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> There are, just not in big coastal cities. I'm biased, but I generally tell people that big coastal cities are not a proper representation of American cultures vastness. They provide a boxed and abridged experience of a very opinionated nature. Instead, traverse the states and see what each geography has to offer. You'll find those things are still alive in the Midwest and South.

I find this literally to be the exact opposite of the truth. At least in NYC and NJ, these kinds of small stores are everywhere. Because, crucially, we don't have cars to travel to these big box stores and get a months worth of groceries in one go. Within a 5 block radius of me, I have grocery stores that sell Japanese, Greek, Indian, and Hispanic each to cater to the demographic living close.

Driving through the south and midwest, I mostly just saw immensely massive parking lots for Walmart, Dollar Generals, some liquor store, and other common big box markets with an ocean of gleaming SUVs in front of them.

I can walk 5 miles down an avenue and buy groceries from small shops that I don't even know the name of from a dozen different countries.

100% agree in the SF Bay Area as well. Small stores centered around many cultures from around the world.

> Driving to the south and midwest, I mostly just saw immensely massive parking lots for Walmart, Dollar Generals, some liquor store, and other big box markets.

If you're just driving through, as you stated, and never actually stopped or lived in any of these towns then I'm not surprised you have that impression.

What OP was mentioning is this:

> There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.)

What immediately came to my mind was feed stores mixed with a farmers market which there's an abundance of in rural areas. You're not going to find that that in a big city. For reference, I live on the West coast (not in NYC) and we have small grocers, but not specialized little mom and pops or something in-between like a feed store.

> What immediately came to my mind was feed stores mixed with a farmers market which there's an abundance of in rural areas.

What. Where are you getting any of interpretation this from?

The post mentions:

  > small local stores

  > that sell grains and rice and vegetables here

  > small stationery shops

  > or shops of any kind

I can literally walk out my door and in 5 minutes have pictures of all of these on my street.

https://meaningin.com/urdu-to-english/kiraana-in-english

Doing a blind translation, kiraana comes up as.

  > consumer goods sold by a grocer

  > a marketplace where groceries are sold

Where in any of these data points can you infer he means

  > specialized little mom and pops

  > something in-between like a feed store

A stationary store sounds like a mom and pop store. Yes, a kiraana from what I read sounds like a neighborhood grocer but pictures also show them looking a lot more like farmers markets. Feed stores can be like that, but it probably depends on what the area offers.

Stationery store as mentioned by the op here is a shop that sells stationery items. Things like books, pencils, pens, crayons, printer paper, etc. These are typically stores that will not sell you food items. Kirana stores are mostly those that primarily sell food items.

The kirana stores of India are essentially small grocery shops owned by a individual that sells a variety of grocery and daily use items. Mostly they are limited to dry and packaged items. Things like rice, lentils, breakfast cereals, chocolates, sauces, spices, pickles, jams, condiments, cheese, cooking oil, eggs, milk, packaged drinks and other such items. They will almost never sell things like coffee, tea or ready to eat food items unless they are pre-packaged. In most parts of India, the so called kirana stores will not sell vegetables, meat or fish, but they will very likely be stocking up on eggs. They are typically different shops from the kirana shops.

That’s not what the OP means.

The OP means stores that are within walking distance.

That’s why he mentions having to drive to buy groceries.

In India, as in most cities in Asia and Europe (and NYC, NYC satellites), you walk around the corner to buy the vast majority of your daily needs.

> farmers market which there's an abundance of in rural areas. You're not going to find that that in a big city

I lived in Boston for a couple years and went to Haymarket [0] all the time next to the amazing Boston Public Market. There are a bunch of smaller produce stands and specialty shops throughout the city like Deluca's. I am sad to see, however, that Russo's in Watertown has just closed. Elmendorf Baking Supplies in Cambridge looks awesome and I'm sad I left before they opened.

If ya just want a big bag of rice, Super 88 has a great market in addition to all the great food stalls. See also Little India next to Market Basket in Somerville.

You want stationary? Check out Loyal Supply Company in Somerville.

I've been able to locate similar places in every city I've lived in, with the exception of feed stores (although my current city has one, and I just never really looked for one). I'm curious what city you're in, maybe I had it even better in Boston than I already thought. I'm sure the last two years have not been good for discovering new farmers markets in large cities, though.

Check into CSAs too, esp. if you can't find or attend a farmers market. I'm sure that model is branching out from beyond just produce, too. We have a mushroom grower and dairy creamery where I'm at these days.

As someone who escaped suburbia for the city and later countryside, my experience reflects that of the poster you replied to. Big box strip mall chain complexes are found in the burbs.

[0]: http://www.haymarketboston.org/

Yeah, numerous commenters from the North East came to point out how wrong I was about their town. I wasn't talking about visiting the burbs, and neither were they but I agree, there are a lot more big box stores in large suburbs.

What I was really getting at is if they're missing small mom and pop stores, that's most of what the town I grew up in had (specifically in the South, but the Midwest isn't that much different.) I was encouraging them to get out of the city and see the rest of America. Living in big American cities has been a bit soul-sucking for me and not at all reflective of the rest of America, but obviously there's a lot of pride that some people hold for them.

In my (limited) experience, really only New Orleans takes "no big box stores" seriously.

NYC and SF to a lesser extent: big box exist, but there are alternatives.

Can't speak to Chicago or the northern Midwest though.

What they call “powdered”, we’d actually call “granulated” which looks like salt. Powdered here (in the US) is a much finer confectioner’s sugar that is more of a pulverized dust than a granule.

pretty sure it's same everywhere in world, you have it either powdered (flour like), granulated (salt like, but slightly bigger) or in cubes

oh well and then there is China from what I remember, where they sell something like quite big rocks even in regular supermarkets, unseen in Europe

Depends on where in Europe. You can certainly find rock sugar/lump sugar in supermarkets in, say, Germany (where it's called "Kandiszucker"), whereas in the UK you're likely to have more success in small ethnic shops.

yeah, but those are rocks with basically same size as cubes/dices, while in China you can find proper rocks like 10+ cm or bigger

From reading the list it’s clear it’s from living in a low cost suburban low rise 1960s-80s apartment complex — which tend to be the defacto standard for international graduate students - average frame construction, low cost electric appliances, cheap to replace mid pile carpet, the cheap vertical blinds, the cheapest glacier bay dual valve faucet [1] - all very efficient to manage and turn over. They have convenient parking and decent amenities for the price. In the rust belt/northeast these complexes are 90 percent (made up number) international and some domestic students and old people (there isn’t much difference in these places and most “senior living” places outside of what’s on the sign out front)

On the topic of mixer-taps in bathrooms, the UK typically has separate taps due to the way the water is stored, or used to be stored:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA

I was pleased when I remodelled my bathroom there and installed a mixer. So much more convenient.

Depending where you are, curtains have a better thermal performance to blinds. I vastly prefer solid curtains that block light completely to keep rooms cool.

> There’s no kiraana stores (i.e. small local stores) that >>sell grains and rice and vegetables here, it seems. (Or >>small stationery shops, or shops of any kind.) Almost all >>shopping has to be done at a big chain retail store like >>Lidl or Megamart or Target or any of the other big-names.

>>There are, just not in big coastal cities.

As another commenter mentioned here, these types of store are actually very common in NYC.

For the bathroom taps, I think the reason is purely technical. There are two pipes, one for cold water, one for hot water, each pipe gets its tap. It is the simplest setup and with that, you can control both flow and temperature. Systems that have a cold-hot knob are slightly more complex and therefore they are more expensive and less reliable, especially when they are thermostat controlled. And with a single, one axis knob, you can't control both flow and temperature.

I don't know how it works in India, but I know some places where there is no centralized hot water and only a single pipe. When you need hot water, there is a dedicated heater and you control temperature on the heater itself. So I guess that someone who is used to a system like this will find a two tap system unsettling.

Anyways, I think we can all agree that the worst system is the one with two separate taps with no mixing, like they still have in the UK.

Yeah I've been thinking about the two taps thing with shower taps. For my shower tap, you turn it counterclockwise to get water running. Where it goes from slow flow rate and cold, to high flow rate and hot. I thought that it would make sense to have two knobs so that one controls flow rate and the other controls temperature. As it stands, one knob ambiguously controls both the temperature and flow rate of the water.

Two taps - one for cold and one for hot makes sense. Since they each control the flow rate of hot/cold respectively. And from what I understand, this matches with the internals as you have one pipe for cold water and one pipe for hot water. Of course, rich people probably have more complicated setups that allow for even more precision...

In Germany, the thing I'm familiar with is a small lever that you turn left/right to control the temperature and (depending on whether it's mounted horizontally or vertically) either up/down or to/fro to control the flow rate:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einhebelmischer.jpg

Also Indian here. If the OP is used to cubes of sugar, he’s probably quite wealthy in India. Indian middle class consumers usually use granulated sugar as the cubes are more expensive, and middle class Indian consumers are usually quite price sensitive.

I think what the OP was trying to refer to here is the granulated sugar that is more popular in India. Mostly the sugar has crystals that are .5-1mm thick while in the us it is closer to the consistency of powdered table salt.

To be fair the "granulated" sugar grains also look like little cubes if you look closer.

> There are, just not in big coastal cities.

My experience is exactly the opposite.

Sugar here is powdered, it doesn’t come in tiny cubes like I’m used to. It’s very easy to confuse salt and sugar (as I have done) because they look exactly the same.

What? Yes, it does. It's actually the cheapest to buy if you are a bit poor. https://www.walmart.com/ip/C-H-Premium-Pure-Cane-Sugar-Cubes...

No, he's talking about sugar that looks like this - https://www.gomothers.in/store/garg-traders/product/sugar-lo.... It's small enough but clearly distinct from salt

I always thought rental apartments have blinds since preinstalled curtains likely wouldn't match the tenants style. Same reason they almost always have white walls and beige carpet.