Give a 5-minute talk on what sorts of things do you like to shop for? What do you not enjoy shopping for?

Hello, Good afternoon. I am Lee Puai Ling. I work as a teacher in SJKC Pekan Gurney and at the same time, I am studying part time for my degree in Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris. I am currently in my sixth semester of my distance learning programme. This semester I am taking General English Course and this presentation is part of my assignment upon completing this course.

Well, that is for my introduction and the central issue that I am bringing up in this talk is about shopping.

I bet all of us will spend some of our precious time for shopping. Shopping is unavoidable to almost everyone in this modern era. There are varieties of reason for people to go shopping. Some people will spend time shopping as their leisure activity, some take it as a hobby and most people will shop to get their daily needs or goods.

As for me, most of my shopping is to fulfill the needs of my households. I am the bread winner for my family ever since my father becomes a retiree. So, shopping mainly is to stock up foods supplies, toiletries and other daily needs of my family.

Since I am busy with works and assignment waiting ahead, I will not spent much time on shopping. Usually, I will list down the things that are needed and have them all home from the retail shops during the weekends. However, there is no perfect plan in reality. Anyhow, there are always things that will miss out and I have to buy it from the nearby grocery shop. Sometimes, my schedule is too packed up that squeezing time out to buy simple stuffs seems too hectic.

Undoubtedly, every person has to buy things from time to time and it has become part of my daily activity to supply my family with necessities. There are also occasions where shopping become one of my way for relaxing and escaping from gloomy and mundane life. Whenever I feel blue, disappointed or depressed, I will go shopping. However, I do not consider myself as a shopaholic because there are only a few things that I like to shop.

One of the things that I like to shop for is classical cutlery or classical teapot. They are not antique stuff. It is just that their design or pattern make them look classical. Just like this tiny teapot set that I purchased when I went to Melaka for vacation last year. As for me these sorts of thing give me some sense of belonging.

In this modern era, it is easy to find teapot or cutlery and they come in various attractive patterns and design. However, most of these patterns or designs are significantly showing that they are produced from the modern world. In the other hand, the production of teapot sets or cutlery sets with the classical design were rarely found because nowadays people favors to design their house into a modern look with modern accessories including their cutlery, cooking ware, furniture and others.

In my point of view, we can favor the modern design or housing arrangement but should not abandon these older days culture to become a history or antique. We can incorporate a few of these classical

ware in our house to bring up the cultural atmosphere in our daily. This is what I mean by the ‘sense of belonging’. By having a few of things like this at home will lead us to appreciate and value our culture in a better way.

Hence, I whenever I am too stressed up I will spare some times to wander around the retail shops with this sort of things. I might search and look around the shop without any purpose. I will make comparison among bowls, plates or cutlery sets. By doing so, it will help me to forget about my problem temporarily and sometimes it will also let me look into my problem more thoroughly. However, purchasing them is another issue.

Anyway, there is only one retail shops in my hometown that sells those classical kitchen wares or utensils. There are times where there is no arrival of new stocks and I am somehow bored viewing the same things again and again. So, I will shop for my second favorite item which is book.

When I was young, reading is one of my hobbies. I like to read novels back then. So, throughout the years till now, I already have a large collection of books and my cupboard is now full of books. These books were of various genres such as encyclopedia, story books, narrative story of peoples, a few books about place of interest and most of my collection is novels.

Shopping for novel is also one of my favorite too. Buying a novel is like choosing a good friend. It takes time and effort to fully understand the novels, the messages within the story line, the characters and the plot of the story itself. This is similar to knowing a friend. We need time to know each other and to fully understand our friends. Although book does not talk, we are able to communicate literately. Reading a book is just like a friend telling you his or her story of life. Every book has their story and each story has different background. The journey of the characters in each story is different and each has their way to become prominent in their journey.

Hence, I like to shop for books. I like to spend my free times to choose books or novels in bookstore. I will read through their introduction carefully. Try to browse through a few pages randomly and value the attractiveness of the novel. I do not judge a book or novel based on its covers or physical appearance. When I shop for books, I will not buy a few books at once but choose one book at one time. This is because we cannot befriend to a few people at one time but we got to know them one by one.

During my shopping time for books, I will mainly select a few books of the same genre that I am interested. Then, I will take some times to randomly browse through each book and choose the best one for myself. Some people will prefer to purchase all those books that they are interested and do not like to choose one among things that they are interested. However, I am in the opposition. I like to pick the best book among all the books that I had taken in the first filter.

This will make my shopping for book more meaningful. Precious things are rare but suitable things are even rarer to be found. If shopping for books is just to grab books that come to my mind without a thorough consideration, it will be no different like shopping for my house necessities. Then, shopping for books will no longer become a way for me to reduce my stress.

Classical cutlery, teapots and books are things that I will spend time to shop for. There are also things that I do not like to shop for example is dress and shoe. These two items are the least preferable things that I will spend time to shop for. I do not enjoy going to the clothing shops and spend hours and hours to buy a few pieces of dresses or a nice pair of shoe. There are abundant selection of shops in my place to buy dresses and shoes. All these shops are just a stone throw away from my house unlike the cutlery retail shops and book store. They are quite far from my house actually.

People might think that clothing stores are like a sanctuary for ladies where they can express themselves among fancy dresses and shoes. They can spend a lot of time, money, energy and desire to bring some new fashions or styles into their life. This might be true for large portion of ladies out there but I think there will be a group of ladies that feels the same like I do. I do not prefer to shops for dresses and shoes like the majority of them.

As for me, shopping for dresses and shoes are tiring and time consuming. I admit that I am not someone that has a good sense in art. Nevertheless, I am dumbfounded in fashion and art. I am not up to date about the latest fashion. My main consideration or factor in choosing dresses is comfort. Sometimes, my colleagues will comment that my dress is too dull and the choice of colour is too lame. This is the reason I feel burdened when shopping for dresses. I will try to choose something that is fashionable and suit my personalities. However, it is quite difficult to achieve both goals in the same time. As a result, I might get out of the shop empty handed after spending hours in the fitting room.

Well, other than dress and shoe, I also do not like to shop for electronic appliance like television, refrigerator, washing machine or even the simple machine like hair dryer, lamps and even mobile phone. I think most people dislike shopping for these sorts of things because they are too large. Anyhow, these items are quite long lasting. I mean, you will not buy the same appliance for a year or two after getting one of them.

I also dislike very much to shop for new mobile phone. I am not an IT literate person like my brother and sister. They like to change their mobile phone frequently and use the latest application that is available in the market. I, in the other hand will had a tough time to choose a suitable mobile phone. I do not like to spend too much money on mobile phone but at the same time also worry that the lower price device is having lower qualities. Other than that, the promoter of mobile phone will usually pick the mobile phone that they desire to sell rather than a mobile phone that suit me.

As a conclusion, shopping is almost daily chores in our life. Everyone need to shops to get their daily necessities. Some people will make a quick shopping while others might spent time to shops. Not to miss out those who just wander around the shopping mall without any aim. Doesn’t matter the purpose an individual go for shopping; there are things that they like to shop and things that they dislike to shop. Same goes for me. I like to shop for classical cutlery and books especially novels and dislike to shop for dress, shoes and electronic appliance.

I think that is all that I want to share with you guys. I hope you will like my video. Thanks for watching. Have a nice day!!!!