrible complex concept is like trying to teach a fish riding a bike. After about 30 seconds of speaking for the clouds, the woman simply turns her head away and starts glaring at another direction, like telling me: hit the road, men! Ok, I got it. I suppose, in Chinese culture, anything that has alcohol and is not red might be considered beer. Gotcha! Eventually, as always happens in big malls & shopping-oriented macro-spaces, I found my product absolutely by chance. Only then, the completely lack of help from the store’s clerk gets justified: after all, who could remember or forecast that pre-cook chestnuts were going to be stored next to baby diapers for newborns???