Merry Christmas week - and a shopping story

Two Christmas parties down, none to go. The countdown to Christmas day has begun. Christmas shopping is done, mostly done by my wife, but with some exceptional help from myself, plus the presents that I got for her, which (if I do say so myself) are outstanding.

It wasn't long after I met Bernie that I discovered that she's one hell of a shopper. The definition of 'good shopper' is NOT 'one who shops long and hard and comes home with a stack of boxes and a long credit card bill'. Bernie is a great shopper because of the following:
1. She doesn't buy something if she doesn't really want it/need it.
2. She HATES paying full price, or even a significant percent of full price.
3. She does the research before she buys.

It's my belief that the Asian culture she grew up in is the cause of these wonderful traits.

A quick anecdote:
When I travelled to Malaysia to get married, Bernie and I decided that we would buy her father a new computer so that she could use the internet to webcam and chat with her parents properly once I got her back to the US. Bernie, her cousin Felicia, and I went to Low Yat Plaza in Kuala Lumpur to have a good, no-name computer built for us. This place is amazing, by the way. Imagine a 6-storey mall with the top 5 floors being competing computer stores (the bottom floor is competing cell phone stores). We spent the morning gathering price lists from the various places, spent lunchtime comparing them, then targeted the best 3 places after lunch to negotiate.

Malaysia is a neat place to shop in the first place. Most stores have somewhat negotiable prices, but they at least start you out with a labelled price tag to go by. Then you ask for a "discount", and they write it down on a pad for you. Then you ask for the "best price", and they write something different on the pad. You can haggle down from there if you are good, but you eventually settle on something around 80% of the price tag. No sales tax either.

Needless to say, being Asian helps. White Americans don't get the best prices, but that's to be expected, and it's fair, since we are already reaping the benefits of a 3.8-to-1 currency advantage, dollar to ringgit.

OK, on with the story. Bernie and Felicia sit down on barstools at the counter of the computer shop, with me standing behind them. This young sales guy comes up and I start out telling him what components we want in this computer. He adds it all up and gives me a price. Now the ladies start in on him, in Cantonese. I don't know any Cantonese, but I must be psychic, since I can tell that the ladies are telling him what a horrible person he is and how he must think we're stupid and how we should report him to the management of the mall for giving us such an oppressive price on this PC that is for Bernie's poor lonely handicapped father (he isn't) whose only wish in life is to communicate with his only daughter. This takes all of 10 seconds, and the ladies grab me and start to leave towards the next store.

The sales guy calls us back (big mistake). He scratches off the price he wrote earlier and lowers it by 15%. (Bad move...shows weakness). The ladies smell blood and start in on him again. The guy blushes (I had no idea Asians could get red in the face), and lowers his price again. I'm just sitting back and enjoying this show - it's hilarious. Bernie and Felicia are playing 'good cop, bad cop' with this kid. I figured that Felicia would be the bad cop, but to my surprise, it's Bernie! My dear, sweet, quiet bride-to-be is giving this poor kid 6 different kinds of hell, while Felicia is batting her eyes at him and buttering him up. Anyway, we eventually get the kid down to his rock-bottom price, and he even tells us to buy the computer case from the place across the hall to save 20 ringgit, since they have one cheaper and better than his, and to bring it to him and they'll put the PC together for us for pickup in an hour. I get the feeling he's doing his best to placate us just to get away from us by this point. Anyway, we agree and I sign the papers, finally. I haven't said a single word since the beginning.

During the hour that we wait for them to assemble the PC, he calls Bernie's cell phone and apologizes, but the DVD drive we wanted, he doesn't have in black...would we accept a gray one? I can just see him cringing while he explains this to Bernie. Bernie says yes, but asks for additional discount on the drive...which she gets. We pick up the PC at the assembly shop on a different floor, and wave to the poor guy on the way out of the mall.

(We ended up getting a nice high-end customized PC with name-brand components for less than $300 US)

Bernie's pulled off some good bargains in the USA since she got here, so I don't even worry about letting her have money. In fact, she can shop with me any time. Coming from a guy, that's high praise.