I have mentioned that I manage an engineering team that has multiple projects going on at any one time. I have a project going on in China at this moment that involves two engineers. One of the engineers told me last night that he is going to get married in two weeks. As you would expect, he is both excited and nervous. I was able to get to know him well because he spent some time with my group in the US last year. I even took him shopping a couple of times. Those experiences were interesting.
His favorite places to shop were the various malls that ring the Minneapolis area. His favorite mall is called the Albertville Mall. When he would shop, he would use his phone to get shopping advice from his fiance, who was working in Germany at the time. I was amazed at how well those two could shop together, even though they were separated by six time zones. My wife and I are not that efficient standing right next to each other -- of course, I do not behave well while shopping. That is one thing both my wife and mother agree on 🙂
This engineer preferred to shop in the US because the prices and quality of the goods here are better than what he could buy at home in China. The interesting thing about that statement is that most of the goods he was buying were actually made in China. It may seem strange, but he assured me that this was the case.