Comparing the city of San Francisco to my own home of Littleton, PA (not real town name, of course) is hard to do, because there aren't very many similarities. San Francisco is huge, with shops of designer products and clothes, and an involved public transportation system of cable cars, BART, buses, and taxis. In Littleton, there is no public transportation (except for school buses) and if you want to go shopping, you either need to find what you need in a dollar store or drive 40 minutes and hope a neighboring "city" will have what you need.
And this is the point of differences I'm going to focus on for this blog: the shopping. I like shopping, don't get me wrong, but this place is crazy with the amount of shops available. It's not unlikely to see multiple Starbucks and multiple locations for the same store. And most of these shops are of the expensive, designer variety.
This is where the real culture shock sets in. People here are obviously richer than the townsfolk back home. Most people who enter these fancy shops think of minimum wage as a thing of the past for them--that is, if they ever had a job that paid minimum wage. I looked at some prices of things and I was just shocked. $48 for a pair of sunglasses. $100 for a nice scarf. $600 for a pair of shoes on clearance. It's just mad to me.
And I wonder, who buys these things? Who thinks nothing of buying a $100 scarf?
Shopping, as many of us know already, is practically a sport for Americans. It's more a pasttime here than in any other country (let's not even begin to discuss what other countries think of that!)
Now, in my little mathematically challenged mind I break up prices in regard to minimum wage, which I think is now $7 in PA but I'll shorten it to $5 for easy math. Those $48 sunglasses would require over nine hours of work at roughly $5. I bought Dollar General sunglasses for $3, and I thought they were more stylish than the crap showcased in these ritzy stores. I break up things accordingly that way, but of course this math doesn't factor in a rich person's paycheck. To Donald Trump, that $100 scarf may be a gift to a hardly-known and less cared about relative. He wouldn't bat an eyelash at that figure, but to someone else, that $100 could have gone towards a weeks' worth of food.
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Since alot of celebs live there and many movies are started there is why the prices are so high. Also the minimum wage could be like 10 an hour. People must make more money there I guess.
I enjoy shopping but I don't enjoy the rude people that try to kill you while you are trying to do so. I would never buy sun glasses for $600 let alone 100. Some things are worth buying when they are expensive. For example Victoria Secret their sweat pants may be for 40 dollars for one pair (that is expensive to me lol) but they will last you about 10 years before even showing signs of wear. My mom had clothes for 16 years from Victoria secret that lasted.
This place sounds expensive and I believe it would be a price shock for me as well...
http://www.progressiveu.org/032913-lupus-uncureable-wait-what
Love comments? I do too!
The irony is that the people I know who would buy a $100 scarf would get tired of that scarf long before 10 years had gone by, then replace it with the "latest" version of the same scarf, shelling out another $100 for it. It's insanity, I say, insanity!
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You must be the change you wish to see in the world -- Mahatma Ghandi
Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. --Mahatma Gandhi
My Blog: http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kablock
And that can be the same for shoes, jewelery, hats, katana swords...
Pretty ridiculous huh?
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Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
I completely agree with you. $100 for any single item that isn't diamond encrusted or necessary for daily existence seems completely ridiculous to me. And a lot of the times I can't tell the difference between the ridiculously expensive variety and the cheaper one except for the logo. It always shocks me the lengths people will go for that logo, though...
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You must be the change you wish to see in the world -- Mahatma Ghandi
Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. --Mahatma Gandhi
My Blog: http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kablock
All truths are easy to understand once discovered; The point is to discover them ~Galileo
that $100 could have gone towards a weeks' worth of food.
TOO true! that's a MONTH'S worth of groceries for me!!
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Your Tongue is a Rudder; It Steers the Whole Ship, Sends Your Words Past Your Lips or Keeps Them Safe Behind Your Teeth... [Brand New]
Then you really see how crazy these prices are!
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Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
I think it's quite interesting that you bring this up. I remember last year in English class we had to write a one page satire on some aspect of society and this girl did a sport's cast about a shopping spree of who could spend more money. That's really how society is. And living in a big town I can tell you that I can think of the locations of at least 10 Starbucks in 10 miles. It's insane. Wait until the holiday shopping season sets in...around here your lucky to even find a parking spot at Walmart at that time of year.
Do you find it odd that you are not as strong as you once thought?
That satire project sounds very interesting. It's cool to hear of things that make class fun for everyone, and still include some learning.
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Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
Oh it was quite interesting. I love things like that too, because it's not just subject learning that takes place. Like in the example I brought up, yes we learned about satire, but we were also forced to look at societal values.
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Do you find it odd that you are not as strong as you once thought?