TABLE
OF CONTENTS
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Souvenir Sellers in Giza
Egypt
by Tatsuru Kimura
Egypt
was such
an impressive country for me because of some experience concerning
buying
souvenirs. The souvenir venders around
the Giza Phyramid are especially unforgettable.
In
Researching “Modern” Cairo,
Farha Ghannam explains about relocations of the urban population and
functions of the
city in Cairo
under Sadat’s leadership. Giza is also a
city that
changed dramatically and it is highly specialized for sightseeing. Around the Giza Pyramids, there are so
many
souvenir sellers starting in the early morning, and I made a big
mistake when I
was
talking with one of them. He is a young
man and he said that he is a college student. He
half forcibly handed me a turban saying, “this is a
present for you”
after which he asked me to give him some “small money”.
The mistake I made was that I gave him 200
Egyptian Pound (EYP), which roughly equals 40 USD, because I
misunderstood the
exchange rate. It is far beyond the
value of the turban. However, the
merchant demanded more money and lied that the amount of money I gave
to him is
only worth only 4 USD. After the
merchant left, I realized my terrible mistake. I
compared this experience with an experience I had in Ho
Chi Min City,
Vietnam. When I bought a can of Coke, I
mistakenly gave a particular amount of money, which equals 10 USD in
local
currency to an old woman and I walked away. The
woman caught me and gave me the change. I
am not going to say that it is cultural
difference because there must be people who take advantage of tourists
in Vietnam and
honest merchants in Egypt. However, I am still wondering why the
behaviors
of these two merchants were so different.
Also in Giza, I
encountered an
interesting souvenir selling technique that several souvenir vendors
use. A souvenir vendor talks to me and
asks where
I come from. If I say Japan, he will give me his merchandise
as a
present for the friendship between Egypt
and Japan.
In many cases, the merchandise is a
turban. Even he may break open a new
package
of turbans for me. What is interesting
is that he then pretends to walk away. Then,
after a while, he will come back and ask for a
“small amount of
money”. If I say no, he will get the
commodity back. One of the souvenir
vendors insisted that I had to buy it because he broke a package for
me. When I
said no again, he damned me. Honestly, I
was disgusted at his behavior. However,
I was interested in this walking-away technique and wondered whether
this
technique is effective. I tailed some
souvenir vendors and observed whether they would earn some money. As a
result, they succeeded only once out of more than ten tries. Thus, I do not think this is an effective
method to sell souvenirs.
In terms of
business, Giza
is so different from any other cities that I have visited before. I did
not see their original techniques that souvenir sellers in Giza
employ in any other countries I visited or even in other cities in Egypt.
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