Dual Pricing

Found a hilarious travel article on Bootnall today about the luxury tax…or dual pricing for foreigners as it is called:

The Luxury Tax – Asia, Europe, South America
By: Adam Jeffries Schwartz
The following is a guide to how the luxury tax is levied, worldwide.

ASIA
China has the highest tax in the region! Charging a hundred times the regular price is typical. If you negotiate at all, they will stand two inches in front of your face, and scream You PAY, you PAY NOW.

Note: Exactly!!!
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Contemplating Going “Home”

I was quickly stopped by a policeman. “Have you been drinking? Have you been smoking pot? Your eyes are all red! Then he made me stand, in high heels, on one foot and count to forty. Then follow his finger moving back and forth with my eyes. Then he let me, shaken, go.

Last time I got off the plane in Portland from almost a year in Asia, I found myself jet-lagged and completely disoriented…driving on the “wrong” side of the road.

Found this blog by a Chinese-American on Bootsnall. He is probably much younger but his experience is none-the-less very similar to mine.

Coming Home: Sharks Also Need Constant Motion
By: Jeffrey Lee

“Coming home meant coming down. It was easier to stay up. I’d return home to piles of bills and an empty refrigerator. Buying groceries, I’d get lost – too many aisles, too many choices; cool mist blowing over fresh fruit; paper or plastic; cash back in return? I’d wanted emotion but couldn’t find it here, so I settled for motion.

Out at night, weaving through traffic, looking for trouble, I’d lose myself in crowds. Gaggles of girls with fruit-colored drinks talked about face products and film production. I’d see their lips move, look at their snapshot smiles and highlighted hair. I didn’t know what to say.
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Culture Shock

as my mother would have said.): Am taking the liberty of posting Bob’s April 3 email describing homecoming culture shock after arriving home in Oregon from Asia…very succinct.

good morning;
On Comcast internet—
and it’s fast.
What a pleasure.
The air is fresh.
It’s brisk.
Everything green.
No plastic in heaps.
Highways/byways orderly
No motorbikes
But–
the streets are dead–
nobody out
prices outasight
telephone menus on most calls
(should probably compose one for my phone)
It does rain—again and again