Just some questions form a n00b...

[PinYin55]

So, I have never been to china before, and I was just curious about the marketplace there.

For example, if you were in a larger Chinese city, say, beijing, how familiar would their drug stores be?

Would they carry some American toothpastes? medicines?

Do their stores carry some American foods?

I'm not asking this because I want to live like an American in China, I am just curious how much trouble I would be in if I was to get sick there.

Also, do they have any sort of FDA equivalent? In america, you can pretty much buy any food, drug, drink, etc and not really worry about anything at all.

How well regulated are their drugs? Food?

Also, just for example, I have bad digestion/heartburn issues. So I have to take pepcid regularly, and I also have to eat activia brand yogurt.

Im sure there are replacements for both of these products if they don't have them there, Im really just wondering the state of things there.

Just curious. Any replies on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[junjun]

you neednt worriy about anything!

[Rincewind]

You can get just about anything anywhere. Toothpastes, medicines, yogurts just like in the USA are available in almost every location. The natural live culture yogurts are very easy to find. They usually have lists of the bacteria on the back of them in English. You can also find 'home made' yogurts in most small shops which will be even better (It's the modern Western preservation processes that remove the cultures, so the home made yogurts that haven't been treated for extended shelf life will be full of all the bacteria.)

[optical]

I'm living in a medium sized city, and have found that there are a number of american products, however -

They will cost 20%-50% more than there domestic counter parts

The packaging will be completely different and potentially very hard to recognize

What's funny to me is that even though the price is 50% higher than domestics, it's still cheaper to buy it here than the original price in America. For example, a bottle of Gatorade here is roughly 3.20-3.80 yuan, whereas the chinese equiavlent drink, "Scream" is around 1.20-1.50 less on average. The only way I was able to recognize the gatorade was the bottle and the color of the label, it only says "Gatorade" on the back in small letters, the front was all in Chinese characters I can't read cause I'm a newbie as well.

[Hotpoter]

Haven't you noticed that everything you could purchase in the States is "Made in China". So yeah, everything you can get in the US, you would find them here in China.

[optical]

While that is true (in respect to manufacturing), you have to realize that China exports the majority of things that it manufactures, so all of those American products we get, I would imagine only very few of them actually ever become available on the retail level in China, and if they are they could very easily be repackaged or even rebranded as something totally different.

[Madot]

Before going to BJ for 3 months last year I too was told not to worry about anything and that I could buy antibiotics over the counter, etc. My experience was different.

Don't worry about toothpaste and that sort of thing. You can buy Colgate, etc. And you say that you don't want to live like and American in China-- almost everything you can't find has a Chinese equivalent which is fine.

Re: medical needs, however, I would suggest that if you NEED it, bring it! When you are ill, you do not want to be chasing all over the city (an hour and a half from BLCU to the touristy areas of BJ where you MIGHT find what you need and someone with enough English to know what you want). I had a particularly bad time trying to get hold of a common antibiotic which I needed because I'm allergic to most of the others and couldn't risk just taking any old one. In the end, a friend went to one of the expensive foreign clinics downtown and got it for me at a cost of $100!!!

When I come back to China-- and I'm sure I will because it was fantastic and I loved it-- I will NOT bring all the little things people told me to take with me but I WILL take a large supply of medicines!

Enjoy yourself!

Mado