Mango Madness - A Sad Lesson in Shopping at the Wet Market. Do I Really Deserve This?

[Thingamabob]

On 2/25/2025 at 4:07 AM, SoCal1990 said:

Alright, lads, just had the most bizarre experience at the local wet market yesterday afternoon. Thought I’d pop in to grab a few kilos of fresh mangoes and give my business to some nice, hard working local vendors; simple enough, right? Wrong.

 

So I walk up to this vendor’s stall, which looks like it has nice stuff, but I know it's not going to be cheap. However, I’m willing to pay top price, expecting to get some really fresh, ripe fruit. What does he hand me? Overripe, bruised mangoes with small black spots on them that look like they’ve been through a smoothie blender. I ask him politely, in Thai no less, if he could kindly give me something fresher.

 

What’s his response? A blank stare, a grunt, and then, get this, mates, he mutters something about me needing to go back to my own country if I don’t like how things are in Thailand. What? Really? I’m just asking for some decent fruit, and I'm here paying top price bruv. Come on, mate.

 

At this point, I’m standing there trying to process it. You know me, I’m friendly, humble, extremely polite, respectful and, most of all, reasonable and I don't act out of emotion. I also don’t want to cause a scene, so I just let him toss the mangoes in my bag. Then he practically throws them at me. No apology, no response to my polite request to exchange them, nothing. Just a cold shoulder and a side order of attitude.

 

Look, I’ve been here a while now and didn’t just land at Swampy 48 hours ago. I get it. Not everyone’s going to be thrilled to see a fluent Thai speaking farang buying mangoes in a local market. But am I really asking for too much? I spoke in Thai, I used the right words, was courteous the whole time, I tried to keep things friendly and amicable. And still, this is how I get treated?

 

It also makes me wonder if his charging me such a high price, and giving me overripe mangoes was merely to rip me off because I’m a foreigner and he thinks I don't know anything about local quality standards or the price of things. Could be, right?

 

I know people get stressed at times, but this kind of response? Feels a bit over the top, doesn’t it? Am I just unlucky, or does anyone else get this kind of treatment for trying to buy something as simple as a bag of mangoes at a local market?

 

What happened to the Thai smile I first fell in love with, lads? A place where people at least pretended to be nice, even when they didn’t care about you. Now, it’s like every simple task turns into a confrontation. Sad.

 

Best regards,

Original Bob

Maybe your spoken Thai is not well understood by Thai people.

[Bundooman]

This is just another daily attempt to get some attention. The other day it was some diatribe about Harley Davidson Motorbikes. 

 

I imagine some fat little sad man who sits in his apartment squalor and creates these fantasies in order to find a bit of excitement to satisfy or justify his somewhat dreary existence in Thailand. 

Probably spent all his money on hookers and alcohol, this pathetic little story indicates just how little he understands about Thailand.

If you are fluent in Thai, you don't need to state, "I said all the Thai words correctly ..... you would know, from the long experience of learning 'fluent' Thai, how to behave in a market or how to conduct yourself after an accident.

silly attempt to sound relevant.