One of the most irritating features of housekeeping here is the
lack of any fixed value, especially for market produce. There are no
grocery stores, every article must be chaffered over, and is valued
according to the owner's pressing needs, his antipathy for Americans,
or his determination to get everything he can.
You may be driving in the country and see a flock of chickens
feeding under or near a house. You ask the price. The owner has just
dined. There is still enough _palay_ (unhulled rice) to furnish the
evening meal. He has no pressing need of money, and he doesn't want
to disturb himself to run down chickens. His fowls simply soar as to
price. They are worth anywhere from seventy-five cents to a dollar
apiece. The current price of chickens varies according to size and
season from twenty to fifty cents. You may offer the latter price and
be refused. The next day the very same man may appear at your home,
offering for twenty or thirty cents the fowls for which the day before
he refused fifty.
Except in the cold storage and the Chino grocery shops of Manila,
nothing can be bought without chaffering. The Filipinos love this;
they realize that we are impatient and seldom can hold out long at it,
and in many cases they overcharge us from sheer race hatred. Also
they have the idea, as they would express it, that our money is
two times as much as theirs, and that therefore we should pay two
prices.
Pages:
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258