The main focus of her shopping is cosmetics. She usually purchases seven or nine varieties. This time, she crossed the name of a very famous brand off her shopping list, because there have been some problems with this brand, which causes it to have lost its original reputation [referring to "Mao Zedong thought," not mentioned in official 18th Congress propaganda]. But she's not willing to admit [those problems] and grins at me: "Am I not getting more and more thrifty?" Fine. Whatever her reason.

Sometimes she also buys me things, though I have no say in what she buys me. She often says to me, "You see, officials always wear this brand, company bosses, too. Singers and sports stars love this brand. I even consulted the views of a few workers! All these different opinions are sufficient to represent you, aren't they? I always solicit opinions in an advanced and reasonable manner." Why can officials, bosses, singers, sport stars, and workers represent me? I don't understand. But I guess as long as she buys things for me, I shouldn't complain too much.

She does ask for my take on things, of course, if only occasionally. She usually takes out her iPhone, aims the camera at me, and asks me in a very journalistic or television host-like tone: "Now that I've bought all these things for you, are you glad? Are you happy?" Seeing my own face show up on her iPhone, hearing her iron-like interrogation, I can't help sweating and nodding: "I lack nothing right now and life is so blissful -- all because of you!"

She usually doesn't pay attention to me when she shops. Well, you do your shopping, and I'll tend to my own business, I think to myself. So I take out my phone to surf the net a bit. But before I can open even one page, she pops up immediately: "You can't just get online like this when I shop! What emails are you checking? If you dare check one more, I'll deactivate your Gmail account!" Yup, she's such a woman: she can forget about you when she shops, but when you are too tired to give her your undivided attention, she creates problems for you from time to time, to remind you of her existence.

This time when she shops, the grandma from the neighborhood is also shopping. Look at how she shops! She is picking over the merchandise and talking over the phone at the same time: "What style do you want, hubby? Oh this is not very good. Listen, I'll explain to you... Oh that's not so good either. I'll analyze it for you... Yeah okay. I'll take your advice this time!" She seems quite fake, but the way she does it is novel. It's interesting. But suddenly my girlfriend walks over and taps me on the shoulder: "What are you looking at? You think they are doing it right in her household? It's such a waste of time and money, and it's not clear they'll do a better job of buying things than I do. Last time, she had such a long discussion with her husband it made her four-year-old child cry!"