Am here in Bangkok to do dome consumer research and that means going to the houses of some consumers and talking to them. In the process, I have visited around 6 homes over the last couple of days but one of the houses that we went to today was worth writing about.
As usual we were expecting it to be the house of a well-off working woman, the kind that we are targeting for this research. The house was expected to be spacious, neat, elegant.
And it was indeed the house of a well-off working woman. She works and she is rich. But her house was different.
It was located in an extremely cramped lane which was overflowing with food stalls on either sides. The house was a tiny, double-storey building.
The tiny house had a very, very tiny living room brimming with stuff. I mean, STUFF STUFF and STUFF all around. These include
- 1 wooden long chair, several stools, 2 wooden cupboards, 1 mirror.
- A grandfather clock
- A fridge, TV, music system
- A cycle, mini bike and 5 helmets
- Around 10 pictures of the Thai King and Queen in various sizes
- One picture of a guy elegantly dressed in some 1940s English suit (the only person who has a photo in the living room other than royalty, so presumably a very important guy)
- 6 huge aluminium vessels (the kind that you find at wedding feast preparation)
- 30kg sugar sack
- A similar sack with some dried stuff in it
- 2 huge wicker baskets
- Beauty products - creams, lotions, oils, combs, make up etc
- A prayer altar
- A drying line with clothes on them
- Statues, trophies, curios, paintings, dolls, handicrafts, books, magazines, papers
- Etc. etc. etc.
What was also interesting was the number of people present during the interview. There were:
- The lady who was to be interviewed
- The moderator who interviews, the translator and couple of us from P&G
(The above are expected under the circumstances of course, but there were more)
- A guy who sat and watched the entire interview from the doorsteps of the house
- A boy who was dressing up for school
- A girl who was getting her hair curled at the only available mirror
- A lady who came in a bit late, went into an inner room, came out again, went in again, came out again, went in again, came out again carrying a towel, went in again, came out again dressed in different, went in again.
- A cute little boy who came in and greeted every single person in the room (including me) with folded hands and then disappeared
It was all one interesting experience. Obviously curiosity got the better of one of us and she asked what the sacks of sugar and the dried stuff were doing there. So turns out that the interviewee and her two sisters are into a Flower Tea business. Some kinda herbal tea and the business is flourishing. Better still, the three of them and their families live together in that ancestral house.
They live together out of choice, in that tiny, cramped, no-room-to-breathe space. They simply don't see the need to get separate places and they don't give two hoots to the modern concept of 'privacy'.
Have not seen a family like that for a while now. God bless them.
993 more to go.
I'm afraid coming into my room would give a similar impression...of it being full of so much STUFF, random crap mostly because I'm such a packrat, grr.
ReplyDeleteHaha... Oh well. But you have only yourself in that room? If yes, you still have room to go! :P
ReplyDelete