Street selling - a vanishing trade.

On Saturday, Sandy and I decided to take a walk around Sim Lim Square and wondered across the road to OG departmental store. Just outside the main entrance of OG, we saw a crowd gathered listening to a man in his 40s sell some type of medication.

Curious as we always are, we walked towards the crowd and had our ears and eyes focused on the man. He was selling some ointment supposedly made of some part of the snake. Pardon me as he was speaking in dialects and Mandarin, thus was a little difficult for me to catch the exact meaning of which part of the snake contributed to the small bottle of cream.

Street selling like this is hardly seen in Singapore nowadays. I guess its a vanishing trade now especially when the older generation are more educated and know the uses of the internet. I would never buy from a street vendor like this moreover, its medication. Its supposed to treat and not harm. I would rather get it off the shelf of my nearest pharmacy even if its miles away from where I stay.

I often get intrigued by people who sell their products in this manner, by ways of demonstration or convincing a crowd of the good points in one's product. A mixture of boasting and BS ( Bull shit) - that's how its sold. They have the ability to show confidence in their own products and not let others bring them down. Something many of our sales guys lack. The determination and drive, the confidence and of course, the guts.

Street selling is going to be gone in perhaps another 10 to 15 years as the generation takes a turn thus if you happen to see one around, go take a look and appreciate the words that come out from the salesman's mouth, it can be rather funny at times. I remembered one that told the crowd ' In this whole world, only I have the cure to cancer, the Americans don't have it, the Chinese don't have it too'. With such strong conviction, this guys is bound to be a billionaire soon if what he said was really true. Another gimmick but it sure is worth a laugh.