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2006-02-19
Grocery Shopping
Each weekend, for grocery shopping, I usually go to HEB for non-Chinese food and then Viethoa for Chinese food, both near the intersection of Beltway 8 and Beechnut.
In HEB, they seem to be starting this annoying practice of promoting their weekly sales item at the cashier. When the cashier asked me whether I would be interested, a lady, seemingly to be the manager, showed up from nowhere and censure the cashier (since I already have the product on sale waiting to be scanned). Then she walked all the way to the cashier to show her how she is first supposed to greet me before asking sales question, and demonstrated by asking me how I was doing. Twice.
Then in Viethoa, they usually need to check ID before accepting credit card payments. The cashier speaks English with a Vietnamese accent. When I showed her my ID and my credit card, she expressed little interest and gave me back both cards. So I said, in Cantonese, "Oh, she's too lazy to check my ID." Guess what? Yeah, the cashier replied in Cantonese, "you're buying stuff, not stealing stuff, so we don't need to check."
Apart from the amusing logic behind her reply, the story tells us to always assume Vietnamese-looking people speak Cantonese, as there had been a lot of Chinese people emigrated to Vietnam and then re-emigrated to the US.
In HEB, they seem to be starting this annoying practice of promoting their weekly sales item at the cashier. When the cashier asked me whether I would be interested, a lady, seemingly to be the manager, showed up from nowhere and censure the cashier (since I already have the product on sale waiting to be scanned). Then she walked all the way to the cashier to show her how she is first supposed to greet me before asking sales question, and demonstrated by asking me how I was doing. Twice.
Then in Viethoa, they usually need to check ID before accepting credit card payments. The cashier speaks English with a Vietnamese accent. When I showed her my ID and my credit card, she expressed little interest and gave me back both cards. So I said, in Cantonese, "Oh, she's too lazy to check my ID." Guess what? Yeah, the cashier replied in Cantonese, "you're buying stuff, not stealing stuff, so we don't need to check."
Apart from the amusing logic behind her reply, the story tells us to always assume Vietnamese-looking people speak Cantonese, as there had been a lot of Chinese people emigrated to Vietnam and then re-emigrated to the US.
