IMAGINE having endured a long gruelling day at work as well as the unbearable heat while fasting. You battle the massive crowds at the Ramadan bazaar to get some quick grub for iftar (breaking fast), only to find out that you have been fleeced.
This was the experience of Facebook user Wa Fans who shared her unpleasant experience with a short video. In it, the obviously displeased poster had cut open several meat samosas purchased at a Ramadan bazaar which clearly showed nothing but folded dough inside each pastry.
“Don’t know if I’m short-sighted but there does not appear to be a morsel of meat inside these samosas,” she fumed. She further stated that traders who are selling food stuff at Ramadan bazaars have to be honest and not resort to such tactics.
With the escalating prices of food items at Ramadan bazaars a trending topic, such videos are hardly helping the cause of traders who are complaining of lacklustre sales.
The video has been viewed almost 945,000 times and with a whopping 6,200 comments at time of writing – a testament that this is an issue which resonates with many.
Here is a sample of those comments.
Quite a few netizens posited that this was a new type of samosa which had even more layers of samosa skins inside.
Quite a few – like the poster – questioned the integrity of these traders.
Many urged the poster to confront the seller with the unsatisfactory wares.
With one even suggesting that the poster kick up a fuss when there are lots of customers at the stall.
There were quite a few who surmised where the “meat” fitted into the description. One said that perhaps the samosas were merely “sprinkled with meat flavour”.
Another cheekily suggested that the lady had misread the signboard which probably said “samosa with popiah skin filling”!
Another said the poster would probably find meat if she used magnifying equipment.
Jokes aside, many found the lack of business ethics galling, especially during the fasting month.
With such complaints appearing almost on a daily basis, perhaps consumers need to exercise their power of boycott. This will remove unscrupulous traders from taking advantage of the fasting month by leveraging Ramadan bazaars as a place to turn a quick buck.
One netizen perhaps gave the best answer saying there was no need to highlight such videos anymore as it was already the third week of Ramadan, preferring instead to encourage honest traders to keep on doing the right thing.
The netizen also urged others to practice moderation during the fasting month and avoid over-indulging at these bazaars.
All said and done, it is indeed disappointing to see such posts which only underline that for some traders, the pursuit of profit overshadows all else. – April 4, 2024
