Chinese New Year has never been meaningful because of the Chinese capitalists who make nice goodies but had to capitalise on the occasion and overprice their things.
No matter how well made it is by hand, does a local produce of pineapple tarts or kueh bangkit justify command prices of $10 - $15? Who and what are they to price their low manufactures even above the Danish Kjeldsen's cookies and the Scottish Johnny Walker shortbread?!
Are their goods that superior?
Let's not kid ourselves about this. You Chinese people really tend to love money too much, though there are some exceptions however not many. Life is not always about that I believe.
It is not a Chinese trait to love money. This is a capitalist trait.
Don't know why so many people love to associate money mindiness with race? Another popular victim is the Jewish people.....
All the world around people have been known to make quick profit out of opportunities. The Arabs forms the OPEC to fix the price of oil when the opportunity comes. Instrinsically does the oil worth that much......
In the west, the greedy bankers who only care about their own bank account took the opportunity to profit from lax credit conditions, which subsequently led to the subprime crisis.
Come on man! It is only some bloody pineapple tarts and some low end cny goodies u moron.
In the overall scheme of things, this is really nothing.
Come to think of it, who are you to decide these tarts are not worth their price? There is no evidence of an existing cartel that fix the price of the cny goodies being sold now and how are u going to measure the value of the labour put in to manufacturing these goodies such as to justify ur claims? A good is worth the price he/ she is willing to pay, and many people have indeed paid that kind of money for pineapple tarts or other cny goodies.