Out shopping

Context: it had been raining on-and-off for nearly the entire week, and T____ and I had gone out at ten o'clock on a sunny morning hoping to avoid the monsoonal rains, having apparently forgotten how much more brutal heat was than rain, and how sweat tends be just as soaking as rain, and much less pleasant. From the moment we opened the front gate, we were sweating, and kept sweating until we found some shade or an air-conditioned building.

The heat did become bearable, however. We walked down the street, through a narrow lane, and onto another large roadway where we waited for bus #14; the bus was pleasant and air-conditioned, and within no time we arrived at the Hoan Kiem Lake bus stop. T____ was going to an eye appointment, and afterwards we walked to an Optical Shop and had her new eyeglasses prepared, which were ready that same afternoon. We also planned on visiting a bookstore and a few shoe shops near the lake.

But here I wish to focus on two more specific incidents - one involving a street vendor, and another involving the owner of a downtown restaurant.

When we walked from the bus stop down the paths that ran alongside the lake, a street seller approached us carrying postcards and other small trinkets, speaking to us in rapid English. She seemed to be college-aged, and quite adept at getting attention. At first, I treated her as I had learned to do in Paris, as most anyone would treat a merchant selling an undesired product, which was simply by avoiding eye contact and engaging things only minimally, refusing politely and walking at a clipped pace. She, no doubt, was an expert in this profession, and I was the amateur; she began walking slightly ahead of us, alleging that she was a poor student, and that even if I didn't want what she was selling, that perhaps I could go for the postcards for the sake of charity. I mumbled to her that I was not the head of some chartiable organization, and I kept walking until she no longer had the energy to follow and talk to us. She stopped, shouted something to us in Vietnamese that clearly upset T____, and walked in the other direction.

Transition to the second incident: we had gone to the eye appointment, which was conducted quickly and in a similar manner as I had known in the US, back when I still wore glasses. Afterwards we went to a three-floor air-conditioned bookstore, with items in Vietnamese, French, and English, and I tried to see if I could find a better Vietnamese grammar book for foreigners, only finding newer editions of books I already owned. At any rate, we left and went shoe-shopping. The sellers all had open-air shops, with merchandise overflowing onto the sidewalks; if they didn't have the shoe you wanted in the exact size, they would in most cases construct it on-the-spot. (Of course my size twelve/thirteen shoe was never available.) We found a pair of shoes, had them fit, and then went in search of a place to eat.

Here's where the second incident occurred. We had found a small restaurant that opened onto the sidewalk, similar in size and appearance to the other surrounding structures. It was the first restaurant we crossed, and since the meat being grilled in front seemed spectacular, we walked inside. We were served bu/n cha? and beer, and it was (of course) delicious. Then it came time to pay the hostess, who stood cutting portions of meat in the corner with a large butcher's knife. She was charging the other partons five-thousand Vietnamese Dong; we figured that we would give more than the price she was charging the other customers, and finally decided that, although the total came to fifteen-thousand, we would give twenty-thousand.

Now it all happened so quickly - T____ got up from the table, went over to our hostess, and began speaking, calmly at first; the volume of their conversation eventually escalated to a level that carried throughout the entire restaurant; our hostess became shrill and cross, moving in snappy motions, and T____ became visibly tense; when our hostess smacked T____ firmly across the shoulder, I jumped up and ran over immediately, completely infuriated, understanding little more than the fact that this woman seemed totally nuts. I probably looked very dumb. Even though I was angry, I did realize that there was little that I could do to help.

So what I learned later was that the woman was asking nine-thousand each instead of five-thousand for each bowl. In my mind, it seemed irrational to suffer so much for such a small fraction of a dollar; for T____, however, who was used to Vietnamese prices, it was much more irrational pay nearly double for a meal merely because she was accompanied by an American.

So there was T____, offering our twenty-thousand Dong bill, and in front of her was the hostess, who kept shoving it away. I wanted to say to T____ that it wasn't worth it, that we should pay whatever extra she wanted and go, but by that time a large crowd of patrons had gathered around T____, talking excitedly. It seemed that they were shouting exclusively at her. At this point, T____ turned to them and asked if anyone else had paid nine-thousand Dong for a meal; the patrons stood quietly and thought about this for a while, then began shouting back that, after all, it was such a small difference for Westerners, and that I should just pay and leave it at that. I then looked back at our hostess, who stood shouting angrily with her knife in the air.

I tried to contemplate a way to escape in a manner that ensured a long, healthy lifespan for both T____ and me. But it worked out well - there was a young man sitting in a nearby seat who shut his eyes, raised his left hand high, and fluttered it in plain sight, apparently indicating that he had had his fill of this clamor and chaos. He urged her to let us go. T____ then said that we should leave. The patrons booed and hissed as we walked out.

Now, to all those reading this blog, I would like to offer this situation as a potential moral dilemma. Here are some "points" I have pondered in my mind.

First of all, while Australians / North Americans / Western Europeans (informally referred to as "Westerners") are not targeted exclusively for this kind of price discrimination, I have heard from my hosts that the opportunity to charge a Westerner a Western price is never missed. Stingy Westerners are not well-tolerated, since it is invariably expected that they can afford it.

Second, when people say that something is affordable, this is a statement that refers to both price and quantity. I can surely afford to pay $15 each for a series of books normally priced at $2 each; what this usually means, however, is that I purchase fewer books at the higher price. In theory, this applies here, too.

Third, price discrimination occurs in the United States, and it is something we generally accept. Examples include college financial aid packages, used car sales, and airline and movie tickets. In practice, there seems to be nothing wrong with me being judged by the color of my skin, so long as it is, in fact, a decent indicator of the content of my pocketbook. Right?

Fourth, Westerners in general tend to pay much higher prices in their home countries than in Vietnam, and are often little aware of the pricing situation locally. When a street seller offers a Westerner a set of postcards and prices them at a dollar, the Westerner in need of postcards sees this to be an okay price and agrees, or else tries to bargain it a little lower in order to show that it cannot go to more than one dollar. The seller knows that she would easily sell her merchandise to a local for a tenth of that price, but the Westerner doesn't know this, and sees the one-dollar asking price as fair. But does this entire notion of "fair" change once the Westerner knows that she could get a better price?

In the end, however, it tends to be that we're quibbling over fifty cents. But we do quibble like this in the US as well, for goods that tend to be repeatedly and rapidly consumed. Imagine the price of a gallon of milk were to go up by fifty cents. Imagine the price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline were to go up by fifty cents. In my own case, the price of "everything" has doubled. In a sense, "everything" is indeed a repeatedly and rapidly consumed commodity.

So let's hear it: what would you do? Comment on this post (actually don't, it's been disabled), and in your comments, give your analysis of the situation and what you think Westerners should do in similar situations. Or don't comment. Or go to the next blog site.