green beam city

I always find shopping at Market Village/Pacific Mall very stressful. There's something about these independent stores that just breeds inconvenience. They never accept credit, and there's always some price floor for using Debit.

A few weeks ago, I was heading to Market Village to get some Vitasoy for a picnic event. Vitasoy is perhaps the best drink for this occasion because it did not require me to bring a cooler, nor did it require me to bring cups (had I brought large drink containers).

I grabbed six six-packs: two malt, two lemon teas, and two regular soy milk. I happily realized that there's a sale for them for 3 for $9, which was a pretty awesome deal. As I proceeded to the check out, the cashier spoke to me in Mandarin, and I vaguely heard something about her putting my purchases on two separate transactions- my uncertainty was cleared up when I witnessed her only scanning the first three packs in.

I wasn't exactly sure why she did this, but I didn't really question-- especially as there's now a clear language barrier.

I didn't have enough cash on me to pay for both purchases (typical me), so I pulled out my bank card, hoping to pay by Debit. The cashier recognizes my intent to pay with Debit and replies something I didn't understand. I tried speaking to her in both Cantonese (my mother tongue) and English, but nothing worthwhile was exchanged between us.

I sensed the issue was the about the need to purchase over a certain amount in order to use debit, which I later found out on the sign that you need a purchase of $10 or more.

So here comes the dilemma, and it's better demonstrated with math.

3 packs = $9

Thus,
6 packs = $18

Pretty simple, right? So I tried to tell her that my purchase is clearly over $10, so I didn't get it. So now I'm awkwardly standing there not knowing what's going on. Luckily, after ten seconds of silence and nothingness, the nearby cashier told me in Cantonese that there's a 3-pack limit per customer.

I finally get it. But it still doesn't solve with my situation. I seem to have fallen through the cracks of the supermarket's policies: I need to spend more than $10 to pay via Debit, but I'm limited to buying just 3 packs per transaction.

So what did I do? I disappointingly left with no Vitasoy.

After having some time to absorb what happened, I find it quite sad that two Chinese-Canadians were not able to understand one another.