How people around the world feel about Black Friday

I DON’T SHOP on Black Friday, the busiest retail day in the United States. It falls on the day after Thanksgiving, and most Americans can elaborate on its flaws. Stores open up at ridiculous hours (6am? 2am? 6pm on Thanksgiving Day?) to sell meekly discounted crap to consumers who act like rabid dogs fighting over a scrap of meat.

Google “Black Friday chaos” and watch a plethora of YouTube videos showing old ladies trampled to death, young men maced by rent-a-cops, and scores of shabbily-dressed Americans take over strip malls in search of that flat screen television that might be discounted at 75% off, or the last provocative Bratz doll that some airbrushed news anchor predicted to be the “hot new holiday toy.”

Most of my international friends stare at me with mouths agape after I tell them about this holiday tradition. I’m surprised by how many people around the world don’t know what Black Friday is, figuring that a Twitter hashtag like #BlackFridayCarnage would instantly trend. Nevertheless, I wanted to find out what people around the world actually thought, or knew, about Black Friday in the…