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Hi deare
Welcome back to this episode of english
Iced americano
I'm your host
George
Today i want to talk about a very specific american experience thrift shopping
Specifically i want to talk about a store called good well
Now if you leave in the us
You see these blue signs everywhere
But honestly i discovered this place
Quite late for the longest time
I just ignored it
I only walked inside
Because i needed to get rid of some of my own stuff
I was moving
I had too many clothes a friend told me
George just donated to good well the'll take you stuff sell it
And give your receipt for tax purposes
I thought great
I save money on taxes
And i clean my house
So i walked in
Okay let me pass here for a moment
I probably need to explain two things
Because the system in the us is quite different from what we have in china
Now first thrift shopping thrift means using money
Carefully and not wasting it uh in chinese
We can translated as aj iu
So a thrift store is a shop that sells used items
Clocloth furniture art for very very cheap prices
But here's the cake
The store gets all of its inventory for free
People like u
And i donate our old stuff to them
The store then cells it and money ususually es es to charity to help people find jobs
And then you might be wondering well
Why are people so generous
Why are people giving things for free
Well you know people and nice in general
But there's also a financial incentive
When i drop off my clothes
The worker working at goowell will give me a blank receipt
I can write down the value of the cloth
Let's say a hundred dollars
When i find my taxes next year
I can tell the government
Hey
I donated a hundred dollars
And the government will deduct that amount from my income
So i pay a little bit less tax
We call this a tax right off
So it's a win win situation
I clean my house
I save on taxes and somebody gets very cheap close now back to my story
I walked things at a goodwell store
At first gance
It looked like a regular store
Uh just a little bit messy
I think there were rows and roads
Used
Used cloes
Old shoes
Kitchenen appliances
But then i wondered into the art section
And that is where my jaw dropped
I saw a stack of paintings
Leaning against the wall and mixing with the generic flower pictures
I saw something very familiar
It was a chinese landscape painting
I picked up
It looked very old
It looked authentic
I looked at the signature and stamp in the corner
I just couldn't believe my eyes
This was a painting by a pretty famous chinese artist in an auction house in beijing or shanghai
This myself for thousands of dollars
I looked at the price tax sticker on the glass
It said five nineteen ty
That's five dollars ars ninety nine cents
I stood there holding this treasure
And i realize what happened
This probably belong to an elelderperperson who passed away
When they are children or grandchildren who grow up in the us clean out the house
They didn't know what this was
They probably looked at it and thought
Oh
Just another old paper with ink on it
They couldn't read the signature
And they didn't know the cultural value
So they donated it to goodwell
It's a bit sad to think about the cultural disconnection
But for me
It was a moment of pure excitement
I kept digging on the shelves
I found chinese pocelling vases and plates
Now these warn ancient and teeks
I cked the markings later
And most of them were made in the nineteen eighties
Specifically designed for exportation purposes
And in china we call them one 消磁
Because they were so many of them made
So they aren't worth a lot of money
Maybe twenty or thirty dollmoney but to me
They are still valuable
Because they're beautiful
They are clearly designed as art
Not just every day plates this experience made me realize something
So this type of store is very hard to find in china
In china we do have second hand shops we call them jonguu did which comes from the japanese word for second hand
But be careful
These are not what we call the thraft stores
Aja uthe shangdea in china
Joongu u is often just gigimmic a marketing trick
These shops may sell luxury bags or twenty so caladvantage clothes
They're usually more expensive than new clothes
And of course they don't get their stuff from donations
They buy them from collectors
It's about fashion
Not about charity or saving money
But it wasn't always that way
My dad told me that long time ago
Back in the day china had commission shops 信托huhga an where people sold old stuff
But as the economy grew people wanted new things
We stopped buying used stuff
Because we wanted to show we had money
But in the us
My dad has developed a new hobby
Whenever he visits
He loves going into goodwell
He cauit tobbball literally hunting for treasure
And honestly finding a thousand dollar painting for six box
That is the ultimate treasure hunt
So if you're in the us go check out a thrift store
You don't have to buy anything
But just looking at what people donate is a fascinating cultural lesson
I'm george
Thanks for listening to my charger hunting story
I'll catch you in the next episode
