San Francisco, Nov.30 (People's Daily Online) "The mad dash for Black Friday shopping has spread to Chinese", said Jessie, a sales consultant working in the Hillsdale Shopping Center in the United States.

Jessie is one of the sales consultants that can speak Chinese in the shopping mall. She said that she has received almost 50 Chinese customers during the past two-day holiday shopping race. She said, "Some customers told me that they traveled from China to shop in the United States."

Prices for luxury goods in China are higher that these in the United States, so that shopping has been one of the most important activities on Chinese visitors' schedule during their trip to the United States.

Ms. Wong is a Chinese who traveled to the United States a few days before Thanksgiving. Her friend told her that she can enjoy great discount during the holiday season in the United States. Carrying five coach bags, she said there are still many "assignments to be accomplished." The assignment means helping purchase required products for her Chinese friends.

Huang Wei works as an engineer in a high-tech company in Silicon Valley. He rushed for bargains Friday on the Thanksgiving holiday after a long queue but he grabbed nothing. He said that he is more likely to experience it rather than willingly to buy something in need. "The scene is so crazy that it's hard to imagine if you don't participate," he described.

Across the United States, the frenzy continued overnight and through the morning of Black Friday. And this is just the start of the whole shopping season.

A Chinese young couple, who was visiting San Francisco from Chengdu, started their shopping spree at 9 o'clock Thursday night. After a short break in the morning, they decided to go to the outlet in Livermore to buy more clothes.

One retailer told the reporter that he is optimistic at the sales achievement this year. He thinks it may beat last year's with the extending store hours.

The shopping spree has turned mayhap in some cities around the country. In rural southwest Virginia, a dispute in a parking lot turned violent. Shoppers cutting in line at a Walmart sparked a fight in Southern California, where at least two people were arrested and a police officer's hand was injured. When a shopper carried his big-screen TV out of a store in Las Vegas, he was shot.