Tough way to live
October 19th 2007 18:53
While we've been in Italy travelling around we've noticed a huge number of hawkers on the streets. Not Italians, of course. These guys are either Asian or African. The Asians seem to do the underground or Metro; the Africans go for the tourist spots.
The Asians sell quantities of toys, especially toys with a kind of adult interest to them. Or else they'll have several different sizes of camera stands, and that will be the entire stock. Some of them (in Milan, anyway) carry their stock round in cardboard cases, ready to folded up at a moment's notice if the police come by. We saw a group of Asians in the Metro one day ready to go on the train when the police found them. The police confiscated their entire stock, and sent them on their way.
The Africans seem to sell nothing but leather goods: belts and bags, things that again can be quickly lifted up and moved if the police turn up. What's strange is that there will be half a dozen men all selling the same thing all at the same tourist spot. You wonder how any of them can make any money, since leather bags and belts are hardly difficult to find on the streets of Italian cities. There are already stalls full of them, run by Italians.
If ever I thought that any of my jobs were hard work, I only need to think about these people, Asians and Africans. They spend the whole day standing, trying to persuade someone out of the thousands of passers-by to be interested in what they've got to sell. I'd imagine there are plenty of days when they go home with nothing. And how frustrating it must be for those in the middle of the group to see the guys at either end getting the first choice of customers all the time.
And what can they make out of these sales? It must be virtually nothing. They'd have to sell their entire stock each day to make any sort of living, and I'm certain they don't do this. Not even with the thousands of potential customers who go past.
What a life!
The Asians sell quantities of toys, especially toys with a kind of adult interest to them. Or else they'll have several different sizes of camera stands, and that will be the entire stock. Some of them (in Milan, anyway) carry their stock round in cardboard cases, ready to folded up at a moment's notice if the police come by. We saw a group of Asians in the Metro one day ready to go on the train when the police found them. The police confiscated their entire stock, and sent them on their way.
The Africans seem to sell nothing but leather goods: belts and bags, things that again can be quickly lifted up and moved if the police turn up. What's strange is that there will be half a dozen men all selling the same thing all at the same tourist spot. You wonder how any of them can make any money, since leather bags and belts are hardly difficult to find on the streets of Italian cities. There are already stalls full of them, run by Italians.
If ever I thought that any of my jobs were hard work, I only need to think about these people, Asians and Africans. They spend the whole day standing, trying to persuade someone out of the thousands of passers-by to be interested in what they've got to sell. I'd imagine there are plenty of days when they go home with nothing. And how frustrating it must be for those in the middle of the group to see the guys at either end getting the first choice of customers all the time.
And what can they make out of these sales? It must be virtually nothing. They'd have to sell their entire stock each day to make any sort of living, and I'm certain they don't do this. Not even with the thousands of potential customers who go past.
What a life!
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