Dick and Harry Discuss: CNY Shopping

Dick: Sigh, Chinese New Year is coming and I haven't bought any clothes yet!!

Harry: Hmm.. who asked you so last minute.

Dick: You bought all your stuff already?

Harry: (nods confidently) Yeah. But I don't buy specifically for Chinese New Year, I buy stuff for general purposes too.

Dick: Why you never jio.. wah lau.

Harry: Eh I think our shopping styles are different anyway. You like to charge into a shop and start buying whatever you see. However, my shopping style involves a more methodical approach. I visit all the shops and carefully note the price and suitability of designs before I carefully consider what to buy. Mine is a very measured approach which is not prone to panic decision-making.

Dick: Eh I don't know what you are talking lah..

Harry: We do have something in common, and that is we like to shop when it's crowded. When we are surrounded by so many shoppers, we seem to feed off their enthusiam. The sense of frenzy seems to energize. It's like a collective aura that wills on the shopping spree, a collective irrationality which is strangely so appealing.

Dick: I need a new shirt by tomorrow. Otherwise, my mum will nag at me.

Harry: I've outgrown this 'new clothes for new year' mentality already. I find it rather superficial. I don't like my behaviour dictated by artificially man-defined notions of temporal festivity..

Dick: I think I will ask Tom... (whips out handphone)

Harry: Ah Tom is an interesting one. He likes to shop when there are as little people as possible. Which is so unlike me. I cannot help but feel self-conscious when I step into an empty store and all the employees start staring at me expectantly or even worse still, accusingly..

Dick: Hello? Tom ah?