Chris Gassner | October 20, 2025 |
In Germany, you wait for a parcel. In China, the parcel waits for you. It’s practically already at your door, tapping its foot and sighing, “Finally!”
I order something small. Nothing dramatic. A pair of scissors. A charging cable. Click – and boom, the phone pings: Your parcel has been shipped. Three minutes later: Delivered. I didn’t even have time to change my mind. Back in the day, you could pretend you had self-control for at least five minutes. Now you’re just a spectator to your own impulse buys.
The whole system runs like a caffeine-fueled rocket engine. Scooter drivers zip through the streets, loaded like German moving vans. One holds his phone with his chin, another steers with his knee – both overtaking a bus on the right. And all with the same look of fierce determination, as if they’re on a secret mission for NASA.
When you get home, the show continues. These high-rises – thirty, forty floors, four apartments per floor. Somewhere inside, there’s always a box with your name on it. You step into the elevator, and there he is: the courier. One man, one cart, twenty parcels. He presses every button – 7, 9, 12, 18, 23, 28 – and the elevator sounds like it’s praying.
At every stop he shoots out like lightning, throws parcels into hallways with Olympic precision, and you realize – this isn’t a job, it’s a ballet with cardboard boxes.
I once asked him, “How do you remember where all of this goes?” He just grinned and said, “I don’t remember. I feel.” Then he was gone.
What amazes me most: In the past, you waited for a delivery. Now you come home, see five of them, and think, I should really stop drinking. You don’t even remember what you bought. Anticipation? Deleted. The system moves faster than your memory.
Once, I just wanted to order batteries. One small pack. Two days later, there’s a box the size of a small TV outside my door. Inside: five identical packs. A classic logistics error. Happens. But the real fun starts afterward – because of course, you keep scrolling. Just to “see what else is out there.” And that’s when the algorithm starts flirting. It thinks, “Aha, batteries! This man is into electricity!” And suddenly you’re seeing power banks, LED lamps, solar panels – apparently the algorithm now believes I’m a full-time electrician.
Then, out of nowhere, it suggests a fan for your phone. Tiny, cheap, perfect for summer. So, I order it. Two days later, I’m holding a high-tech miracle. The little propeller charges, cools, blinks, and probably checks your mood while it’s at it. All for the price of a sandwich. You stand there grinning – knowing you’re hooked. Because behind every click, a thousand sellers are waiting, each one ready to make you happy, or at least distract you for five minutes.
Back then, you had catalogs – real pages, a beginning and an end. You could flip through them and actually finish. Now you have Taobao – endless. You don’t browse; you sink. And by the end of the night, you own everything you never looked for but absolutely needed – until the delivery guy rings and you wonder, “Wait… did I really order this?”
And if you’re not home, no problem. They just drop it off – somewhere. Under the stairs, in a flowerpot, on your neighbor’s scooter. China has perfected delivery without the receiver. In Germany, you’d need three forms and a witness for that – plus a neighbor willing to play the middleman. That eternal ringing at the door: “Could you maybe take this package for Müller?” Then it sits in the hallway for three days, and no one knows when Müller is coming back. Here in China? The parcel doesn’t need a babysitter. It has confidence.
The best part is the hallway. You see them piled up – little mountains of cardboard. A miniature Himalaya of online shopping. When you walk past, you know instantly: that neighbor is either on a shopping spree – or on vacation.
And the most amazing thing: nobody steals them. Not one. The parcels lie there for days, untouched. Even the cleaning lady won’t touch them. She mops around them – millimeter-perfect. Never nudged, never bumped. Sometimes it looks like she gently lifts one edge, swipes underneath in a perfect semicircle, then sets it back down with watchmaker precision. Not a millimeter off. If cleanliness is an art form, she’s the Mona Lisa of janitorial work.
In Europe, that pile would vanish before lunch. Here, people trust. The entire nation orders at once – and no one takes what isn’t theirs.
China isn’t just the land of instant delivery. It’s the place where trust itself comes free of charge.
Chris Gassner
October 20, 2025