A guide to the four C's for men with wives

With Christmas coming soon and the early arrival of Chinese New Year just around the corner, it's time to whittle down your list, pack a couple of energy bars and polish up the magnetic strip on your credit card. In other words, it's time to go shopping.

Recently, in Shanghai, the French department store Printemps took a page out of the American consumer's playbook and held its own version of "Black Friday". No relation to the medieval plague, it's named for the bookkeepers' habit of recording profits in black ink versus losses in red. Black Friday is the ultimate slam dunk, the Superbowl of shopping events.

Retailers make up more than 40 percent of their annual sales from now to the weeks leading up to Christmas. Traditionally held the day after Thanksgiving, the eye-popping bargains have shoppers lining up at the doors hours before the store opens.