Please do.

My family's experience in April 2010 at Lisa's was, in general, not good. Then again, my mom brought her own material and just wanted to pay for labor (can someone say - decreasing their margin? The saleswoman was not very happy about this.

Let's just say that the process involved, a long argument whether or not they (Lisa's) were allowed to make a suit that wasn't cloth from their own store (the lady finally conceded after we agreed that if they messed up there was nothing that could be done and paid 50% up front), a nice fitting suit, (but a junky plastic zipper on the pants), missed guidelines that we had in writing (dad wanted cuffs on the pants and there were none - Saturday night), missed deadlines (we were flying out Sunday - the next day in the afternoon and had been promised the suit at noon).

After letting her search around for a minute or two and figuring out that the suit had not made it (and her calling someone to confirm where it was) the disagreeable saleswoman groaned and then told us to go to their "factory" to pick it up. She did not offer any kind of discount/compensation or even any real apology.

I let her have it (I had let her and my mom argue in English, with my very few and minor interventions in English in all the previous sessions). In Mandarin (without yelling), I patiently ripped into her for writing down specifications then not following them, missing deadlines and in general, messing up all around. Of course some of this was expected; it is China, a developing country. But her attitude really made it that much worse.

I continued by telling her there was no way I would go to some "factory" to pick up a suit when we had a flight in 3ish hours given potential traffic (ended up not being a problem) and that she would simply have to figure it out. I told her again, that it wasn't our fault. We had the paperwork, showed up on time, as directed and paid on time and without argument. She was the one who made promises.

Then she said the factory was on the way to the airport and that she would give me a phone number and an address. I told her no dice. I don't know the place, the cabbie might not, why doesn't she come with us? She refused point blank and kept insisting on my mom and I going alone, and this went back and forth for a few minutes. Finally another member of the staff came forward and he'd accompany us.

On top of it all we had paid half the price of the suit as a deposit and I refused to hand over the rest of the dough until we saw the suit.

This guy was in general, a really nice guy. We got to talking in the cab and we had the usual discussion about life in China versus other developed countries at which point he started grumbling about how people in developed countries were happy along with a number of other interesting comments. The cabbie seemed to agree and the two of them literally took off on a great conversation that encompassed: bureaucracy, uneven enforcement, the one child policy, culture, happiness, pollution, migration and a host of other things. It had to be one of the most entertaining conversations I have had in a long time.

We get to near the "factory" which was indeed en route to the airport and the guy has directw the cabby into a middle/upper middle class apartment complex. The cabbie did not know the exact location and there is no way I would have been able to find it in less than 10 minutes without asking numerous people.

The guy directs the cabbie to one of the buildings, gets out, runs into the building and comes back out a minute later with the suit. We looked at it, nodded our heads and gave him the rest of the money.

His parting words while smiling were "give us a week next time instead of 4 days, could you?" I shook his hand and we left

My mom's comment whilst laughing: "this same kind of thing happens in India too, only we know people who can get things done and take care of this stuff. I guess since we don't in China..." (FWIW - we're of Indian origin)