Saw a post elsewhere that referred to “old ladies at Costco stealing bags of chopped onions at the hot dog counter on the way out” as if it were a common occurrence:
I don’t live in Taiwan, but when visiting a convenience store in Taipei I noticed something similar: some scruffy and shady-looking character entered, purchased nothing, and was just hanging out around the hot dog stand. After a while, he grabbed a very thick wad of paper napkins (quite possibly all of them) and stuffed them into his bag. Continuing to circle the area, he then grabbed handfuls of other “free” items that I couldn’t quite see, maybe plastic forks or chopsticks or somesuch.
Is this a common sight in Taiwan, to see people abusing and hoarding the communal “free” items in supermarkets/convenience stores?
On the other end of the spectrum, I had to laugh at the stinginess of the convenience store clerk when it was my turn to checkout. I had bought some kind of microwavable fried noodles (yum) and the clerk had already put a fork in the bag for me. I then asked for a pair of chopsticks, whereupon he took the fork back, held up both the fork and the chopsticks in front of me, and shook the chopsticks at me to confirm that I was choosing the chopsticks. After nodding my assent, he then put the chopsticks in the bag and put the fork back in the rack. The clerk was apparently concerned about preserving his stock of disposable utensils.
