Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers!

Wal-Mart has opened its first Bejing store, apparently with less difficulty than it had in opening up shop in the People's Republic of Massachusetts and the semi-autonomous regions of New England.

Its main competitors? France's Carrefour, the US's Pricesmart, and a local knockoff called Wu Mart. Roll over, Mao, your long marches have finally ended in aisle 10. And, to mix superstore metaphors, that's a good thing.

If nothing else, this should remind us that it was more than coincidence that the brave, "unknown rebel" who famously stood up to the tanks in Tianamen Square appeared to be carrying a shopping bag when he helped create one of the most moving images of the 20th century.

Comments

[T. Hartin]

Thanks, Pat, for encapsulating elitist American bigotry in such compact, pristine prose. Usually I have to read the entire NYT editorial page to get that much condescension and igorance in one shot.

[Pat Cameltoe]

Welcome, Hartin.

[Jough]

What's so funny about Cody or Zach that isn't funny about Latisha, Yolanda, or Jesus? Pat, whatever you do don't tune in for an NBA game - you'll bust a gut...

In the last quarter reported (yahoo finance) Wally World pulled in 57 billion bucks compared to Sears with 9B and JC Penny with 7. They're laughing all the way to the bank.

[joe]

All this indignation about Pat's comment! I trust I won't be seeing any more "That's so PC" post from Brad and Hartin.

[Brad S]

joe - just pointing out that WalMart appeals to more than just dumb Southern rednecks. As Jough points out, $57 billion in annual sales speaks for itself.

[Anonymous]

Obviously the black-helicopter crowd here loves Wally world.

No wonder, Wally world sells guns, ammo & related white trash accessories (kill arab t-shirts, american flag bullshit, Nascar, you get the drill) and oppresses its workers and is the largest corporation in the world. Profit is its only motive.

Perfect for far-right libertarians.

[joe]

11:41 AM, Brad chastizes Pat for writing prejudiced remarks.

2:16 PM, elephant thread above, Brad satirizes people who chastize others for their prejudiced remarks.

I wonder what it is about stereotypical Wal Mart shoppers that makes them so worthy of heightened sensitivity.

[dude]

Anyone notice that white names are getting as comical as black names? Cody, Tyler, Jordan, Caiden, Britney, Madison, Chelsea, Courtney. The brothers and sisters still got us beat on creative use of punctuation though: N'Shwonka, De L'Rondelo, etc.

[Brad S]

joe - hey, I'm not saying that the white trash redneck stereotype is inaccurate. Much of the time it's right on the money, along with some other stereotypes that I won't get into. Many rednecks do shop at WalMart, some of them probably even buy NASCAR sweatpants. All I'm saying is that the success of WalMart has more to do with its business strategy and wholesale purchasing power than the allure of NASCAR sweatpants. So, I'd say that even if the Chinese don't care for the NASCAR sweatpants, they may nevertheless embrace the concept of WalMart, and WalMart may very well be successful there.

[Anonymous]

What about N'Sync? Yeah those coloreds sure have us beat.

[Brad S]

dude - reminds me of an ad I saw for a TV show making fun of white suburbs where a little league baseball coach says, "Okay, let's see. Caitlyn's up, Caitlyn's on deck, and, uh, Caitlyn is in the hole."

[John]

>>Due to the lack of females China will also become the world's number one porn consumer at some point. (I guess everyone could go gay in a pinch but, eh, probably not). Once every dude in China has a computer think of all the broadband and infrastructure needed to deliver all that wank material! Fortunes will be made. The NASDAQ will be back to 5000 in no time. (Well, ok, a decade or so).

[John]

>>Anyone notice that white names are getting as comical as black names? Cody, Tyler, Jordan, Caiden, Britney, Madison, Chelsea, Courtney. The brothers and sisters still got us beat on creative use of punctuation though: N'Shwonka, De L'Rondelo, etc.

[jacob dreyer]

"But when are the Chinese going to start complaining about cheap Vietnamese & Myanmartian merchandise."

LOL @ Myanmartian, is that really the plural?

[Curt Warner]

Bagging on mullets = the last form of acceptable prejudice.

[Anonymous]

shut up mullet mouth!

[John]

>>LOL @ Myanmartian, is that really the plural?

[Jim]

Why are people slagging Walmart for 'worker's rights' abuses? Didn't they just agree to prohibit discrimination based on sexuality? Seems pretty progressive to me.

I used to shop at the Walmart in Ratingen, Germany, when I lived there - they have different stuff there (no NASCAR T-shirts) for the German consumers. I still shop at the Walmart here in Michigan. I live in a rural area, so yeah, some of the stereotype fits, but my yuppie wife and I, along with all our similar socioeconomic-class friends, also shop there, because EVERYONE likes to save money. That is how they surpassed GM as the biggest company in the world.

[Pat Cameltoe]

Brad - Dude, it was just a joke. I'm not dogging Walmart. Christ, you'd think I just called your momma fat or something. Speaking of mullets, I know whereof I speak. I have cousins, see, and they all watch NASCAR and wear stretchy pants, and I always see people that look just like them at Walmart.

[joe]

Yes, Wal Mart has agreed to screw gay employees on the same terms that it screws straight ones. Hooray!

Union busting, sweat shop pricks.

[Anonymous]

yeah, if only the unions were stronger and the state controlled industry more we'd all be better off - just look at history..........DOH!

[Anonymous]

yeah, and to think they pay their greeters less than what people working on the cure for cancer make! exploitation!

[jacob dreyer]

i can't imagine being a geeter. imagine going out on a date:
"so what do YOU do, jacob?"
"oh..i'm in..uh... hospitality tchnology."

LOL, i once heard janitors jobs described as "a melding of workforce oriented people skills and environmental maintenance technololgy."

[Anonymous]

wow, at least Jacob honestly expresses his feelings of superiority over hard working people. elitist scumbag.

[Oppressed Worker]

it is "hospitality engineer" smart-ass.

and yes we are exploited. we should get paid a lot more for our highly skilled profession. but walmart moved into our small-twon and drove all of the competition out of business with their low priced profiteering. now they want to FIRE me for trying to organize? don't they realize that the consitution gurantees me a job?

[jacob dreyer]

anon @ 4.38:

uh, dude, back off. your talking to a "resource-management assistant in intellectual solution technology" (translation:intern.)

[Jim]

Anon @ 4:38 -

one need not be an 'elitist scumbag' to recognize that being a doctor or lawyer etc. is going to be a bigger hit with the ladies than being a 'greeter'. Just a fact of life. Get over it.

[Apis]

What's up with playa hatin' on Walmart? I thought y'all were capitalists or something 'round here.

Guess we were better off with mom & pop shops, flogging high priced goods.

So much for the friggin' free market...

[jDavidm]

The reason for the Walmart hate is mostly because Walmart markets services and products to a class of customers that the oh-so-intellectual crowd despises.

And it is wildly successful doing so. Which drives the "progressives" crazy.

[Anonymous]

great, low low wages for chinese now

[jdog]

Apis,

The lack of capitalists here baffles me too. Worse yet are these references to "worker's rights". What a bunch of illiberal nonsense that is. We were all endowed by our Creator with certain inalianable rights, except for workers. They have a different set rights, I presume. The Creator, in is infinite capriciosness, must have decided that some are born to be poor, sufferring 'workers' and the non-workers, whoever the heck they are, need to offer them some extra rights to make up for the horrible, permanent injustice He perpetrated upon them.

jdog

[junyo]

Increasingly affluent, breeding like fucking rabbits, large virtually untapped market, Communists.

[The Mountain Goat]

If the Mall-Warts in China are anything like the ones here, communism won't survive long.

[joe]

Wal Mart's position on workers' rights makes them a perfect fit for China.

[John]

So what's Wal Mart's greeter in Beijing going to say? "Have a pleasant shopping experience at Wal Mart or you will be sent to a Re-Education Camp?"

[Madog]

Some how I think Marx, Lenin, & Mao would have trouble recognizing modern Chinese communists. I get the feeling that the oligarchs keep the CP around only because it's a convenient thing to base their power on. It 50 years they'll be more capitalist than the US

[TBR]

To anonymous poster #2 ("in bed with the chinks"):
Smarten up and get a life. Commerce does a lot more to destroy communism than bigotry. When China is free, it will be no thanks to people like you.

[Brad S]

With the extraordinary manpower that the Chinese have, if they are able to successfully get their masses to embrace democracy and capitalism, they could easily surpass the USA as the pre-eminent world economic and military power in the next century. Easily.

[jacob dreyer]

^true enough

but thats a big if

[joe]

I don't think the masses are the problem, Brad. Embrace capitalism? The Chinese have had merchants and thousand mile trade routes for centuries.

[Brad S]

jacob - yes it is a big "if". Another issue that the Chinese will struggle with in the future is a severe lack of females due to their reproductive policies. I predict that, in the next century, the land of China will become a haven for homosexuals (not that there's anything wrong with that) and mail-order brides (hmmm, not that there's anything wrong with that, either).

[Anonymous]

The Constitution is a fiction. A convenient and politically expedient fiction, but a fiction nonetheless.

[Pat Cameltoe]

Dumbasses. The Chinese aren't communists, and anybody who says or thinks they are communists haven't been paying a lick of attention for at least 20 years. China's political system is not easy to categorize, but it's closest to fascism. "To get rich is glorious"? "The Three Represents"? Am I ringing any bells here, people?

The racists, isolationists, and xenophobes in evidence here will never be convinced, but there is ample evidence that interaction (including, especially, trade) with China has had huge moderating effects. We've certainly seen much greater improvements there than in Cuba, where the embargo has cemented Fidel in place and provided a convenient boogeyman.

The real question - totally unacknowledged by anybody on this board - is whether a Walmart can succeed in a culture that does not value stretchy pants, fanny packs, big hair, mullets, and NASCAR sweatpants.

[erf]

Let's wait to see how much freedom - beyond "consumer freedom" - Wal Mart and other capitalistic ventures inspire in China before falling over with joy about this.

[Pat Cameltoe]

Erf - what in god's name are you talking about? Who is "falling over with joy" about this? The only interesting thing about the subject article is that it's a walmart. GM has been building Buick Centuries there for years. Honda builds accords there. This is a minor milestone within a period of expanding trade that's been going on for decades.

[jacob dreyer]

pat:
i assume your being facetious. who DOESN'T like NASCAR?

[Pat Cameltoe]

Chinese people, I think, don't like NASCAR. Er, and I don't like NASCAR. Ideally Walmart can find a Chinese person with all the desired characteristics: fat, in stretchy pants, with a fanny pack, mullet, and NASCAR sweatshirt. Named Cassie, with a child named Cody or Zach.

[dude]

Due to the lack of females China will also become the world's number one porn consumer at some point. (I guess everyone could go gay in a pinch but, eh, probably not). Once every dude in China has a computer think of all the broadband and infrastructure needed to deliver all that wank material! Fortunes will be made. The NASDAQ will be back to 5000 in no time. (Well, ok, a decade or so).

[Anonymous]

Spank 'em 'til they glow, then shoot 'em in the dark, heh.

[Anonymous]

Wal-Mart is so evil! how dare they give unskilled people jobs and then allow the same people to buy more for lower prices! Evil I tells ya!

[Brad S]

Pat - have you been to a WalMart lately? I assure you that they have more than stretchy pants, fanny packs, and NASCAR sweatpants. Ergo, I assure you that WalMart's merchandise appeals to a broader spectrum of people than the white trash redneck that you have stereotyped.

[Rob]

Pat @ 11:09

Thanks for making my day. That is possibly the funniest thing I've read all week!

[Anonymous]

"a culture that does not value stretchy pants, fanny packs, big hair, mullets, and NASCAR sweatpants"
I don't know, that sounds like a pretty good description of King Jong II so there is a precedent for such tastes in the region.

[Pat Cameltoe]

Brad -

You are too easily offended. Here we have people talking about destroying "chinks", and you want to get on my case about mullets.

[work on saturday]

yeah those "oppressed" workers

cause it's awesome being in management, pulling all nigters on fri, sat and sun....

and anyone that rags on wally world: read sam walton's book "made in america". he expects managers to put in horrendous hours... senior people have a very long 6 or 7am saturday morning meeting, that must be attended... you fly out sunday evening, spend all week in the field, then fly back friday, kiss the sig other, spend all fri at office getting ready, and spend saturday in a 500 person management meeting based on socratic method and more vicious than law school...

wally world wins cause they work harder than anybody, and their managers work harder than their employees...

[jdog]

Yeah, like the world is really just a spider's dream. Quit bogartin' the doobie, dude.

[Anonymous]

God bless Dale Earnhardt Jr. and God bless America.

[joe]

...and they pay people shit, and keep it that way by firing employees who try to organize.

[Mna]

jdavid writes: >>The reason for the Walmart hate is mostly because Walmart markets services and products to a class of customers that the oh-so-intellectual crowd despises.

[ursa]

Has anyone given any thought to how many American jobs walmart is killing? Most of the products on their shelves used to be made here. Plus the packaging, the graphics, etc. Is it any wonder the unemployment rate is so high? And then the politicians point fingers at each other with straight faces.....

Maybe soon all their customers will be illegal aliens.

There are those who make things happen;
Watch things happen;
And then there are those wonder what the hell happened. The whole time the American public has been put gently to sleep by lying scum elected to offices at every level, this country has been raped and sold off. WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!!!!!