Thursday, April 16, 2009

The "genuine" antiques

"Anything they had, they made into antiques and sold. They buried them in the ground, made them rust and turned them into crumbly antiques. Our people's morals have gone really bad, mister. Yesterday, I caught a little boy trying to steal the beads from my donkey's harness. Once he got his hands on them he would bury them in the ground, you see, and then he was going to dig them up and pass them off for antiques. The girls of an age to get married and living at home have all turned into antique makers. If they get their hands on a piece of stone the size of your finger, they carve and chip it and turn out a piece of art you wouldn't believe. They make medals and ancient money out of donkey shoes." Don't they have any donkeys in your country? Page 103

The above passage epitomizes the main idea of a fad. I'm sure everyone has gone through a craze for something, if it's Pokemon, baseball cards, Family Guy or whatever. This is essentially the same thing. Locals swindle money from tourists, passing off common items as rare antiques dug up from the ground. What completely mystifies me is that tourists are dumb enough to actually believe the person they are buying from. Anybody who isn't a tourist and looks at the "antiques" isn't fooled. 

The other main point of this passage is how people have changed around the antiques fad. When at one point, the locals made an honest living off of farming the land, the locals found a shortcut way to make a lot of money. Now, most locals have stripped their homes to manufacture artifacts, a trade that now doesn't make a lot of money. The locals that thought they could make more money by making artifacts are worse off now than they were a couple of months ago. This proves the desire of people to have a quick and easy way to make money.

Andrew M.
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2 comments:

  1. Rachel LohApril 16, 2009 at 9:46 PM

    Andrew, I agree with you about how people have been trying to trick tourists into buying fake antiques and such. It would be better if locals started trying to find real artifacts around the area they live in, because not only are they going to earn more money, but they are helping archaeologists better understand the past.

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  2. jApril 17, 2009 at 10:44 AM

    I mostly agree with what you said, however I think that one of your comments is innacurate. You say that "anybody who isn't a tourist and looks at the 'antiques' isn't fooled". Actually, the 'antiques'are good enough fakes that they "even fooled famous archaeologists" (p 102, last paragraph). Also, are you sure that people regret switching from farming to 'antique'-making? The donkey dealer seems to suggest that their ploy has worked very well, and business seems to be booming.
    To add on to your main points of the passage, there is also the ironic aspect of the sentance, "Our people's morals have gone really bad, mister." I think that the author is making the point that despite the lack of morals of the peasants, the American's morals are even worse.

    ~Mika

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