Hard selling hawkers disturb tourists<\/p>\n
By Rob Goodfellow<\/p>\n
DENPASAR (JP): Made is 26 years old. Like a thousand or so
\nother young men from Bali, Java and Madura, he works for the
\nKapten, an Indonesian Army Officer from East Java who holds one
\nof the official licenses to vend souvenirs on the streets of Kuta
\nand Legion. Each member of the Kapten's club pays Rp 15,000 to
\nsign up and Rp 3,000 to renew their membership each month. This
\narrangement gives young men like Made the opportunity to wear a
\nnumbered yellow shirt and sell watches or silver jewelry to one
\nof the thousands of bargain hunting visitors who ply the
\nbackstreets of Bali's tourist mecca every day.<\/p>\n
Like all members of the club, Made buys his box of goods, in
\nthis case cheap watches made in Surabaya, directly from the
\nKapten. Each watch, which some call \"visa watches\" because they
\nonly last until your holiday ends, costs Rp 15,000 (US$6.66).
\nAnything Made takes on top, minus the club fees, is his to keep.
\nOn a good day it can add up to Rp 30,000. On a bad day, nothing.<\/p>\n
Kuta's hawkers say trade is very slow this year. Frustration
\nhas led to the hard-sell, confrontation and abuse. Most tourists
\nlearn to ignore the hawkers, but there have been recent reports
\nof threats, pushing, pinching and punching as the heat, the
\ncrowds, the dust and the toxic clouds of vehicle exhaust fray the
\ntempers of both the hunter and the hunted.<\/p>\n
According to Denpasar-based anthropologist I. Gusti Made
\nSantikarma (Degung), what is happening on the streets of Kuta is
\na visible representation of social change in Bali. Degung
\nmaintains that, \"to the street hawkers each tourist seems like a
\nmillionaire. They are the ones who stay in expensive hotels. They
\nare the ones who pull out their bulging wallets with a year's
\nincome for an ordinary Indonesian wage laborer to pay for a
\ncheese and tomato jaffle. Why are you surprised that the street
\nsellers are starting to fight back? They are frustrated and
\nconfused. Life in Kuta has become very fast.<\/p>\n
\"Twenty years ago Legia was a coconut groove. Now it is
\nvirtually a city. Anyway, you have to remember it was the Aussies
\nwho taught the hawkers how to swear. And now their words have
\ncome back to haunt them,\" he explained.<\/p>\n
But it is more than a war of words. The Bali hard-sell takes
\nmany forms, but all demonstrate an appalling lack of cultural
\ninsight into the buying behavior of Western tourists.<\/p>\n
\"Hawkers cannot hide their contempt for us\", says Allison from
\nSydney who comes to Bali every year on holiday.<\/p>\n
\"I think that in their hearts they hate us for who we are and
\nwhat we represent. They see what we have and they want it. When
\nwe don't buy they become aggressive and abusive. Sometimes I feel
\nreally frightened,\" Rose from Melbourne explained. \"Why should I
\nwant to buy one of their cheap watches? I don't like what they
\nsell and I don't like the way they never leave you alone, even
\nwhen you are eating. We don't treat our overseas guests like
\nthat, why should I put up with their ignorant behavior,\" she
\nadded.<\/p>\n
The antipathy of tourists towards the hawkers is
\nunderstandable when you consider the techniques the hawkers
\nemploy. Hawkers will follow a tourist until \"they catch their
\neye.\" If possible they will learn their prey's name and then
\nnever stop using it. They will follow tourists into shops and
\nrestaurants. Unfortunately, the street salesmen operate on the
\nassumption that enough pressure will ultimately land a sale.<\/p>\n
After \"What's your name?\" comes the sales pitch. This starts
\noff hard and then gets harder. \"You buy, cheap price, what you
\nwant, you tell me your price\" it continues. The hawker becomes
\npushy, often grabbing the person's hand, often thrusting their
\nproduct right into their prey's face.<\/p>\n
\"You buy! Just 10,000!\" A refusal is greeted with angry words.
\nReciprocal aggression on the part of tourist is matched by
\nphysical abuse from the hawker. They push, spit on the ground and
\ncurse.<\/p>\n
All this betrays the most basic principle of sales -- there
\nmust be an interest and then a desire to buy. Hard-sell works
\nonly when subtle enough not to be recognized for what it really
\nis. The Kuta hawkers destroy the atmosphere in which the desire
\nto buy is created.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately the trend towards hard-sell is not isolated to
\nJalan Kuta hawkers. Rachel from Wollongong complains that she was
\nabused and humiliated by the staff of the taxi service at Ngurah
\nRai Airport. She described how one attendant hissed \"ten
\nthousand, ten thousand\" at her -- a price double the prescribe
\ntaxi fare to her destination. When Rachel said she wouldn't pay
\nthat amount, the employee responded by humiliating her in front
\nof a long line of other tourists, \"Then you can just walk lady --
\ngo, go!\"<\/p>\n
Experiences like this are now common place around Kuta. John,
\nan American from San Francisco, had his traveler's cheques stolen
\non the ferry from Lombok. When he respectfully asked an employee
\nof the local Wartel (telecommunications depot) to make a collect
\ncall to American Express, the response was a crude attempt to
\nextort money by insisting that the now broke visitor use their
\nservice.<\/p>\n
Like all forms of Bali hard-sell, John's experience is a
\nbetrayal of the basic spirit of generosity towards guests and a
\nserious miscalculation about how much foreign tourists are
\nprepared to tolerate.<\/p>\n
Made and three other hawkers a stalking their prey, an obese
\nand perspiring middle-aged Australian woman. \"Why don't you f---
\noff!\" her husband threatens, or I'll smack your f----- face in!\"<\/p>\n
A tourist bus full middle aged Japanese tourists roars by,
\nengulfing the players in a cloud of diesel exhaust. Made sees a
\nfamily of blonde, sunburned and heavily hair-beaded Germans on
\nthe other side of the road. Sensing a kill he pauses only long
\nenough to curse the fat woman's husband. Another tourist who will
\nmake a point to never buy anything as long as he lives from a
\nKuta street hawker.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/hard-selling-hawkers-disturb-tourists-1447893297",
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