These 26 images were collected from both sides of the street in one block of Fujian Road in downtown Shanghai.  Each one came from a different shop.  They illustrate how the majority of shops in China are organized around a group of products based on function.  A shop usually has a showcase or two in the entry way containing a representative sample of their products.  All cities and towns in China look like this.  Shanghai is the largest city in China and you see this type of commerce everywhere you drive there–mile after mile, wherever people live you’ll find these types of shops.  If the way the Chinese shop is any indication of their general approach or mental state, you could say they tend to organize where they go and what they do when they get there by function.  To contrast, Americans generally go to one place to find many types of things for various functions.

B_Imperial

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