Round Two

I had never experienced a shopping disaster like the one at Juneid’s. I had never found an item that I liked in my price range and then walked away empty handed. Walking toward the aircon sanctuary of the Mlesna tea shop I reviewed my Third World shopping resume. I had bought a Persian carpet in Syria, jade in the Hong Kong jade market, ruby earrings in India, and an antique watch in Istanbul. All of these transactions involved much more money and haggling. A fifteen dollar sari should have been easy. The thought of starting the whole process over again exhausted me. I knew that shop keepers like ones at Juneid’s design the experience to dazzle you, but also to wear you down so that the thought of going through it all again keeps you bound to them.

The Mlesna tea shop sells tea and tea paraphernalia. Its all female sales staff will allow me to sit down and drink my water unmolested whenever I need a break. Gazing out the second floor large glass window into the street I tried to understand the Juneid’s staff. Clearly they had gotten too greedy looking at my white skin thinking that I had just gotten off the last Cathay flight to Asia. They saw me as a rich mine they just had to pick-axe and blast their way into. They also operated on the principle that I had no idea that I could buy the same thing down the street. I reminded myself of the mantra of Third World shopping “is this item unique?” You have to know your local as well as the alternative market and know if there is a good internet direct seller or eBay power seller of your coveted item. Of all my international shopping I only consider one of my possessions unique, my 18K gold rose gold Art Deco Istanbul watch. I have never seen its rival in a store, on eBay, or on another woman before or since. An old Armenian man in the covered market just happened to have a few of these incredible watches. I returned to him a few years later and even he didn’t have that quality of inventory again. When the old man told me the watch was special it was the one time I knew the vendor was right.

From my soothing perch in the Mlesna shop I could see women thronging through the main street in their saris and salwars. I reminded myself of the other mantra of Third World shopping, “Nothing has absolute value. The question of value is personal, an item is worth a certain amount to you and that is what you should pay.” Maybe to some of the women on the street the salwars would have been worth the price. A sari is a strip of cloth whereas a salwar set has a tailored top, pants, and the scarf. More labor means more money I reasoned. The amount of money I was willing to spend on the sort of salwars I saw at Juneid’s was never going to fit with the price they needed to obtain. I wondered if the thin salwar-man got in trouble from the sari-selling man for blowing both sales. I was tempted to march back in there and haggle hard for the saris, but I didn’t want to support that store at all. Ever.

Was Juneid’s the typical sari experience here in Sri Lanka? I decided to go to another store I knew, Saraswati, to find out. Dan and I got our sheets there and they seemed like reasonable people. I said goodbye to the ladies at Mlesna and headed out, plotting my course to avoid the Juneid’s street.

I was hoping that the Saraswati staff would recognize me since I had gone with Dan and he spoke Sinhala to them. On arrival I didn’t see any of the same staff as I was shown to the sari pen upstairs. Most of the saris were neatly folded on shelves like Juneid’s, but I could physically approach the shelves myself. My sales attendant only showed me saris that I indicated rather than attempting to overwhelm me with a flashy show of fabric. When he unfolded a delicate dark rose cotton sari with a maroon and gold zari border I forgot all about Juneid’s. I made him unfold the whole sari for me; some of the Juneid’s saris had hidden flaws folded away inside. When the entire 6 yards was out on the counter I could see a stain the size of a softball on the second third of the sari. Whatever the substance was had even sort of eaten a small hole in the fabric. Three of the shop boys who were hanging around watching the sale clucked their tongues at the salesman for offering a defective product.

He showed me several others from the same collection, but the colors weren’t right. I decided to go for the stained sari, haggle it way down, and hope I could get the stain out. I could tell that the stain would fall into the front kick pleats of the nivi drape anyway. After a friendly exchange we agreed on the sale. The floor man did not try to show me additional merchandise. He then helped me pick out a petticoat and blouse piece, even insisting that I try on the all lycra blouse piece. I left pleased with my purchase, happily carrying my Saraswati bag past Juneid’s and up the hill back home. Now I just had to figure out how to put it on.