Yesterday after church, we had some entertaining to do! Three of Gerber employees from China had flown in earlier in the morning, and it was John and my responsibility to entertain them for the afternoon. So, we picked them up at their hotel and took them to Gustav's for lunch (don't you just LOVE their fondue?!). After lunch, we took them to Washington Square for an American experience in mall shopping. It was so interesting to see the cultural difference. After our three years in China, I was able to see it from both sides. In China, you have very loud music playing at all times in all shopping venues. In America, if there is any music, it's very quiet, usually instrumental only, music. In China, everything is brightly lit. Here, atmosphere lighting is the norm. In China, everyone is bunched together and it not unusual to see women holding hands (my head whipped around frequently at first!). Here, we give everyone their personal space.
What did they want to see? First, they wanted to go to Nordstrom's to buy make-up! One of the women was buying a certain brand for a friend of hers back in China...a brand I had never heard of - but Nordstrom's had it - at $253 a jar! She didn't blink an eye and charged it! I about fell over...
Then they wanted to go to Victoria's Secret to buy underwear!! I was shocked I tell you - shocked!! Shocked that they had even heard of Victoria's Secret and shocked that they would be interested in it as Chinese women are very, very modest and NEVER show much skin! They ended up not buying anything, but only because they didn't come in a small enough size - I wanted to smack them!
Then I took them into Pottery Barn - one of my personal favorites. They had everything set up for Thanksgiving and Christmas and it looked so beautiful. I was able to show them what a typical Thanksgiving table setting looked like and then what a typical Christmas table setting looked like. Do you know what their favorite thing was? Their favorite thing to do was to turn everything over to see the words - "Made it China"!!
Torn between two worlds - Sandra
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2 comments:
that is hilarious! and $263!!! wow! i think i might have smacked her for that! j/k!
On a side note...
When Jeff was little he made some type of pottery for his mom for Mother's Day - a bowl or something. On the bottom he etched in his name, the year and ... "made in china"! I don't think he really knew the meaning, he just knew he saw that on a lot of things.
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