I was going to write about the great Hong Kong sale — an annual frenzy held in that city overflowing with brands: Chanel, Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton. You know how those particular stores in Greenbelt are always empty? In Hong Kong, the well-dressed salespeople are harassed by scores of clients who actually BUY something. With the number of luxury items dragged around per square kilometer, this small city exemplifies the definition of living in a material world.
That was my plan: for once, a light article squealing about tax-free goods on sale. Unfortunately, something else happened. The Hong Kong sale of 2009 will now always stand to be a sore memory for me. You see, very few people can pinpoint the specific events that made them far less trusting than they used to be. Well, this is partly what did that for me.
My mom and I were walking down Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, no doubt the eye of the shopping storm that is Hong Kong. In the middle of the road was a sudden row of electronics stores, selling everything from cell phones to mini-laptops. I’d been saving up for a new camera; one of those hybrid models, a small digital one with manual controls. There it was, my shiny toy posing proudly on the window of a store called Modern Digital. Back in Manila, I’d already canvassed how much it was selling it for — everywhere including Quiapo. I had not bought it yet, hoping the novelty wears off and the price comes down.
So when the little Chinese salesman standing in front of the store gave me his price, I knew it was much cheaper than anywhere else I’d tried so far. It was a huge shop, probably the biggest one there. Unlike its peers, this one was full of customers, foreigners and locals alike. After some haggling with the salesman who was old enough to be my grandfather, we got the price to go down further. I paid with the cash I’d saved over the past few months, those precious Hong Kong dollars slipping through my fingers.
Our salesman began to make small talk, during which a tall middle-aged man approached us. He was introduced as the son of the store owner. “You’ve picked a nice camera,” he says, “but by Hong Kong standards, it’s a pretty old version.” He stood up to get another camera that looked a lot like what I’d just bought. He snapped a few shots to show me how this one was better. He says it’s normally twice the price but since I’d already bought the other, I just had to pay a little more to trade up.
Hindsight always has perfect vision: I should have known then, but I didn’t. He was so patient in explaining to me the manual controls and how to adjust the settings. He expertly went through the buttons, and looked like he knew exactly what he was talking about. So yes, I believed him. It really did look like a better camera, and I proceeded to pay a little more to “trade up.”
That night at the hotel, I eagerly looked for my new camera on the Internet. At this point it will no longer surprise you when I say that the camera I bought was in fact a very old issue. So old in fact, that it was selling for less than half of what I’d bought it for. I knew then that I’d been duped. It was all part of their charade: an old helpless man selling me the camera I wanted for a much lower price, then another man swoops in and says he has a better one for which I only have to pay a little more.
I was flooded with disgust, but even then I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. The next morning I went back to the store and respectfully asked for an exchange. I wanted the camera I’d originally asked for, even if it was supposedly cheaper. In fact, I told him I’d pay more to get another, because my friend had asked me to buy for her, too. The old salesman I first met wouldn’t look at me, except to say it was not possible. The store owner’s son asked for my receipt, and showed me the small footnote below: “No exchange of goods once the customer has left the store.” He shrugs and tells me he can’t do anything; the sale had already been recorded.
At that moment, he knew and I knew: he had put one over me. This man, after I’d already paid him, after I’d already bought something from his store, decided to lure me into paying more for something a lot less. It was not enough for him that he had earned money, he simply wanted more. His store was doing well, clients kept coming in throes. It was as if he just couldn’t help himself, seeing a susceptible young woman with her mother.
In broken Mandarin I say to him, “You are not a good person.” It was unbelievably frustrating, and suddenly I wish I’d listened more attentively to my Chinese teacher in grade school. I wanted to express my anger, but there was a language barrier. I wonder if that meant anything to him at all, for someone to despise you because you cheated them off a few bucks when you really didn’t need to. I saw him flinch, unable to look at me in the eyes. Maybe it was guilt, or ridicule — I will never know. He’d been expecting my full wrath, but my anger was quiet. I was filled with so much inexplicable disappointment, and I hope he understood then that he’d just made the world a little darker for this young person.
He said the best thing he could do was to hand me back a few dollars. It didn’t make up for the difference, but then I noticed there were 15 salesmen in the store. They surrounded me, starting to close in like a pack of wolves over this hysterical young woman demanding an exchange. I had no choice but to take the money and leave.
At the end, it was not a huge financial loss. But I think I lost more that day than a few Hong Kong dollars. I’d been duped by a respectable store owner, someone who had sincerely looked me in the eye and told me he was just trying to earn a good living. It was my fault of course, for believing him. I should have known better than to be sucked into his wormhole of sales talk. Still, maybe this is how we start becoming wary of each other. Maybe that’s how we lose the ability to trust people — inch by inch, down to every lost dollar. That’s how it started for me: I realize how stupid I’d been for believing a seemingly honest man in a popular store smack in the middle of a main district.
On the plane ride back to Manila, the woman seated beside me randomly strikes up a conversation. She’s an Australian-born Chinese, working as a top officer in a prestigious London bank. It’s her first time in the Philippines, where she has volunteered to help build communities in far-flung areas of Palawan. I felt embarrassed, this foreigner volunteering to make MY country a better place when I’m always too busy to do that. Normally it would be a forgettable encounter, but this time was different: after The Horror at Modern Digital, I needed redemption.
I needed her to remind me that there are good people, and there are bad people. The key is to find the wisdom in knowing the difference. There are people who will put one over you for no reason other than because they think they can. It defies logic, rationale, even compassion for those in need. I’m not saying a hungry, homeless man has the right to hurt someone in order to survive, but at least he is fighting for something. What was that store owner fighting for, a small thievery in exchange of the reputation he has built for his prospering store? I hadn’t seen his deceit coming because in my eyes, he had more to lose than to gain by cheating me. Maybe that’s how he did it, because he saw I trusted him.
Still, there are good people. I want to believe that; I have to. Otherwise the next time I enter any store with a hapless, innocent man at the counter, I will freeze in disgust. Obviously we shouldn’t go through life with a blind eye, but I don’t want to be filled with suspicion all the time either. I don’t want this to be my story for the next ten years: a decade of learning how cruel people can be. I see people who think and act like the world’s always out to get them. I wish I never become like that — but is it enough to be good, when often this is the very thing that lets other people get to you.
That little experience has thrown me off. It has given me a small but perceptible paradigm shift. Imagine other people who’ve been cheated worse — no wonder they have such little faith. Maybe this is why we become disillusioned as we grow older: the years give us more reasons to distrust the human race. We’re careful of criminals on the street — hungry and depraved, willing to do anything for a buck. We know of manipulative businessmen in their ironed suits and wily schemes. But I learned that day how bad people find ways to disguise themselves, that they can look you in the eye and tell anecdotes of how their father built this little shop.
What is it that our wise old childhood friend Homer Simpson says? “Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.” Do I really have to pick a role, to either be the one who lies or the one who listens? For the sake of the next honest store person I’ll come across, I sure hope not.