about a square peg in a round hole

Now. I’m Asian. Asian by birth, Asian by upbringing, Asian by looks and physique. I speak Asian tongues, I love Asian food. I am Asian. Through and through.

Okay. Admittedly I do not agree with many and I mean many, Asian cultural values or the more traditional of Asian idiocracies, and my lingua franca is primary English, by learning and by choice, which might point to me not being the poster-child for Asians Anonymous, but that’s a whole other blogpost. Or Wikipedia entry.

But I still maintain that I am Asian.

And being Asian dictates, neccessarily, that before you make the momentous decision to purchase a product or service, you are expected to ’shoparound’ for the best possible value for money, be it in the form of discounted prices, or complimentary gifts, or best still, free giveaways.

And in that respect, I do regretfully concede that this morning, I failed to be Asian.

On a whim, I waltzed into a bookstore that advertised the sale of a 1GB pendrive for a mere NZ$120. Without so much as a germ of a thought, I pluckily whipped out my spanking new MasterCard and bagged the 5cm by 2cm technical wonder. The packaging alone was about 600% bigger than the actual product.

Did I ’shoparound’? No. Did I waver to think that perhaps… Well, actually I kinda did.

I’ve just discovered that there are more than 10 online vendors in New Zealand that are offering comparable or better products at a ridiculous 50% of the price I paid.

So I guess the moral of the story is that Asian or not, one should bloody ’shoparound’ before one bloody buys a stinking pendrive at a twice-inflated price.

Now. I wonder if I can return the fucking thing.