Paul's is convenient, no doubt.
Offering a good selection and many times the first to have an item available comes at a price but it's still afordable.
He's been inovative, he works hard, and he lives a modest life.

@Peter, it's a good convenient shop to buy a few imported foods things that are hard to find elsewhere, but it's not Rick's Cafe and Paul's not Bogart and Peter Lorre doesn't show up to do illegal things just to get busted by Vichy cops and there's no mixian madness and I don't get the Bob Dylan...man, whatta you you been smokin? don't stretch the comparison & confuse the newbies!

If this Paul guy could bring in the blue cheese, real butter, capres and pepperoni, the gloomy torture days when mixian surrounded Yunnan, and fried rice with canned "ham" was for breakfast, he is like a yunnan hero. His freedom loving spirit, and legacy of freedom herein needs to be supported. The day there is a war, logistics cut, and foreigners surrounded in yunnan, Paul is the guy who has the knowledge to smuggle in the beer lao, blue cheese, french butter, even using old caravan routes across the himalayas. Those Metro and Carrefour plastic sucker managers have left with their suits on by then. Keep that man going.

Hey, ok, you like it, fine. I don't remember any torture days involving mixian or anything else in over 10 years here, I'll probably have mixian for dinner tonight and I don't get the freedom loving...but hey! roll another one a them twisty little things...

@Tonyaod. You don't have to hold back on the snarky remarks. bucko sure doesn't.

Paying the rent on wenhua xiang must suck. They charge about as much as Metro for cheese and meats, and as DanTM pointed out, it's a lot lot lot more convenient than Metro.

Paul's is there for the same reason that Chinese supermarkets exist in cities back home. It doesn't take a genius to realize that he can't be as cheap as your corner store back home, Taobao, or even Carrefour. The last time I went there I saw things I had forgotten even existed. Call them impulse buys if you like, but you can't browse Taobao like that.

Anyone who says that they don't miss foods from back home is either weird, delusional, or lying. I for one am willing to pay a little extra to get these things.

@bucko, so you are considering lowering the prices on those Berkey water filters then?

@tiger: Miss, yeah, sometimes, but it's a problem if it gets to the point of desperation. Adaptability is not bad in itself.

point of desperation.. aw now your just being silly