Shopping blues

[Palatkik]

You must have noticed a few of these by now, and probably more. Walk in any 7 Eleven and you are greeted with a ?bing bong (that?s the door bell ringing) sawadsee kah (hello)?, as well as a ?chern pob ghan mai ka (see you again)? on the way out with your small purchase of crap. Now walk in a car sales room and you likely get totally ignored.

 

Similarly you cannot walk past an Indian looking tailors shop without being heckled on the street when the last thing you want to buy right then is some flash looking cheap suit. Harder still try browsing the car wax and shine stalls in any shopping mall and not getting pounced on by any number of sales guys. Worse than those toilet jockeys when you just want a piss!

 

But try even looking at a mobile phone display window and, even if you are the only customer, the sales clerk will likely be arsed to lift the newspaper he/she is reading off the glass counter to let you have a better gander ? gawd forbid you should ask to buy anything. (This latter example only applies in Bangkok btw, as Pattaya hand phone sales clerks seem to be a different breed altogether).

 

Seems like something?s farang are allowed to shop for others not. A funny story from Big C in Phuket the other day was that a foreigner was asked to show a work permit before he could buy a microwave. That was a mistake it transpired.