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Expensive and cheap watch tells the same time

By C C Pung
Justice of Peace

No matter the price of your watch, it tells the same time.

It’s better to have USD15,000 in a 15-dollar handbag than having just 15 dollars in a bag worth USD15k.

What do you think?

Your answer speaks of your values. You, and the size of your bank accounts, determine if your values is right or warped.

Let’s get some perspective.

The annual global market of luxury handbags is about USD90 billion, about four times Sabah’s annual GDP.

The luxury watch industry is worth about USD150 billion annually and is estimated to grow 3x bigger by the end of this decade.

I never had an interest in neither (because I couldn’t afford them)  until TikTok opened my eyes to fetish consumerism that has given birth to a massive global second hand market.

Thanks to a certain Rosmah Mansor, a country bump like me got to know a certain handbag brand Hermes, and learn not to embarass myself by learning to pronounce it right.

I get to know that the likes of me live in a different universe from, say, that Singaporean socialite who, with her 200+ Hermes collection, holds the world record.

I’m amused. She’s talked about like a Nobel Prize scientist whose discovery changes humanity.

Other than corrupting young and glamour-chasing minds, I can’t see any utility in her.

There’s a TV show in Taiwan devoted to such conspicuous consumption, regularly parading women, and sometimes skirt-wearing men, and their Kelly,  Dior, GUCCI and Richard Mille (watches).

Then theres this blog hosted by a shop with branches in Dubai and London showing off, for example,  a rich toddler who, with her father’s credit card, bought about USD50k worth of bag and watch for her birthday.

Meanwhile, homelessness is growing in streets a few blocks from this London shop.

I’m therefore in agreement with the China government whose ‘Common Prosperity’ campaign seeks to address widening income disparity.

Yes, there are a lot of selfless and generous rich people in China who give abundantly.

But there are many, perhaps the majority, who’d rather move away from China and transfer their wealth together.

Here at home, I know of a person who proudly declared her recent visit to Singapore to pick up her Luis Vuitton bag with a five-figure price tag.

This same person grudges over giving of RM5 to a visibly destitute girl at a coffeeshop, and disparaging her as ‘cheat’.

And what about a ‘towkay’ flaunting an ostantatious RM100k gold Rolex King dismissively waving off a little boy selling ‘keropok’.’

“I give thousands to charity every year,” he huffed.

Elon Musk is spending billions to try to conquer Mars supposedly in aiding humanity.

Good.

But what about sparing some money for the real, existential problems of worsening homelessness crisis in the US, which Musk calls home.

It’s a paradox. Isn’t it? Deny ego. Be in touch with your conscience.

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