We quickly realized that this world, like any other society, had a hierarchy. The popular, name brand shops were nestled closer to the entrance and ground level, and my plan to start at the top put us next to the places with more negotiable prices and questionable merchandise. We were laughing at this when we passed a watch shop. I was still mid conversation when I realized Jay had committed the cardinal sin and stopped to admire a watch. The eager shop owner had a “Rolex” out before I could even get my wits about me. “I’m just going to look,” said Jay. He’s in sales. He knew better.
It was one Indian man in this shop full of “name brand” watches. He seemed desperate for a sale since the top floor was nearly empty (locals probably knew better). I was looking innocently through the glass casing and watches were suddenly forced into my hand. With every watch he let me hold, he kept saying they are good for diving and swimming; I guess that was his selling point for a guy who looked like he surfed. I had no intention of buying a watch, but this guy was relentless: “For you, I have a great deal,” he said and pulled out a calculator. Fake Rolex in hand, he typed 320 Ringgit in the calculator first, and then said, “For you, 280,” changing the number on the calculator. (Ringgit is the Malaysian currency and US Dollar is about 4x more, so the “Rolex” was about $70). We still aren’t sure why he kept typing amounts on the calculator instead of saying them. It must be a special sales technique. I said no. He insisted. Chantal rolled her eyes. Then I stumbled on a cool watch with a brown leather band and metallic face that I was kind of interested in. He gave me the good price on the calculator of 280 Ringgit (and of course reminded me that it was good under water- just what I wanted. A leather watch under water). I denied again as he passed me the calculator. He said, “You type a price in and I won’t look.” Now that really confused me, as he had already boxed the watch, bagged it and put it in my hand. I took the watch back out of the box and Chantal moved in for the valuation.
I noticed two things right away. First, the watch hands weren’t moving. There was a hand to count the seconds, and it was frozen in place. When I mentioned this to him, he insisted, “That hand is just for decoration,” and motioned that the hand didn’t move on any of the watches in his shop. I looked. He was correct. Not a single watch in the shop worked. Not a great selling point for my valuation. Second, I noticed that the matte silver casing around the face had a small blemish on it. It looked like the layer was peeling off. I mentioned this to him and he started to rub it away. Sadly, a huge chunk chipped off at that point. Like the sales champ he was, he played it off like this was normal and continued to chip away. We seized the moment to say we’d be back, and this time he didn’t chase after us. He accepted defeat.
As we scurried off, I scolded Jay for stopping and we laughed as we quickly evacuated the floor. What do you know? The next floor opened to men’s shoes. Jay was already inside before I could remind him of the last half hour.
Everyone close to me knows that I am into stylish, stand-out shoes. I already had on my fresh black and white Adidas NMD’s and saw other similar pairs in this store. I picked one up and quickly realized they were fake…again. The salesman ran up to me pushing the sale mid-stride (Do you see a trend here?) I put the shoe down and motioned to what real shoes look like on my feet. That didn’t go over well because when I walked away they were yelling something at me that I couldn’t understand. “Hurry up Chantal, we need to retreat to the next floor down!”
I was several stores down. I’d learned my lesson and refused to get involved. With yelling following us, we retreated to safer levels. Always an adventure.
