Chapter 22 Section 19

At ten o'clock on Sunday morning, someone rang Chen Ai's doorbell.She opened the door and saw that it was Professor Teng standing by the door, wearing a suit and leather shoes. She couldn't help but took a few steps back, and suddenly understood why there was a saying of "heroic spirit". She has been playing with boys since she was a child, and she is generally not very aware of gender differences. She doesn't particularly regard herself as a girl, nor does she particularly regard the other party as a boy. It's just Chen's relationship with XX. But Professor Teng made her strongly aware of the gender difference between her and him, and forced her to think of ancient sayings such as "men and women can't get along with each other", "melon fields and plums go down", as if he is a whirlpool, if you get too close to him, you will be sucked into it. of.But she couldn't take her eyes away from him, just like when she saw a foreigner in China a long time ago, she knew it was impolite to stare at him, but she still couldn't help staring at him.It's just that there were too few foreigners in City A at that time, and it was rare to see one, so those who saw it had to seize the opportunity to take a quick look.

Professor Teng seemed to be used to being stared at, not embarrassed at all, looked himself up and down, and asked, "How is it? Is this outfit okay?" "Okay, okay, oh, not only okay, it's - very good, very good. Why is it - dressed so formally today?" "Because I'm going to church, let's go." "I'll go as well?" "You haven't been to church yet, have you? Go to open your eyes today—" "Then what do I—have to wear?" "You look pretty good. Let's go, my parents and son are waiting in the car." Chen Ai followed Professor Teng to the outside, and saw the silver car parked in front of her door. There was a silver-haired old couple and two ten-year-old boys sitting in the back seat.When she got into the car, she also pushed back, but everyone asked her to sit in the front row, saying that the front row seat was specially reserved for her.She was very embarrassed, because the seat in the front row was next to Professor Teng, which was very similar to the place where the mistress of the house sat.She asked some old man to sit in the front, but the two old men said they had already sat down, and it was troublesome to exchange, so Chen Ai had no choice but to be respectful rather than obedient, and sat in the front row.

Professor Teng introduced each other to his family and Chen Ai, and Mama Teng started talking with Chen Ai. It turned out that Mama Teng used to be the principal of a key middle school in E City in China, and she was very talkative. in Q&A. There are Chinese songs in the car, all of which are old songs from the past. Professor Teng and Papa Teng hum a few lines from time to time. good. When they got outside the church, several people got out of the car and walked towards the gate of the church together. Along the way, they ran into people who knew Professor Teng's family from time to time. When those people nodded and greeted each other, they all kept their eyes on Chen Ai, which made her very uncomfortable.

At the door of the church, I met a middle-aged man who seemed to be an old acquaintance with Professor Teng's family, smiling and nodding from afar.Walking to the front, Professor Teng introduced that this is the pastor Xu (Pastor Xu) of the church, and said to Pastor Xu: "This is Dr. Chen, who just came from China and is a visiting scholar at C University." Pastor Xu was very enthusiastic and immediately invited Chen Ai to participate in church activities.Chen Ai is a person who is very afraid of restraint, especially afraid of serious occasions. She wanted to refuse flatly, but she was afraid of refuting Professor Teng's face, so she declined politely and said: "I-I don't have a car, and I come here every week-I'm afraid inconvenient--"

Pastor Xu couldn't be bothered by this: "Where do you live? I can ask church members to come to your house to pick you up." "I—just came here, and I want to use my weekends—to learn English—" "You want to learn English? That would be great! Our church has free English classes—" "I—the boss works overtime every night—and on the weekends, so I—think I should—go to school too—" In the end, Professor Teng interjected and said, "Pastor Xu, Dr. Chen has just arrived and is not familiar with him yet. Let her think about it before making a decision."

Pastor Xu did not look unhappy when he hit a soft nail. He still enthusiastically handed Chen Ai a business card and said considerately, "Dr. Chen, you just came here. If you need any help, please call me. Whenever you want to visit our church, please give me a call, and I will send a car to pick you up—" Chen Ai did not expect that pastors also use business cards, and there are e-mail addresses on the business cards.In her mind, pastors are all old and Dongdong characters, wearing black robes, with gloomy faces, not getting married, not eating other-worldly fireworks, and not engaging in modern things like business cards and emails. This Pastor Xu opened her eyes. It seems that pastors in the United States are no different from ordinary people.

After Pastor Xu left, Professor Teng asked Chen Ai with a smile, "You don't like to participate in church activities, either?" Seeing that Professor Teng used the word "also", she guessed that she was not the first person who did not like to participate in church activities, so she said frankly: "I am most afraid of restraint. I have not even dared to join the party these years. I don’t dare to be, I’m just afraid of living in an organization, holding cadre meetings and so on—” "Then we don't need to stay here today, I'll take you to shopping."

"Is this okay? Can we not participate in—the church's activities today?" "Church activities are not organizational life. If you don't want to participate, why force it?" "Then why did you bring me here?" "I'm afraid you like these?" Professor Teng blinked his left eye, and said triumphantly, "I guessed that you don't like church activities, and I have planned to take you shopping for a long time. It turned out as I expected! You brought No bathing suit? If not, we can go buy a bathing suit—” "Then if you don't participate in church activities, will Pastor Xu be unhappy?"

"I never participated, I just sent my parents and children to the church, and I will pick them up later. Today I dressed so formally because I was afraid that you would participate, and I was going to risk my life to accompany the gentleman—" So it is!Chen Ai said happily: "That's good, let's go shopping." Professor Teng explained to his parents, gave instructions to the two children, and then drove Chen Ai to go shopping. They first went to a store called Ross, Professor Teng said: "This store specializes in collecting leftover goods from boutique stores and large shopping malls to sell. It was disposed of, so the price here is much cheaper than boutique stores, and many people love to come here to shop for treasures—”

After entering Ross, Professor Teng helped Chen Ai push a shopping cart over, handed it to her, and said, "Look slowly, pick slowly, pick seven or eight items, and go to the fitting room over there to try them on." Try. I won't follow you around, lest you be embarrassed--" "where are you going?" "There's a bookstore next door, I'll go there. Call me when you're well. Remember to buy a swimsuit—" After Professor Teng left, Chen Ai pushed the shopping cart and slowly looked at the clothes, shoes and socks.All the clothes were hung on hangers on long metal rods, next to each other, arranged by clothes number.Chen Ai saw that many women were looking at each piece of clothing, and some even opened the price tags inside the clothes, and when they saw the ones they liked, they put them in their shopping carts.

Chen Ai also followed the example of those women, and began to pick and choose those clothes. When she found something that caught the eye, she looked at the price on it.There was a long skirt that was very suitable for her, but after looking at the price, it cost more than one hundred, and she felt that it was not worth it.She was busy shopping when she heard her cell phone ringing. She took out the cell phone and saw that it was Professor Teng calling. She asked, "Have you finished reading the book?" "I haven't started yet. I remembered something, so I called you. Some of Ross's clothes have two price tags, one original price and one current price. The original price is the price of the boutique, which is usually very high. Yes, the other one that says Ross is the current price tag. There is only one price tag, but there are two prices on it. The price that says Ross is the price you have to pay. Don’t be fooled by that The boutique prices are freaking out—” She thanked Professor Teng, hung up the phone, and went back to look at the dress she gave up just now. There were really two price tags. What she saw just now should be the original price of the boutique, because there was no Ross on it.She looked around and found another price tag at the waist of the skirt, it was Ross's, it was only $10.00.She couldn't believe it. She checked it several times and was sure that the decimal point was correct. It was indeed ten dollars. She was very happy. Isn't this less than ten percent of the original price?She immediately put the dress on the shopping cart, and felt that she had saved more than a hundred dollars, and the green paper bills flowed into her pocket. Knowing this secret, the number of dresses she likes suddenly increased, and almost all of them were worth buying. Some hundreds of dollars were reduced to tens of dollars, and some tens of dollars were reduced to a few dollars. She felt that she bought more , the more she earns, if she buys all of Ross, then she will make a fortune and become a millionaire.So she put them on the car one by one, and quickly put a lot of them. When she came to the fitting room, she found that she could only take eight items to try on at a time, and the suits counted as two. She left the shopping cart outside and brought eight items in to try on.The fitting rooms are all single rooms, one for each person. There are two large mirrors, and you can see the front, side and back. She happily tried on one by one. While trying, Professor Teng called again: "Did you pick up a big load of clothes?" "how do you know?" "Hehe, you can guess it, seeing the price reduction so much, I feel like I'm making a fortune by buying one—" She was distracted by him, and she said embarrassedly: "Am I stupid? Maybe the merchant deliberately put up two signs on it, saying how much it has been reduced, but in fact it has not been reduced at all. It is just to fool a fool like me—" "You are very smart." "Then I won't buy—" "That's really stupid. No matter what tactics the merchants use, you should know the value of each piece of clothing. As long as the value of the clothes matches the price, you should buy them." She was about to ask, "Then how do I know the value of the clothes?" Professor Teng explained: "The 'value' I mentioned does not refer to the cost of the clothes, but the value of the clothes in your mind, the value of the clothes to you. .If you like it, the value is high; if you don't like it, the value is low--" Seeing that he guessed her mind again, she couldn't help asking: "How do you know so much?" "I study markets and economics—" "Anyone who studies economics understands—women's clothing?" "I don't understand women's clothing, but I understand women's purchasing psychology—. But your purchasing psychology is different from that of many women, so I am very interested in studying—" "Why is it different?" "Hehe, you can't say it, you will deliberately change yourself if you say it, and it will affect my research—" After making the phone call, Chen Ai went on to try on the clothes, thinking, what kind of buying psychology do I have?Why did Professor Teng say that my purchasing psychology is different from that of many women?Did Professor Teng happen to be conducting a research in this area, so he used me as a test subject?She felt that there was nothing wrong with being Professor Teng's experimental subject. She could get his attention and learn a lot. She remembered what Xiao Du said, that Americans don't like to wear a piece of clothing for several days. They change their underwear and coat every day, and they don't like to wash their clothes every day.Seeing that the clothes here are cheap, she decides to buy a few more, and like the Americans, she changes them every day. She remembered that she hadn't visited a fashion store so chicly for many years. Either she was dragging her child, or she was urged to run away like a thief by Zhao Liang, and those shopkeepers were also staring at you. I didn’t buy it, and I didn’t look good on you, and some were even more damaged. You just took a piece of clothing to look at it in your hand, and the shopkeeper told you coldly, “You can’t wear that piece of clothing——”, Made you run away in embarrassment. It's better in the United States. In the whole store, there are only a few staff members at the checkout counter, and there is a staff member in front of the fitting room. No one cares about you as long as you choose and try for as long as you want. Before she finished trying, Professor Teng called and said he was coming over now.She hurriedly tried on the remaining few pieces, and ran out of the fitting room. There was already a large pile on the car. When she was thinking about which ones she should reluctantly part with, Professor Teng came and saw her carrying two Looking at the clothes left and right, it seemed that I couldn't bear to part with them, so I suggested: "Both of these are good, so buy them if you like them." She hesitated: "But——the styles of these two pieces are the same, but the colors are different—" "Different colors are different. Why don't you buy one and I'll buy one?" "You bought it for your wife?" "No, she doesn't like the clothes I bought. I'll buy them for you, so you don't have to part with the two—" "Don't, don't, I bought them all—" When checking out (paying the fee), Professor Teng spoke a few words in English to the cashier, and the cashier put the clothes together with the hanger into a large plastic bag.Professor Teng explained: "I told her not to take down the hanger, so that you don't have to buy a hanger, just take it back and hang it in the closet (hanging room)—" The cashier smiled and said a few words in English to Chen Ai, but she didn't understand, only the word husband. She guessed that the cashier was praising her husband for being considerate, so she blushed and wanted to explain, but she was afraid My English is not good, I heard it wrong, or said it wrong.Professor Teng didn't explain it to her, as if she didn't hear it. Coming out of Ross, Professor Teng said, "Let's find a place to have lunch. I'll treat you to whatever you want." "Where are Uncle Ten and the others?" "They have lunch at church, do you want to go to church? We can go to church if we want to—" "Is the church still in charge?" "It's done by the church members in turn. Every week it's a few people's turn. The church pays and the church members contribute, so there is a free lunch every Sunday. Hehe, have you heard that there is a saying in English, 'There is no free lunch in the world', but our Chinese church has a free lunch—” "Are you—going there for lunch?" "I usually don't go, but if you want to open your eyes, I'd like to accompany you—" Chen Ai hesitated again and again, but decided not to go to the church for lunch. She was afraid that people would be soft-spoken. When Pastor Xu came to invite her to participate in church activities, she would be too embarrassed to refuse.