It’s easy to say that if you aren’t living a normal life here. Grocery receipts are growing faster than they ever have. It’s all small and incremental but enough to nearly double what we spent half a decade ago.

Keep in mind this is a country where new graduate salaries have been unchanging for the past 30 years. Even small rates of inflation is relatively devastating to certain groups.

Why would you suggest that I’m not living a normal life? It’s not like I’m here on an expat package (unfortunately).

The food price increases are noticeable, but even at my 21万 salary when I just got here they wouldn’t have been the end of the world. They’ve increased a lot, but they were also just insanely low before, so even with the increase it still feels reasonable.

I do think it’s heavily dependent on where you go. Some supermarkets are easily 50% more expensive by themselves.