“I would like to suggest that supermarkets should take careful note of the expiry dates on the things they sell because I once bought some outdated food – a pack of Thai-made jelly – and I only just noticed when I was about to use it.”

Fabric. Is it already discoloured, faded or dirty? (Don’t buy the excuse that it just needs to be washed.) Are there lipstick stains on the neckline? (This is common if the garment has been tried on by a lot of people already.) Are there threads hanging off the material? If there any obvious imperfections (snags, crooked seams), can you live with them?

“It’s become a fashion. People, especially young people, are interested in new things and when we opened our centre they came here to find out how ours differs from others.”

“People prefer to use our telephone ordering service rather than the internet because not many people have internet access at their homes, whereas most people have a telephone line,”

“During summer, jeans absorb perspiration and in winter they keep you warm, especially while you’re riding a bike or motorbike. And they’re tough too – they do not need to be treated tenderly and don’t have to be washed every time you wear them,”

The under-five playground features a large bouncy castle equipped with an inflated slide so the little tykes can bounce around without risking any injury. For children five and above there is a more elaborate playground with a slippery slide, a trampoline and a room filled with plastic balls with a basketball hoop to aim for.

As most businesspeople are not agents for a particular brand in the market in Myanmar and businesspeople are prone to bringing in the goods via agents from other South East Asian countries, a difference in price and a lack of up-to-date materials are found many brands of goods.

Ko Lynn Htet is a 26-year-old fertiliser shop owner in Bayintnaung market, says he feels good wearing brands like Arrow and Excellency, both of which are available at MK; locally made brands, he says, don’t offer the design, quality and colours that he’s looking for.

If you have no time to choose the right places for your health and beauty shopping, or simply if you don’t know where to go, here are some beauty centres that can fulfil your wishes in a short time.

“After a few minutes she came back and told me she would buy the jeans and gave me K10,000. But when I told her again that the trousers cost K13,500, she got very angry and left the shop saying that I’d told her the wrong price. “I think she misheard me but I learned plenty from that experience.”

Many people are smitten by 15 carat gold ornaments pigmented with platinum. But as in the saying ‘a girl with her forearm full of gold bracelets’, many people have grown up wearing traditional bracelets. With minimal charges for service and confident of not losing value on resale, many women still prefer solid gold bracelets.

Such extensive transport links ensures the centre is crowded nearly all the time but also guarantees that retailers work hard to offer the latest foods, fashions and accessories for eager shoppers.