Chinese tourism officials are telling their compatriots not to shop at Galeries Lafayette in Paris.
That's because a newlywed couple from eastern China's Zhejiang Province was there on February 11 and were accused of using forged currency.
They went there to buy something at the posh retailer and the cashier claimed their bank note was counterfeit.
The couple was then taken to the police station where, according to a Xinhua story, the husband and wife "were questioned and searched insultingly".
However, a bank expert examined the note and proclaimed it was real.
After they were released, they were still determined to go back to the same store and again produced the note, where again the cashier refused to accept it.
As a result, Chinese tourism officials made pronouncements, saying people and tour groups traveling to Paris should not visit the store.
The president of Galeries Lafayette, Paul Delaoutre made a formal apology to the couple and promised them a new tour of the French capital. So far there's been no response.
He added the Chinese are the biggest foreign consumers in the upscale department store and all necessary measures would be taken to prevent this incident from happening again.
If the Chinese are the biggest spenders at LaFayette, one wonders where that money came from. Also, the personalities of very rich Chinese can be very demanding, if not downright crass. That may have been enough for Parisian staff to stick their noses in the air and refuse to serve them.
But we'll never know what really happened.
The "boycott" of Lafayette won't last long -- the Chinese still want their Louis Vuitton bags and Hermes scarfs.
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2 comments:
i heard about this incident already as it becomes a cnn news item. but the chinese should clean up their own act first, they have to re-establish their own image of self respect, trust and honesty on the world scene . again education, education and education. spend more money to educate the masses rather on the military. clean up corruption. i am always dismayed to learn while the rich chinese are shopping in paris we here raise funds to save the poor people in china who are suffering from the snow disaster. what an irony. what a shame.
This has nothing to do with the behavior,integrity, honesty...whatsoever of the Chinese outside the country. The couple were just being treated unfairly. And they are not necessarily really rich by shopping at Lafayette-certain things are cheaper there than in Beijing, if you want real LV. They are not fools. The real rich Chinese--those you should see on Ave Montaigne--are not always demanding or behaving badly either.
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