A Sofa and a Slice of Humble Pie

Among many other things, the process of buying furniture here is quite different than back home. For the past month or so, I’ve spent a great deal of time on my motorcycle driving all over the city trying to find basic items of furniture for our office/home/guesthouse. The difficulty has been trying to find furniture of decent quality (meaning strength, not necessarily appearance) that is both within budget and acceptable to my Western style preferences while at the same time not standing out too much from the local culture.

While the city I live in is sufficiently large, it is relatively isolated in the sense that there aren’t lots of “through roads.” You pretty much have to come here on purpose—which means that the selection is a little more limited than in other cities in the country and even other cities on this island.

All of these issues, however, were expected. I knew about them in advance and had prepared myself mentally to tackle them one at a time until everything was satisfactorily taken care of.
…But as we all know, it’s the unexpected waves that tend to sink the ship.

After a week or so of “surveying” trying to find out which stores sold furniture (not as easy of a task as it sounds) and what they sold, etc., I began to do more serious looking. I wanted to compare quality and price at different places. Sounds easy enough right? Not exactly. A typical conversation went something like this:

“Excuse me, how much is this?”
“Oh I don’t know”
?! “Well could you find out for me?”
“Ok” (gets out the order form to write)
“Oh, I’m not ready to order yet, I’m just trying to compare prices right now”
“Well, we don’t know the prices. We just sell the furniture.”
?! “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. How do you sell it if you don’t know how much it is?”
“Well we don’t actually make the furniture here. It’s made in another city and shipped here unfinished. We just do the finishing.”
“Ok, but you still have to know the price in order to sell it right?”
“Yes.”
?! “Well that’s all I’m trying to find out right now.”
“So which one do you want to order?”
?!?!? “Miss, I don’t want to order anything just yet. I just want to know how much it costs so I can decide IF I want to order it.”
“Well you have to order it before we can tell you how much it costs.”
?! “I don’t understand. Why is that?”
“Well, it’s made in another city and shipped here unfinished. We just do the finishing.”
?!?!? “Are you saying that they determine the prices.”
“Yes.”
“Ok. So could you call them and find out how much this costs?”
“Are you ready to order now?”
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? “NO. I just want to know how much this costs ma’am.”
“Well even they can’t tell you how much it costs until you are ready to order.”
“Why is that?”
“Well the wood is all market price…so they never know how much something is going to cost until they buy the wood for it.”
“Ok. So could you call them and find out how much this costs, if by chance I WERE ordering it today?”
“So you are ready to order?”
?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! “Ok. How ‘bout this. Could you give me a rough estimate of how much this generally costs?”
“Somewhere between about $400 and $600.”
“Ok. Thank you. I may come back later when I’m ready to order.”
Of course in my mind that kind of range was more than ‘rough’ but at least I finally got a number, right?

Price isn’t the only topic that has been confusing for me, however. There have been lots of occasions when I’ve found something that I liked, and even negotiated a price—only to find out that the item wasn’t for sale.

Then there was the issue of choosing upholstery. It’s rare to have options…and incredibly rare to have samples. Of course, when I asked how I could go about choosing the fabric the response was, “Oh, well just tell us what color you want and we’ll try to find something.”

I finally decided that the safest bet might be to ask for catalogs. I thought the catalog might show more options than what the small stores had. Even if not, there was a good chance that it would have the sizes listed (another suspiciously missing piece of information) and an outside chance that the prices, at least the retail ones, would be there as well. In the process, though, I learned that “catalog” in my mind and “catalog” here are not quite the same. The “catalog” here is sometimes as basic as a book of polaroids of the various pieces in someone’s house. On several occasions there wasn’t even a model number or name to distinguish one set from the next. Apparently, they generally just get on the phone and describe it to the manufacturer. Other times the “catalog” was way out of date—which of course I found out only after I had found something I liked and tried to order it.

My lowest moment came after having done this sort of shopping for a couple of weeks. I finally found a sofa in a catalog that I liked. The rough guess of price was ok, AND it was still in production.

“Do you have one of this type I could sit on to try out?”
“No.”
“Oh, ok. Well could you order one so I can see if it’s comfortable.”
“Oh it’s comfortable sir.”
“I understand, but sometimes what’s comfortable to one person isn’t comfortable for another.”
“Oh but everyone says so sir.”
“Well, maybe I’ll just wait until you get another one like this in, so I can try it out first.”
“We won’t sir. We’ve never sold one of those.”
?!?!?!? “How do you know it’s comfortable then?”
No response.
… “Well if I order it can I sit in it before I decide whether or not to buy it?”
“Oh no sir. You have to pay for it when you order it.”
?!?!? “So there’s no way for me to see the quality or the fabric or to determine whether it’s comfortable before I pay for it?”
“No. Not really.”
(Big sigh) “Ok. Thanks anyway.”

I once lost my cool and asked whether or not local people were willing to spend these large amounts of money for things that they had no guarantee they would even like. The response was a very disheartening “Yes sir. Local people aren’t nearly as picky as you.” Yup—that was a healthy portion of humble pie.

From that point on I tried very hard to be more open to what I found. At times I was successful. At times, I unfortunately wasn’t.

Last week, for example, I passed a store in a part of town I have only been to once because of the distance. Out front was a very attractive looking sofa. The color of the upholstery was even great. I first asked the price. It was a little on the high side, but still within budget.

Unfortunately, when I got closer I saw that it had apparently been sitting out front for a very long time. While the cushions were still covered in plastic, the varnish was peeling and the seagrass-type base was coated in dust. I went ahead and sat in it first and found it quite comfortable, so I proceeded:

“Excuse me. Do you have another one of these?”
“No that’s the only one.”
“Could you order another one exactly like this?”
“How many do you need.”
“Oh I just need one.”
“What’s wrong with this one?”
“Well it’s not in great shape ‘cause it’s been here a long time. I’d like to order a new one.”
“This one is new, sir.”
“I see. Well maybe it hasn’t been here a long time, but it’s not in new condition. If I’m going to pay that much for it, I want it to look new.”
“Oh it’s just dusty sir. Once you get it home, you can clean it real good and it will look better.”
“Maybe, but I don’t really want to buy something if I’m going to have to take it home and clean it before I can use it. Besides…it’s not just the dust. Even if I did clean it, the varnish is still a problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well new varnish is shiny. This is dull and peeling off in places.”
“Oh no sir. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”
Looking back, I realize I should have just politely said thank you and left…but I was frustrated and as long as I’m telling the story I want to tell it honestly.
…So I walked over to the sofa and lifted up the cushion.
“Ma’am this is what new varnish looks like.”
“Yes.”
“See how this on the arms and the back is different?”
“Yes.”
(Forcing a smile and trying very hard to speak sweetly) “Ok. So this isn’t really ‘how it’s supposed to be, is it?’”
“No.”
“Ok. That’s why I want to order another one.”
“I’m sorry we can’t do that.”
“Oh. Why not?”
“Well it’s too expensive to ship one piece. We have to wait until the store is almost empty and then order a truckload—and as you see, the store is still very full.”
“Ok. I see. Thanks anyway.” I didn’t like the answer…but I couldn’t argue with it either. I would have done the same thing.

So my ideas about what a “good store” is have changed in recent days. It’s no longer the one with the best selection, or the best quality, or even the best prices. Any store I can walk into and keep my composure and my sanity has earned a huge mark of respect in my book. Of course, I realize that I am a guest in this culture, and this way of doing things makes perfect sense to them. Unfortunately, I’m also realizing just how far I have to go in truly adjusting to the culture that I previously thought I was beginning to get a real grasp of.

Ah…but such is the current adventure of this new life I’m living. :)