The new racing season will start on 13 Sep 2009, and HKJC is sending out the gift for this year.
The first to arrive is a Cartier key ring. My first impression was "another expensive useless item". The only useful part is the ring itself. I did a quick check on the Internet - this "Bicolour Cantos de Cartier Key Ring" is retailed at US$280! Without the Cartier logo, it would be US$5.
This little piece remains me of 2 stories.
About 7 or 8 years ago, before the dot com crash, the economy was good, stock market up, and people were feeling wealthy. At the time, there are many stories of high school drop outs became real estate agents and earning HK$10 million a year. In one of such stories, one young agent was so flushed with cash that she had no idea how to spend them. She went to one of these big brand shops but had no idea what to buy - because she already owned most of the stuff there. So at the end she gobbled up even the little key chains retailed at over HK$1500!
The second story happened recently. A young teenage girl was found "compensated dating" (a nice name for prostituting herself) simply because she wanted a luxury brand phone strap that cost HK$4000+.