Last-minute shopping

I've been too busy to do any shopping for the past week, and thus my need to stock up on food had become rather urgent (almost everything shuts down - favourite restaurants and bars, especially - for at least a few days over the imminent Chinese New Year).  

I was dreading having to go to a neighbourhood Chinese supermarket today, on the brink of the crazy fortnight-long holiday.

And, sure enough, the crowds were substantial, the lines at the checkouts dauntingly long.

But it didn't take me too long to get in and get out again, because.... almost all of the Chinese grandpas and grandmas ahead of me had fairly empty shopping baskets.  Really - the four people directly ahead of me were buying: a dozen eggs and a small bag full of some local sesame-covered mini-cakes; four small cartons of what I took to be either yoghurt or soy milk; a small roast chicken; and two packets of peanut cookies.  The queue disappeared in no time at all.  (I had briefly been worried that perhaps some discreet - and, to me, probably unreadable - sign in Chinese had designated this as an 'Express checkout lane - 5 items or less'; but I'd say China is still at least a decade away from attaining that level of consciousness.)

I don't know whether to attribute this strange phenomenon to the apparent lack of foresight I so often bewail in the Chinese, or simply to their impecuniousness.  Or perhaps it's just a product of the emptiness of their lives, their boredom?  Why bother to do a 'big shop' when buying one or two items at a time gives you an excuse to get out of the house every day?  Yes, maybe that's it.  But it does seem odd to me to be going to a supermarket on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.... just to spend 20 kuai.  Very, very odd.  Ah, China.