Taoyuan Airport in Taipei, Taiwan

The bookstore at the departure lounge in Taipei airport was staffed by three people, a girl at the cash register, a guy stacking magazines, and another guy just walking around.  Your WoWasis correspondents noticed a high-design writing pen behind a locked glass door, selling for USD $150, and we wanted to see it, so asked the stacking guy to open the door for us. “Ask the register girl”, he said, and went back to stacking magazines. She was in the middle of a transaction, and had four additional people in queue.  We walked around to the other guy (who was standing around, doing nothing) and asked him to open the glass door so we could have a look. “Ask the register girl” he said.  We looked at the girl, who now had six people in queue.  We noticed that virtually everyone in queue had postcards to buy.  “Look” we told him, “the girl’s busy, and we’re just trying to look at your $150 pen. Can’t you see she’s busy?  We’re trying to buy your most expensive item, and she’s busy with postcards.  Why can’t you just open the door and make it easy for us?”  

By now, everyone in line (all English-speaking) is looking at us, and they’re cracking up, laughing, because the scene is so absurd.  The guy looks at the pen through the glass, now sees the price, and mumbles something about the fact that it would lower his status and he’d lose face by opening it up. “No thanks”, we said, “We wouldn’t want to bother you with a high-end item, when the three of you are so busy with your postcard business.”  Our buddy was at the head of the cashier line now, where the girl was trying to charge him $20 for a magazine that was clearly marked $12.50. Even though he clearly pointed out the price to her, she insisted on $20.  We suspected a bad case of congenital ignorance had afflicted the entire staff, and left the bookstore without making any purchases, advising the remaining people in line to carefully watch what they were being charged for postcards. We’re just happy that these people aren’t on OUR payroll.