Travel Agent

Gratefully indebted to Pepeng Agimat, I had to do this update.

Remember the Pinoy Encounters in the Hopia Wonderland? Well, click the link and be not surprised.

This morning, one of our Pinoy acquaintances forwarded a collected emails of grotesque encounters in the Hopia Wonderland. One shows the horrible process a dead chicken would go through to reach its finger-lickin’ goodness. Another reveals the sensual secret behind those tiny colorful hair bands which is hit among the Chinese girls. And the list goes on and on, as if the Milk Scare is not enough.

Find out how cheap materials are being harnessed into a more expensive and highly hazardous goods.

I hope we could all still be laughing at our ignorance in the Hopia Wonderland.

It was interesting to know that some big electronics stores in China are still practicing their returns policy.

Just recently I bought an electronic dictionary from Kunshan ShangSa, probably the biggest electronics store in Kunshan. After just a day of exploring it, I find it not very useful for English Speakers because even if the language can be changed from Chinese to English, most of the lessons are only suitable for native Chinese speakers. Also, even if there’s an English-Chinese translation, you’ll still have to explore each character on a different window to view its pin-yin translation. All-in-all, it’s not really useful and for the price of RMB 698, it’s not really worth it.

So I persuade one of my Chinese colleagues to accompany me back to the store to try our luck for at least exchanging it for a different Product.

In the store, my Chinese friend and I tried to explain my reasons for trying to return the product. I also explained that I found a similar electronic dictionary on the internet which can show pin-yin readings on the same window when the cursor is placed on the character. The sales lady who assisted me with the product two days ago told us that if we could find what I was looking for in the same store, they would allow me to exchange the product. Unfortunately, we never found a similar dictionary so we went back to the same sales lady to ask whether we could exchange it for a different product instead (say a digital camera or anything else). The sales lady told us that we could exchange it for whatever product within the store premises but we can never return it for a refund.

After a while, my friend went to the information desk to inquire whether we could return the product that I bought two days ago. The information officer told us that the store have a return policy that would allow the customers to return a product within seven days should they didn’t like it. They sales lady was summoned to assist us in processing our refund and after signing some forms, we were informed that my money would be returned to my bank account (I used my ATM to pay for it) within 15 days.

The sales lady was fuming with anger so I joked to my friend whether I would be killed after we went out of the store premises. He said I wouldn’t be but perhaps my face will be posted around the store so I couldn’t buy anything from there again. But of course, that was just another joke. But should they really had to do that, they would be loosing a regular client since I usually buy most of my electronic gadgets from their store.