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Published: March 25th 2016
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Hey everyone!
The new blog is up! Sorry I missed last week; my friend Sabrina came from Japan to visit me at the beginning of this past week so I spent last weekend writing lots of essays, trying to get ahead on the homework for the week. Anyways, it was really great getting to hang out with her, and we had a lot of good conversations about how study abroad has changed our perspectives on the world and life in general.
https://www.iesabroad.org/study-abroad/blogs/kmcgeepugetsoundedu/importance-study-abroad
In other news, last weekend one of my friends and I tried to buy some glasses. We heard of a place from another friend where we could find tons of shops, which always means bargaining is possible. We went on Friday and at the third shop after trying on lots of different pairs, found a pair that we both liked. The shop didn't have two of the same pairs, but told us that they would be able to go to the company and pick up another pair of the same frames if we were okay with returning the next day. We told them that would be fine, and proceeded with bargaining down the price, after which
we were given a receipt. I gave the shop my phone number and was told that they would text me the next day once the glasses were ready for pickup.
The next day, we waited until 2pm before we decided to call the shop since we still hadn't heard from them. I was told that the glasses were ready for pickup and that we could go any time to get them. Since we had been waiting to go, we decided to go then. However, not five minutes later I got a call from the shop and the guy told me that they had made a mistake and got the wrong frames, but that they would go back and get the right ones and to wait for his phone call. When I asked when that would be, he was very vague and just told me that he would call when they were ready.
On Sunday afternoon we still hadn't heard from the shop, so my friend and I decided to just go to the shop to pick up the glasses. Right after we finalized our plans to meet, I received a call from the shop saying that the company
actually didn't have another pair of the same frames, but to come so my friend could pick out a different pair and to pick up mine. My friend decided that she would just get a refund for hers and choose a pair from one of the other shops, which she did. She ended up choosing a pair from a shop right across the way from the original shop. As we were walking out of that shop the guy from the first shop called us over. It turns out he had just gotten a call from the company and they did actually have another pair of the frames, although of course he was very understanding that my friend had ended up buying another pair.
Afterwards, my friend noted that the whole situation was very different from something that would happen in the US, where I think there is usually much less miscommunication when it comes to this sort of situation. Especially from an American consumer's point of view, this sort of disorganization in business isn't acceptable. I think that my friend also handled the situation in a very American way in asking for her money back and choosing to go
PACRIM
Pacific Rim is a program at UPS that happens once every three years (and it is only because it fell on my sophomore year that I did not participate on that program. If you recall KC from Taiwan, she was on the program last year). On PacRim, students travel around Asia for the year, learning about the different cultures and having guest lectures. It turns out that Sabrina and I ended up staying in the exact same hostel as last year's PacRim group, which was a crazy coincidence. to a different shop, rather than trying to get a different/better pair from the same shop for the same price. I personally would probably have tried to find a different pair from the same place in order to avoid the awkwardness of asking for my money back, as I strongly dislike awkward situations. Actually, I often hear foreigners here complain about how customer service is terrible, and how they always wish the shopkeepers were more helpful, or focused on one customer at a time, or any number of things. On the other hand, I don't feel like I have had much of a problem with store owners, although that might be due to my Chinese appearance.
Anyways, that's all for this week; next week I'm sure I will have lots of stories about my time here in Vietnam and in Hong Kong. Until then!
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