A quick morning chat with Cindy (and Jan Chipchase's post) reminded me of something. Cindy asked if I bought anything for myself from Chengdu. Well, actually I hardly buy anything because I go there quite often so it's like going back to Melaka, or just chilling in Singapore, so the natural reaction of not buying anything like tourists would.
Nor even out of pure temptation. Which I was pretty close to yielding to once, with a pretty knit cardigan from Vero Moda. It's RMB349. It's SGD74. Even a friend in Shanghai said it's only RMB349, it's only SGD74. But I didn't buy.
Because the context didn't allow me to. Because it's not just SGD74 in Chengdu. If I were in Singapore, yes, there's almost no question I'd gladly part with SGD74 for that nice piece of clothing. But RMB349 in the context of Chengdu ... it's too much for me. Especially when I enjoy so much that delicious bowl of 杂浆面 from the tiny store run by a laid-off worker that cost only RMB2.50 (pictured below). How many bowls of 杂浆面 will he need to sell to make RMB349?
Again, the value of a dollar across economies and cultures, or even within them, astounds me.
