[Oe List ...] Fwd: Black Friday

[Edwin Waters]

Jaime, et. al.,

I never hear the term "Black Friday" without remembering the term originally naming a massacre in Ireland some years ago. I can't help but wish that were its current meaning in the oh-so-forgetful, marketing mystified collective consciousness. 

Thanks,  --edwin



From: "wangzhimu2031 at aol.com" <wangzhimu2031 at aol.com>
>To: oe at lists.wedgeblade.net 
>Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2013 1:04 AM
>Subject: Fwd: Black Friday
> 
>
>
>A bonus to the Saipan Tribune normal biweekly column.
>
Black Friday
>
> 
>I came to Shenyang Aerospace University in 2011 after I lectured
on developmental economics to Chinese and third world students, eliciting an
invitation to teach.  Most of the
foreigners were from Africa where I went in the early 80s until I picked up
malaria in Ijede by Lagos lagoon in Nigeria, cutting short a scheduled training
event that was to proceed to Zambia, and then a prolonged stopover at a network
of development projects in Kenya.  
> 
>Halfway into the semester, the university wanted me to teach
more econometrics.  Having perused all
the algebraic equations students did not need to learn but are forced to study
and memorize because academics and the expensive textbooks say so, while the practicing
economists do not even bother, I wanted to quit the gig.  
> 
>However, the school needed students to learn how to speak
English.   Most had sat through an average of 10 years of
English training but were unable to speak. 
Having dug deeply in the pedagogy of language learning at the rural
village and urban ghetto level, I took on the challenge confident that I might
know a thing or two on methods.
> 
>Now, I have Chinese students in the economics department
majoring in finance as well as marketing, with some in tourism, which requires
them to learn how to draft ad copies for print and broadcast.  I do not teach any formal economic subjects,
but I do use as a context the current situation of a new China that has turned
to domestic consumption to fuel and balance its robust export-oriented economy.  
> 
>Just for the sake of talking, I run an exercise with my class
on what they would save if they found the price of an item of interest at the
local department store lower by 50 percent than previous offering; say, a
previous bag at ¥100, now selling for ¥50. 
Students then come up with reasons and the students usually repeat
phrases picked up from textbooks like "supply and demand",
"opportunity cost", "comparative advantage", and
"incentives".  
> 
>The point is to get the students talking in English, and the
show-offs generally do.  I then push them
into the "practical and realistic" realm, and they temper their ideas
a bit, but seldom does anyone raise the fundamental question of whether a
"savings" in fact occurs.
> 
>Close to the tail end of the class, I then make my
pontifical pronouncements.  If in the
supply-and-demand scale, a consumer needs the item but deferred previously from
purchase due to other priorities, or had wanted the item but thought it to be
too expensive, or has the money and thinks the bargain is a good deal, the consumer
still pays 50 RMB that s/he would not normally spend.  So, in the transaction, there is no such
thing as a "savings".  The
consumer spends, s/he pays for an item! 
> 
>That's when we segue into the word of advertising and
marketing where the object is make someone feel they either suck if they do not
purchase an item, or if they do, made to feel inadequate when they purchase the
bargain item rather than the "real" thing.  In either case, advertising makes you feel
unfulfilled until you "shop till you drop!"
> 
>We recently witnessed where this ethos leads to; it is
lamentable.  In Honolulu, rental of
storage places is a growth industry.  Not
only do folks haul their full garbage disposal bins once a week to the curb,
they also rent places to store items they seldom or no longer use but are habitually
accustomed to hoard.  In many suburban
neighborhoods, the garage is turned into an extra room, usually a storage
place, which is no big deal in tropical Hawai'i where the car can stay parked
outside all year (unless the home owners' association says it is a "no-no")
but in temperate zone, that congests city streets badly.
> 
>Consumerism being a stated policy in China since 2008, and
getting double downbeat in 2012, the admonition to be perpetual shoppers has
gone off the charts.  That's how
"black Friday" got into our students' vocabulary.  It is a term coined not too long ago by U.S.
merchants and it symbolizes the influence of American promotions and marketing
practices in China's economy.
> 
>Black first
referred to the pandemonium in traffic that happened the first day of Christmas
shopping on the Friday after Thursday's Thanksgiving Day, once a solemn
religious tradition.  It has since
slipped from the Parson's guidance to the directors of many Chambers of
Commerce.  In some shops, it is the
beginning of their annual raison d'etre where merchandizing is profitable until shortly after New Year's day.
> 
>Bleak "black" became the desired "black"
in accounting where an investment finally makes profit.  Black Friday sales' events in some department
stores do not even wait for the sunrise. 
They stay open while the turkey is being deboned, and a mad rush occurs
shortly thereafter.
> 
>Since we in the United States have exported the lifestyle of
perpetual debt and easy credit access to be emulated by the rest of the world,
allowing financial institutions and stock market gyrations to determine the
dance steps of our lives, Black Friday is globally making the rounds 24-hours
this day.  Fellow Americans dance to the
music with gusto.
> 
>I am staying home.
>
>
>Jaime Vergara
>pinoypanda2031 at aol.com
>
>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate! 
>
>
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