Stick with the story. I do have a point here.
Today my dad phoned from Calgary to ask me to look up the phone number of the Chinese herb store that's in West Edmonton Mall. It's in the corridor leading up to the T & T Chinese Superstore, so you wouldn't think it would be that difficult, especially since I've been in that very corridor dozens of times (though, to be fair, I've never noticed a herb place).
Here's what I did:
1. I begin by going to the T&T website, misunderstanding dad that it was in the store and not by the store. Nothing. Call Dad. He clarifies. I realize my Chinese is not that great. Oops.
2. Phonetically, the store's name sounds like "Wah Hing", so I plugged that term into Canada411. No such thing in Edmonton.
3. I go to the West Edmonton Mall website and search for "Wah Hing" in the directory. Nothing.
4. I click on the "Mall Map" button and Firefox tries to load up Java. It works but it's slow, and the page tells me to use Safari instead, so I do.
5. In Safari (so we're at three tabbed windows and two browsers now) I check the map, but its "interactivity" does not extend to being able to click on the little rectangles that represent stores and see which stores they are. I guess not many people have to search backwards for a store name based on its location.
6. I picked up a mall directory the last time I was there, so I start scanning its list of stores for potential candidates. I base my search on whether the location number is close to that of T&T (i.e., blue and on the second floor). The closest I come is "Waiting Hut", which I know is a bubble tea place.
7. I phone dad. He suggests some different spellings, which 411 rejects. Thankfully, the store he's looking for is part of a chain which also has a store in Calgary (it's a family business). He looks up the Calgary store in a Chinese phone book and spells out the English name of the business: "Wah Sun".
8. Mentally cursing my stupidity, I realize that I should have checked the alphabetical listings on the WestEd website. I click on "W" and nothing resembling "Wah Sun" or "Wah Hing" is listed.
9. I plug "Wah Sun" into Canada 411. Nothing.
10. SUCCESS! I search for "Chinese Herbs" in Edmonton and come up with this. I give dad the phone number.
11. Curious, I search for "WahSun" in the WestEd online directory. It gives me nothing, though the address in the Canada 411 listing clearly indicates that it's located in the mall. Plus, my father has actually been there, and if he says it's in the mall, then I trust him.
My big question to the people running West Ed is: why isn't this store listed in any of your directories? Even if it was new, the website should still have it. And the directory I was checking is quite recent; it was picked up a few weeks ago when my sister was visiting. You list other stores in that corridor, including a noodle place and the bubble tea place. What gives? What did it take much longer than it should have to find this store online? I know that a Chinese herbal place that sells medicinal herbs might not be a big tourist draw, but it's a legitimate business that needs a place on your directory so that Chinese people can find it. Did you just not know what category to put it in? I can think of two: Health & Beauty Care, or Medical, Dental & Optical.
For the record, the search took 20 minutes. I'm sure it would have been faster if a) I owned a directory of Chinese businesses in Edmonton and b) I read Chinese. But I don't, and the above 11 steps was the result.
