Asians are widely acclaimed to be expert bargain hunters. Desis, in some sense, take it to the next level.
If you work in a downtown office building and wonder why your desi co-workers go out during lunch in spite of getting a lunch box and not being a smoker, the answer perhaps is, he/she is bargain hunting in the nearest Walgreen’s.
“Gosh! How did I ever miss that?”, if that is your reaction, you got more interning to do. The first website a desi opens early in the morning is deals2buy, sometimes BEFORE email. Think of it this way: They are Wii-hunting all the time, not exactly for Wiis, but for bargains.
Talk around the water cooler involves critical analysis of worthiness of today’s deals. A favorite pet project is to use their tech skills to create crawlers that aggregate coupon codes from across a wide spectrum of stores, sometimes reverse telecommuting. Distribution lists are effectively used to disseminate this prized information.
During Thanksgiving, desis literally give thanks to the stores for all the deals. Stores return the thanks for all the purchases they just made for an India trip scheduled in coming September. How uniquely American !!
PS: Five best sites to find deals online.
Very Very true ! especially the thanksgiving part, you’d find more desi colleagues outside CircuitCity during thanksgiving night than you’d see at any potluck (which is another obsession of married desi couples
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And all that effort only to return 50% of the items purchased. Rest of the time just passes in following up mail-in rebates and status enquiries of cancellation/change of order.
I know few relatives of mine who buy them to return them and only to return them. As Blue said above, They find time to follow up MIRs and order changes but never find time to take care of their good selves.
[...] Coexistence and Integration Coexistence and Integration are often used interchangeably. But, are they really synonymous? Coexistence is a state in which two or more groups are living together while respecting their differences and resolving their conflicts nonviolently. Integration is the blending of two cultures beyond the cuisines and celebration of international weeks. I often look at the number of mixed couples in a city as an index of integration. Even in the US, except New York and a few areas in California, mixed couples are a rarity. Brown prefer browns, blacks prefer blacks etc. etc. Are we so keen on preservation of our respective cultures? Like the blending of free sources codes (i do not hate windows ) have helped computers, the blending of different cultures, I feel, should strengthen societies. Just as the Indo-Chinese cuisine (Indian bastardization of Chinese cuisine ) is amongst the most popular cuisines in India and some part of the US, an Indo-Chinese kid would perhaps be the best bargain-hunter Best Buy has ever seen. On the bargain-hunting skills of Indians [...]
yeah i was a part of that.I stood in the queue for the $300 laptop at CCity (Nov 2005). But unfortunately, i was the 33rd person and there were only 30 coupons. All my effort for standing 7 hours in the cold night was wasted. But now when I look back..I just laugh at it and never give a damn to deals or sales. It’s just a part of learning.
[...] hauling in those half-a-dozen big bags, here they are: everything that is remotely gift-able and is on-sale for Thanksgiving, anything from Walmart, Sams Club or Costco that can be fit into a big bag, Sumeet mixies, [...]
In New England, the custom is to make the trip across the state border to Nashua, NH for their Thanksgiving sales. The NH state motto is “live free or die” (really!), so desis pile into their cars to make the hour-or-so-long trip in order to buy everything from cheap booze to big-screen TVs. If you do not have a car, no problem. Just pile on with the next desi who does have one!
Incidentally, I know of people who buy that fancy 42″ plasma TV for the big Superbowl football game, only to return it the next week or so. The only question they have of the salesman is the duration of the store’s return policy!
[...] Since then, millions of desis wanted to re-create those cinematic moments in their own lives again and again. Every spring, scores of desis travel, at times a 100 miles, to the nearest tulip garden and toil in the fields, only until they run out of space on their 4GB camera memory cards. [...]
Thanks for using my photo
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[...] For many desis, Thanksgiving is a series of potluck parties interrupted by bargain hunting. [...]
[...] Speculation is rife that a lack of originality, rather than marketing/PR creativity has more to do with this latest stunt. Scientists actually believe that marketing aside, this non-celebration might very well be the effects of caffeine in the chai that desis love to drink at all times. However, if certain secret sources are to be believed, this is indeed a move of sheer genius,worth its weight in gold. The busy brown bloggers have been unavailable for comments on the matter, but this may be due to a host of reasons including the ongoing tax season, india’s tour of new zealand, the falling India rupee or perhaps even this great recession we find ourselves in. [...]
[...] toward it, but also a sense of pride and an inexplicable sentimental attachment to it. And, if they got it on a deal, then it pretty much becomes a part of their legacy for future generations. This is not just [...]