Flashing the Cash in Macau

Beautiful blue skies this afternoon with a view of Galaxy Macau

Usually when I'm in Macau for work, I'm rushing to where I want to get to, and then rushing back to the ferry terminal to get back to Hong Kong as soon as possible.

This time I had an hour to kill before dinner and wandered around Galaxy's shopping mall area. It's very glitzy, much like Elements in West Kowloon, with practically every top luxury brand you can think of having a store there.

Everywhere you look there are luxury brands in the mall

However, unlike Harbour City and IFC mall in Hong Kong, they are not crawling with lots of mainland shoppers. Some stores were completely empty and desperate for anyone to at least walk in, others might have one or two people.

There are two types of mainland consumers these days -- the sophisticated ones who already have the brand name bags and designer clothes who act nonchalant, while the country bumpkins like to flash the cash, but don't have much style.

The latter ones I saw at Burberry, a group of women ranging from 20s to 50s who sat around couches in one room of the store and chatted loudly as they waited for a saleswoman to bring a bag out from the supply room.

One even took her foot that was wearing a dirty nylon sock out of her shoe and rested it on the coffee table. Classy. They spoke in a dialect I couldn't understand but it sounded like they were shouting at each other, but probably having an inane conversation.

Burberry is one of the stores that had some customers

Meanwhile the sales staff wore earpieces and would constantly report on customers' whereabouts -- "the young woman with the black bag is coming up stairs" or "they are still sitting there" in Cantonese.

The gaggle of women got so frustrating for one salesgirl to deal with that she vented her stress by stomping on the store's internal staircase as she walked up the stairs.

Burberry items may be cheaper than Louis Vuitton, but still considered luxury at over HK$10,000 for a handbag.

There's no choice but to try your best to please the rich -- no matter who they are -- because they're the ones paying your salary.