Things That make You Say "Hmmmm."

So in the spring of 2007 I bought a stack of ten wicker bracelets at a temple in Cambodia for $5.00.  They are light, durable, and perfectly stack when it is bone-melting hot in the summer or provide texture to gold in the winter.  I've had wicker chairs that did not last five years, and my cheap bracelets are starting to think about fraying.  Last week, I realized that I really did not want to have to buy a ticket to go back to Cambodia to get $5.00 bracelets.

Viola!  Ask and you shall receive!  I found a full set, plus a slightly larger set, at a silent auction yesterday.  Violently growling at anyone who looked interested, I got them for $10.00!  This saved me $1,722!  Score! After the auction, the lady who donated them told me that she'd loved them when she bought them at a regional airport from a native vendor in Johannesburg South Africa.

Go figure- her "African" bracelets are identical to my "Cambodian" bracelets are identical to these in the photo which I've taken from a vintage store on Etsy.  Somewhere, probably Hong Kong, a sweatshop is churning out "indigenous" bracelets for vendors to sell to tourists.