Lady J on Shop: Buying second-hand

I’ve always had this belief that “One’s man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. The concept of buying second-hand goods sounded a little foreign to me when I was growing up. If the shelf-life of our household equipment comes to an end, we simply buy new ones to replace. And what do we do with the old ones? We sell them to the neighbourhood Karung guni man. Same goes with our newspapers and magazines. We just bundle them up and pass them on to the Karung guni man who gladly takes them in exchange for a couple of cents.

The resident Karung guni man in the 80's

What’s Karung guni? It’s a modern form of rag-and-bone men that visit residences door-to-door. They used to be pretty common in Singapore in the 80’s and early 90s. These days, there are a little of a rarity but I still spot some of them making their rounds in my neighbourhood.

So what do they do? They make their visits in carts collecting old newspapers and other unwanted items. These items are then resold at specialised markets to be recycled and reused.

The term “Karung guni” came from a Malay phrase for gunny sack, which was used in the past to hold newspapers. The karung guni men would haul these heavy sacks on their backs ringing their hand-bells and shouts of this particular phrase - "karung guni, poh zhua gu sa kor, pai leh-lio, dian si ki..." [meaning “Rag and bone, newspapers, old clothes, spoilt radios, televisions, etc” in Singlish and Hokkien] can be heard from a far.

A common site at my neighborhood when growing up

Mom has sold many things to the local karung guni man and she’s often pleased that she made a couple of bucks from the sale. I guess Dad is just happy that the house is not cluttered with too many unwanted items.

So what happens to these second-hand items? If they are in good condition, they are usually being resold at flea markets or even sold on online auctions. Apparently, there are people who trawl these places in search for a good bargain. Well, Mom has always told me to steer clear of these places preferring that I don’t pick up more junk to mess up the home.

I probably tried my hand at bargain-hunting when I visited Melbourne with my friends after graduation. Armed with really little cash then as a student, we ventured into a thrift-shop just wanting to browse but walked out of the store some hours later with huge sacks of ‘treasures’. We found used clothes, jewellery and handbags for as little as 5 AUD. We were thrilled as we combed through the piles of racks happily in search of cheap bargains.

Off to the local Brocante store for some second-hand shopping

I’ve often griped that some of the things in Geneva are a little more pricey compared to what I could get back in Singapore. Some of my expat friends felt the same way too having relocated from the US. But one of them got round to scoring some really cool furniture and household appliances at the local broccante store. I later learned that Switzerland has an active second-hand (gebraucht, occasion) market, particularly in antiques, motor cars, gold and gem stones. There’s also a local second-hand furniture and junk store (Brockenhaus, broccante) in most towns. These items are usually in really good condition because many expats come and leave Geneva in a couple of years, and prefer to leave these items behind instead of bringing them back to their home-country.

So us girls made the trip to the local broccante store one afternoon. I had wanted to browse and possibly get some vintage cutlery and silverware. My friend S wanted to a raclette grill and/or fondue machine. While she didn’t get the item, I went home a happy gal with the desired plates that will be put to good use when we have guests over.

A gorgeous traditional fondue set up for grabs

There you have it, “One’s man trash can really become another man’s treasure”. You never know what you can get while hitting the thrift-shops, so keep your eyes peeled open for treasure may just lie beneath that layer of dust. Just wipe it off, brush it clean and it may just be a brand new item for you.

[Some images taken off the web]

Lady J on Shop: Going cold turkey on retail therapy

If ‘Shopping’ was a subject that I could take in school, I’d probably pass the exams with flying colours. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved shopping. I take joy in buying things; clothes, bags, shoes, cosmetics, etc. Funnily, even going to supermarket to pick up groceries can sometimes be considered a chore to some, but for me, it’s a joy to push the cart down the aisle to pick up the mundane household items.

My favourite type of activity

Just four months ago, we found out that we were going to be relocating to Geneva for about a year. Instead of checking out which apartments to rent, my attention instead turned to checking out where the shopping district was. A quick search on the web revealed familiar brands and I was put at ease for that meant that part of my shopping hobby could continue.

However, I was in for a rude shock when J brought me shopping. The famed shopping belt of Rive was hardly any comparison to Orchard Road (Singapore’s exciting retail and entertainment hub). I was used to manoeuvring shopping malls which housed practically everything my heart’s desire under one roof.

Geneva's shopping belt

But, presented before me was individual shops lined up neatly on the streets with two to three department stores (with a maximum of four floors) for me to explore. Shops were scattered rather haphazardly and if I wanted to get a specific brand of shoes, I would need to take a good ten-minute walk to get to the desired shop.

Well, since I couldn’t find joy in the physical act of shopping, I resorted to Internet-shopping to fulfil my retail-therapy fix. I’ve done that in Singapore, trawling on US/ UK shopping sites to purchase stuff. Yes, granted that it wasn’t going to be instant gratification since it would take about one to two weeks before the goods arrived, but it was the next best thing that I had.

I knew that in Singapore, if the goods purchased via the internet exceeded S$400, it would be subjected to a 7% Goods and Services Tax made payable to the government. As such, I’ve always tried to keep my online purchases capped at S$400 so as not to incur additional charges. However, in Switzerland, regardless of whatever goods purchased on the Internet. It will have to be subjected to a 8% Value-Added Tax made payable to the Swiss Government. Yikes! I sank into mild retail depression and surfing the internet surfing/shopping lost its gleaming appeal to me. Not to mention, it also became a quite an expensive affair to acquire the desired goods.

Queuing to get inside the Prada outlet at the Serravalle Designer Outlet in Italy

So what can this self-professed shopaholic do to get her dosage of retail therapy happiness? Seek greener pastures of course! Geneva is a spring-board to many cities in Europe. Short weekend trips to neighbouring cities of France, Italy and Spain not only allowed us to immerse in the individual city’s culture but also produced higher returns on shopping.

My favourite French word!

Shopping in the form of bargain hunting was taken to another level as I diligently checked out the Europe Summer Sales, resisting the urge to purchase until the desired item was at least 50% off the retail price. We also made a couple of side trips to the factory outlets where greater savings of up to 60% can be enjoyed on previous seasons’ collections. Well, I couldn’t really care if I was decked out in past season’s collections as long as it’s affordable, wearable and most importantly stylish enough to bring me through fashion’s fickle trends.

By the time we had packed our bags and returned back to Singapore for a short vacation in August, we felt that we had all shopped out and I decided to put retail therapy on hold for a while. Well, that was until the Great Singapore Sales plus the recent Club 21 Bazaar Sale came along and busted this recovering shopaholic’s plan.

The sale that busted this "Shopaholic's" recovery plan

[Image of Geneva's shopping belt taken from the Internet]

Tianni on Shopping: The Family Tradition

Photos of the children at the Blue Sky Healing Home, and some of the youngest residents asleep in their cots

I was baptised as a Roman Catholic when I was about five. Then, whether and how to celebrate Christmas was a foregone conclusion.

After dinner on the evening of Christmas Eve, my family of four would dress in our best and troop out the door for midnight mass at our neighbourhood church. Standing in a sea of lighted candles under the night sky as the familiar strains of carols emanate from within the packed sanctuary, I would gawk at the teenage girls from church in their black sequinned dresses and twirled hair being chatted up by smitten boys and think how much I wanted to look like them when I grew up and how magical a night Christmas was.

Then at 17, I converted to Christianity. As part of an enthusiastically evangelical church, celebrating Christmas was again a no-brainer. But, in place of my as yet unfulfilled childhood dream of dressing up to the nines for candlelit masses at the stroke of midnight, Christmas became an passionately religious affair during which I’d drag unsuspecting non-believer friends to house ‘parties’ where I’ll movingly regale them with the story behind Christmas and beseech them to convert.

But somewhere between 23 to 28, my convictions became closer to what’s known as an agnostic atheist. And for the first time I started having to think about what meaning, if any, the festival really held for me stripped of its religious roots. Being an ethnic Chinese who has grown up in Asia, in a family that has always been fiercely nuclear, the tradition of Santa Claus or Turkeys or boisterous dinners with extended family was completely lost on me. Sure, there had been the annual shopping trips my parents had brought my brother and I to in order for us to pick out our own Christmas presents (no, Santa doesn’t climb down the chimney in our household). And I remember the Christmas Day brunches with balloons and streamers and clumsy dancing by some hotel’s too thin Santa Claus(es). And of course, possibly the most wonderful of all, the cartoon marathons (Smurfs!) running on TV all throughout Christmas day. But to a young rebellious adult eager to etch out her independence, including in the area of festivals, the tradition my parents had tried to create for our small family failed to pass muster as a cool Christmas custom I could adopt as my own.

So for a while in my early twenties, Christmas became nothing more than yet another excuse to spend more money in the malls and eat out at fancy restaurants. I’d have romantic dinners with my beau on Christmas Eve, and with the knowledge that I’m entitled to a full day of pampering on the special day, ask for a bag or/and pair of shoes I’ve been coveting as my Christmas gift. On the rare occasion, we’ll spend the night with friends on the town and drink ourselves silly. Then I grew older. Perhaps it was biological changes, or perhaps it was a growing sense of mortality, but increasingly I felt the need to spend Christmas together with my parents. For a few years before I left Singapore, I tried to clobber together a family tradition from the scrapheap of yesteryear, buying presents for my parents and insisting that we, sometimes including my already married brother, eat together as a family on Christmas Eve. But of course, I left Singapore, and that practice fell apart before it was even given the chance to take root.

Somehow, this year, three years after I became a mother, the thought of creating our very own Christmas tradition for our little family crossed my mind. My daughter was old enough to notice that Christmas trees were springing up in every mall and restaurant we went to, and even her Chinese preschool had gotten in on the festivities, decorating with tinsels and baubles and holding its own Christmas party a week before Christmas. Just as my parents had given me warm memories of Christmas in childhood to look back on, I was aware that we were responsible for the memories she’d have when she grew up.

We’ll have a home cooked dinner on Christmas Eve’s I thought, but what do we do on Christmas Day? I toyed with the idea of bringing her to a Christmas brunch at one of the many big hotels in the city having a Christmas special something or other. I still had fond memories of the ones I went to when I was young, and most of them also came with roving Santa Clauses, ‘live’ Christmas carolling and kiddy festive partying of some kind that would save me the work of trying to create some ‘festive air’ in our home.

But apparently in the spirit of things, the Christmas feasting all came with price tags so large, any nostalgic goodwill I was feeling over the season was quickly drained. I also wasn’t sure that the tradition I wanted for my child at Christmas was one that would further fuel the freewheeling consumer bandwagon that every retailer was so eager to cash in on this time of the year. Yes, telling myself that I had an excuse to spend without guilt at least one day every year could potentially feel oh-so-good. But another part of me really didn't want to be a sucker and buy into the clear exploitation by businesses that had absolutely nothing to do with whatever Christmas could stand for, religiously or not.

And then it struck me that our family Christmas tradition from this year on could be to consciously go against this tide of festive consumption. Instead, we would spend the occasion doing something for others. And as it happens, there are no shortage of such opportunities in China, where everywhere we turn, there will be glaring examples of lack and the unequally dispensed hand of providence. We called up an orphanage for children with medical needs that I’d read about and asked them what we could bring for them on Christmas Day. They were delighted.


A staff at the home unpacking some of the food and clothing items we brought, thanks to donations from friends

It is my hope that this will be the start of a family tradition my daughter will herself have fond memories of many years later.


Kaela on her first of hopefully many 'Christmas giving' visits (due to privacy concerns, we couldn't take pixs of the children)