Don't You Have Any Donkeys In Your Country?

This was a very interesting story, once I got the sense of what was happening in the story. The best part of the story for me was when the peasant was trying to bargain with the American Rug Collector. Near the beginning of the story, the American implies that peasants or other poor people who have a very valuable rug do not understand the value of the rug. A non-valuable scrap of carpet can be viewed as a piece worth from 1 dollar to several thousand dollars. The American feels he is much more intelligent than the peasants from the Middle East.

The American tells his tour guide, the man who feels he is disgraced, that he sees a similar trend with poor villagers in foreign countries; the villagers try to fake rare and ancient items and sell them. For example, a peasant might break one of their own vases, bury it, dig it up, and pretend it's an ancient item while trying to sell it for a profitable amount of money. While the American Rug Collector finds the peasants mischievous, I thought, in the section of the reading where they were in the archaeological dig, that the villagers were crafty because they created artificial artifacts, where some of the artifacts were handcrafted (they could've just sold the fake artifacts as themselves, but probably the tourists would be more interested in ancient artifacts).

When the American met the donkey seller, he found his true match for competing/ bargaining for a valuable rug. The American sees a priceless rug on top of a donkey's back and figures he must have it. At the beginning of the conversation between the donkey seller, the American, and the Turkish tour guide, the peasant seemed against the idea that the villagers are selling all of their household items and giving away Turkish treasures to foreigners. In turn at the end of the story, the donkey seller undermines his own statement. He appears to be confuzed at why the American wants to buy his old, male, mangy donkey. The American tries to hide the fact that he wants to have the rug otherwise, as he as seen in many cases, the villager will try to sell the rug at a higher price than can be bargained. When the peasants sells the donkey, he takes the antique rug off of the donkey's back and walks away, knowing that the American wants the rug. After a while, the villager comes back to the men and the American assumes that he is coming back to give him the rug. Instead, the peasant taunts the American by only giving him a stake for stationing the donkey. The American and the Turkish tour guide are surprised by the new behavior of the villager. The peasant confirmed that he knew the American wanted the rug, not the donkey, by saying, "If you are goin to let that donkey loose, please don't take him a far ways off, so you won't wear yourselves out."

After all, I think that Americans or other high class people are ignorant and can be tricked out of their own statements. They can't always assume that peasants aren't intelligent and that the high class can't always bargain for a cheap price while they sell it for more. Also, I finally understood why the Turkish tour guide kept repeating, "I'm disgraced." He was part in the negotiation between the American and the donkey seller. He let the American buy a donkey stake for two thousand five hundred liras. In a way, it was a good thing that the Turkish tour guide persisted on buying the donkey for the American who needed to learn his lesson. What goes around comes around.