Apparently there was a recent American holiday that passed. I recalled that Thanksgiving existed as I was on a 10 hour train to Shanghai from the seaside home of Tsingtao Beer, Qingdao.
Fortunately I was prepared to feast with some bananas and sweet bread rolls, and on top of that, I bought a microwaved rice, veggie, and mystery meat and dumpling dinner from the dining car. I washed it all down with a Yanjing beer.
I thought of what Amy said about shopping after Thanksgiving. Amy was a bubbly Chinese girl who was staying at the same hostel as I was in Qingdao. She heard that people all go shopping on Thanksgiving and thought it sounded like a lot of fun.
As much as I hated to do it, I had to break her the news about Black Friday. Firstly, that it's Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and secondly, that it's a disgusting ritual fuelled by materialism of biblical proportions.
I told her that people were trampled to death waiting for a Wal-Mart to open a few years back. What an undignified way to go, getting stomped on the floor of a Wal-Mart by people looking to save $3.00 on DVDs.
I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and had the good sense to sleep in on Friday and avoid all the purgatory of Black Friday.
Black Friday is not so bad, provided you were already planning on buying whatever you end up buying.
ReplyDeleteI've done it the last few years and it's really kind of a fun thing for Laura and I. Of course, I do my research ahead of time, so we normally just stroll around avoiding the "doorbuster" deals and just get the stuff that was already on our shopping list.