At the family dinner at Zhi Xin Garden that evening, Lin Xiaoguai brought up the topic at the dinner table.
"Do you really need that much money?" Luo Yufang asked, widening her eyes.
Lin Xiaoguai smiled, "Grandma, that’s really not a lot. The same diamond necklace wouldn’t sell for less than a million US dollars in her own country, you should know the exchange rate between US dollars and RMB is 1:9, she’s already getting a bargain."
"But that’s with foreigners," Luo Yufang muttered, "What if they aren’t happy and come to cause trouble?"
"Grandma, have you really forgotten that your eldest grandson holds the rank of Major General?" Shen Chi interjected, "If you ask me, Wanwan should’ve asked for more, why settle for just over a million when she could sell it for ten million?"
Lin Xiaoguai was somewhat speechless; in this regard, she definitely wasn’t as ruthless as Shen Chi.
"That can’t be done, that can’t be done," Luo Yufang shook her head, "If trouble arises, we surely can’t outdo foreigners."
In the minds of the older generation, despite their hatred for foreigners owing to past oppression, there was a natural fear of them, placing themselves lower than foreigners, even if they were in the right, they would still feel they lacked confidence when faced with foreigners.
Lin Xiaoguai and Shen Chi exchanged a glance, abandoning the idea of changing the stubborn thoughts of the elders.
For Lin Xiaoguai, this incident was just a side story in life. The 1.7 million RMB she earned, she kept seven hundred thousand for herself, and gave the remaining one million to Shen Chi. He had recently been contemplating getting into the real estate business, guessing that his funds were somewhat tight, she had been wanting to support him and this money came at the right time.
Some time later, Lin Xiaoguai realized that things weren’t as insignificant as she had thought. After seeing off another foreign client who came to buy diamond jewelry, Lin Xiaoguai breathed a sigh of relief.
Essentially, these foreigners all came for the diamond jewelry; anyway, the product descriptions in the store were all in Chinese, which they couldn’t understand completely. Lin Xiaoguai also didn’t intend to sell to them; the items in her store were expensive according to the current domestic consumption levels but for foreigners...
She decided to wait until the year 2020 before considering doing business with foreigners.
Although she hadn’t been abroad, she heard from a friend who frequently traveled to the United States that prices in the US were much cheaper than at home.
A meal at KFC in China costs 30 RMB, but only 4 US dollars in the US, and while the exchange rate made it seem like there wasn’t much difference, at the time, a monthly salary in China was about 5000 RMB, while in the US, it was 5000 US dollars.
In the future, a college student in the US could buy a nice sports car by working two months during the summer vacation, but in China, a sports car could be three years’ savings for a middle-class family.
"I heard that foreigners often come here to buy diamond necklaces?" one day, Mrs. Yang, an acquaintance, asked her in the store.
"That’s true," Lin Xiaoguai responded with a faint smile, "Is Mrs. Yang also interested in diamond necklaces?"
Without waiting for her to respond, Lin Xiaoguai continued, "However, I personally wouldn’t recommend this type of jewelry."
"Why?" Mrs. Yang was indeed interested in diamond jewelry, after all, it’s universally acknowledged that products used by foreigners are better than those domestically, and people inevitably have some herd mentality and comparative psychology.
"To tell you the truth. Although my store’s items are expensive, because the costs are also significant, the profits are actually very limited. Now, I’m just banking on diamond jewelry to make money," Lin Xiaoguai candidly said about her business, "Those diamond necklaces sold to foreigners are priced at least in the tens of thousands, the expensive ones are in the millions. If I were to price them openly to sell to our own people, I definitely wouldn’t mark such high prices, but I am not willing to let foreigners have it cheap. You should know the price I charge foreigners is already almost ten times cheaper than their domestic prices. If I sold it to them at our domestic prices, it would be almost like giving it away."
Mrs. Yang quickly understood, if she fixed a price, it couldn’t vary depending on the person, but...
"Could you sell it to me privately?" she asked in a low voice.
"That wouldn’t work," Lin Xiaoguai shook her head, "Those foreigners aren’t fools, if they caught wind of it and came to settle scores, that would be bad, Mrs. Yang, please don’t make it difficult for me."
Seeing her slightly unhappy, Lin Xiaoguai sighed, "Actually, diamonds aren’t necessarily better than other jewels. To be honest, I personally don’t have a special appreciation for this kind of jewelry."
"How so?" Mrs. Yang’s interest was piqued, given that Mrs. Shen was widely recognized as a master jeweler, capable of designing and creating those beautifully extraordinary pieces of jewelry, her views on jewelry naturally garnered the attention of others.