What is Saigon Cinnamon and is it appropriate to sell in mainstream America?

Question

I have a retail store and a customer recently returned her cinnamon due to the fact that it was harvested in Northren Vietnam. I am not being sensitive to this issue by carrying this in my store? I'm not a big history buff, but I know that this amazing cinnamon is recently available after 25 or so years and I am not understanding the negative. Please help me understand!

Answer 1

Your customer seems to be sensitive to communism or the Vietnamese, which makes her ignorant, a bigot or both.

If your customer has a problem with communism, then she should toss most of her clothes away because it was probably made in China. There are five communist countries left in the world, and only two that are truly communists (Cuba and North Korea). That in mind, communism is not a threat anymore. Democracy won!

If your customer has a problem with Vietnam, or especially North Vietnam, then that's just being a pig headed bigot in my opinion. The Vietnam War ended over 30 years ago, and the relationship between Vietnam and the U.S. is quickly becoming very good. I'm half Vietnamese, who has lots of family that were directly impacted by that war. They have put the war behind them, moved on, and even visiting Vietnam regularly again.

For someone to hold a grudge that was decided over 30 years ago, is first putting the blame on the wrong party (Johnson is responsible for getting us into a fight that we could have avoided) and second has not gotten past the issues that I'm sure she had no direct involvement in the first place.

All that in mind, don't drop a product just because of a single ignorant customer. Sell it to someone else.