Medication

jon laa wrote on September 16th, 2009, 2:38 am

Did more shopping today and ate a lot more. I realised I cherish my time with tien alone a lot, maybe because we’re of the same age and maybe because we’re similar in many ways. Maybe that all adds up to why I love thailand. I don’t think there’s anybody back home who I can live with for extended period of time without going mad.

More decent shopping today. I am trying to move away from my junk tee collection though it still dominates half the baggage. I got a few plain tees and two shirts. One bermudas which is pretty ugly to look at but isn’t that bad when worn. I figured I still need to get more shirts. I am really looking at getting at least four more? Maybe three pairs of bermudas and five pair of jeans?

Dropped by tesco to look for fbt and couldn’t find anything nice - surprise surprise - they were all long and ugly, a little old school. Both of us joked around those fbt shorts singaporeans wear are too short for thais. And the tesco trip ended with loading of all kind of sauces and pastes you can ever imagine and it’s probably taking up the bulk of my baggage in weight. Gah!

Then there was an awfully unpleasant encounter at the night market. This caucasian we met at one of the stores, who is terrible fluent in chinese (cos that was what she conversed in), was repulsive. They quoted her 200 baht for a shirt and she insisted on 150, without any room for negotiation. I felt slightly upset when they gave in to her impolite demands. I don’t think she left with any word of thanks and I felt there was a terrible lack of respect towards the shopkeepers. I don’t see the point of pushing them to such great extends, there’s always the option to leave if the price is not to your liking. I don’t see why one should give unreasonable quote, rudely, then stand there expecting the world to bow at his, or in this case her, feet. Besides, what is 50 baht to her?

There’s a lot more, in my opinion, to negotiation in poorer countries like thailand. I would think that few baht, to us rather insignificant, makes a big difference to some who may struggle to feed the household and perhaps to more who are fighting to break from the vicious cycle of poverty. Taking pride in pushing for the best bargain is probably what any tourist should be most ashamed of, and justifying themselves with that tourists tend to be cheated doesn’t count because the overpriced quote was what they were willing to pay for whatever it may be.

It’s disturbing to know how backward we are, or can be, as mankind.

And maybe we should all think about how often are we motivated by greed, pride, ego instead of maximising one’s capacity when we want to achieve the extraordinary out of each other. Gah.