Last night around dinnertime I figured I just had to get a new rice cooker. Ours stopped working two days ago, and a rice cooker is a necessary piece of kitchen equipment. We had a cheap, beat up one from some Asian market for about seventeen years. A few months ago I bought a new one -- not because the old one stopped working, but because it seemed like maybe we were due for a better-looking one.
It's the new one that stopped working. The old one is still around, but now it's become part of the camping equipment and I didn't want to dig it out. So I thought I'd pop up the street to Than Thao Market for a new one, presuming I could get another little cheap one.
The old Vietnamese (?) guy came over to help me right away, shouting, "Rice cooka? Rice cooka? How many cup? How many cup?"
The smallest ones were 5.5 cup capacity, larger than I really want or need. They had two of them. He pointed to one and said "uh... ninety five dolla!" He pointed to the other one and said "...this one betta! One hundred seven dolla! Betta!"
I said "wow, that's a lot of money!" I was surprised they were that expensive. Every thing else in that store is absurdly cheap.
Again he pointed to the $107 cooker and said "much betta," while pointing to the box, where it said "Made in Japan."
I nodded, but didn't say anything. I was trying to decide just how much I wanted a rice cooker -- enough to buy the wrong one? Again he pointed to the box and said, "betta... JAPAN!!"
I asked "why is that one better?"
He got wide-eyed and said "JAPAN!!"
He pointed to the cheaper one and said "Thai!" and shook his head.
I laughed and said, "you telling me they can't make good rice cookers in Thailand?"
He shook his head again and pointed to the other box. "JAPAN!!" he shouted.
So I took a leap and said I'd buy the one from Japan. Even though it's bigger and more expensive than I'd wanted.
But I got up to the cash register and realized that -- in my haste to rush out to buy a rice cooker -- I had left my wallet at home. I didn't have enough cash to buy either one of his rice cooka.
Japan!
