I am not a buying agent

By Zhang Hui Source:Global Times Published: 2014-11-20 18:38:01



Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

After I accidentally leaked the fact I would be visiting Hong Kong to my friends and relatives, it was less than a minute before I was asked to buy them all kinds of stuff there, ranging from cosmetics to medicine, as well as adult clothing and baby products. All I wanted to say was that I am not some kind of "buying agent," so give me a break!

I had enough of it last year when I was studying in Hong Kong. I had to go shopping every weekend and buy all those things, and then mail them back to the Chinese mainland. Worse still, I had to carry a huge bag of stuff to Shenzhen, a neighboring mainland city, to deliver them there, because Hong Kong has strict delivery rules and certain things were either banned from being mailed or required a huge amount of taxes.

I'm not the only one who knows what it's like to constantly commute between school and shopping malls. The majority of my schoolmates from the Chinese mainland were somehow forced to be unprofessional buying agents for their mainland friends and relatives. Friends who studied in other countries, such as the US and Britain, were also forced to buy things for people back in China.

Buying things for people on the Chinese mainland was not merely an annoyance, sometimes, I risked being caught and forbidden from entering Hong Kong.

Some students who volunteer to be buying agents know they have to take risks, and some of them have even figured out how to minimize them, but for most students like me, the risks were too high. There are many reasons why this have become this way.

Confucius taught Chinese people filial piety and brotherly love for friends, so how could I turn down my dear elders and my "brothers and sisters" when they asked me something that was not beyond my capability?

In addition, Chinese people have lost trust in almost everything that was made in China. Too many food scandals, involving everything from baby formula to gutter oil, have swept the Chinese mainland, and then the scandals moved on to drugs and clothes. Not to mention the contaminated drinking water and increasingly severe air pollution. All of these scared Chinese people and made them turn to foreign brands, as there's not too much left uncontaminated on the Chinese mainland.

Lastly, widely used social media platforms such as Weibo and WeChat provide an easy communication channel for people coming in and out of China, and also provide opportunities for foreign brands luring Chinese consumers.

When any of my friends wanted something in Hong Kong, all they did was send me a message on WeChat or Weibo. They knew for sure I would see it and had to reply to them. 

Thousands of years of Chinese culture won't change overnight, the pollution won't disappear in one day, and the current situation of students acting as buying agents won't change in the foreseeable future. The good news is I am learning to say no to their requests without hurting them too much. 

This article was published on the Global Times Metropolitan section Two Cents page, a space for reader submissions, including opinion, humor and satire. The ideas expressed are those of the author alone, and do not represent the position of the Global Times.

Posted in: Twocents-Opinion

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