This morning my collegue Pammy told me about buying a present to her flatmate for his birthday coming up next week. Pammy is from Shanghai and she is absolutely rich girl and a very generous and easy going girl. You know, the one I mentioned that went for facial surgery to make her face longer and smaller. She is rich but she never show off.
However, she is living with a pair of gay couple (Nikki and Ian) from China also. This couple are not rich but work very hard even as a full time students in Sydney. One thing about them is they love branded stuffs especially Prada. Nikki is a big fan of Prada and Pammy decided to buy him a gift from Prada and her budget is $300 dollars. There is another normal couple (Jessica and Jason) who are initially friends of the gay couple, Pammy met them while she moved in the apartment because J & J are regular visitor. Pammy has become really close to them and has joined their circle of friends who alot of them are gay also. But J & J are not rich at all and was still hunting for job. They definately not able to afford that expensive gift. There is issue now.
Last couple month Pammy was invited to another gay friend's birthday party name Gary, friend of the gay couple. Gary loves Prada also, so everyone contributed some money and share to buy a gift to him from Prada. Gary has another group of friends who bought him something from Tifanny, and another group of friends bought him something branded also. The party always have a gift time where everyone show off their gift and everyone bought branded one. From there, Nikki felt that Gary very proud and envy about him.
After Gary's birthday, it was Pammy's birthday and she got a huge long night party with alot of friends and everyone gave her branded things also. So now its Nikki's birthday coming up, J & J knows that Pammy going to buy Prada to Nikki but they couldn't afford but only a T shirt to Nikki worth about $50. J & J has issue with Pammy because they think Pammy just want to show off that she can buy such expensive present and it is going to make them feel bad during the party.
However Pammy isn't a person like that. What she is actually thinking is that she is close with Nikki and she has received similar level of gift from Nikki before, plus Pammy's mum is in Sydney for holiday during Pammy's surgery and Nikki allowed her mum to stay at the apartment and also accompany her mum while Pammy is at work. So Pammy thought this is just like an appreciation gift to Nikki. But because J & J knows what Pammy knew what they have talked about her, if Pammy is still going ahead to buy the Prada then means that Pammy definately want to compete with them and show off.
Pammy is feeling like "don't know what to do", she is asking me does she need to deal with this kind of people all the time when she goes back to Shanghai? She mentioned alot of chinese are like that. Buying branded stuff just to show that the thing on their bodies are expensive but its nothing special.
After I heard from Pammy I realised one thing that we chinese also said, "money hurts friendship" - "jing qian shang gan qing" which is really true. Another reason that Jessica and Jason didn't really want to buy expensive gift is that when it was their birthday no one gave them gift at all let alone branded or not branded. Pammy wanted to give Jessica a gift after she realised Jessica's birthday was coming up but Nikki refused to give her anything because she is not having a party to invite them to eat..so why bother to give a gift? But Jessica eventually did invited them to a restaurant for dinner...they had crabs !!! Nikki also said to Pammy if shes going to buy a gift to Jessice who is his friend initially, this act will make him feel bad because Pammy is the third party from them. So Pammy didn't get Jessica anything because didn't want Nikki to feel bad.
I felt like...just a present...does it really need to be a branded and expensive one? Or do you prefer useful present? Just because of the present things, people are not happy with each other and relationship is broken..worth it or not?
3 comments:
I think a celebration of some food or a little hand made gift would be more valuable than branded stuff. Although I wish to have one too. However, without one, it will not spoil my birthday mood. The peoples around you are more important!
Well, for a friendship, present, will definitely the last issue of everything. who cares if u buy gift or not.
The most important it, to let them know u cares about them, gift only depend on your ability.
That is so true my ladies !! I really never came across to such people like that because I know my friends won't mind if the gift isn't branded or expensive. I believe friendship is a gift already. I love to buy gift to someone when I know that person love the particular things and I found it. Its not only make him/she happy, I feeling happy to do so !!
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