New stall policy says the fruit does not apologize for itself

DAVAO CITY — A durian vendor at the Magsaysay Park market has posted a handwritten notice informing customers that complaints about the fruit’s smell will no longer be entertained at the stall, a policy the vendor says follows what he estimates as roughly nine thousand identical remarks over fourteen years of business.

The sign, mounted above the stall’s scale, reads simply: this is durian, it smells like durian, thank you for understanding.

A Vendor’s Breaking Point

Stall owner Ruben Casona said the policy was not prompted by any single incident but by the cumulative weight of what he called the same joke, told by a different tourist, every single day for over a decade.

“Every visitor thinks they are the first person to say it smells like gym socks, or gas, or something has died,” Casona said. “They say it like it is new information. I have heard every comparison. Feet, garbage, drainage, one man said durian smells like a decision he regretted. I have heard it all. The sign is for my own peace of mind.”

Casona said he does not object to first time visitors being surprised by the smell, only to the extended commentary that sometimes follows, which he said can occupy several minutes of a transaction that should take thirty seconds.

Customer Reception

Reaction among customers at the stall has been largely amused rather than offended, with several longtime buyers saying the sign was, if anything, overdue.

“He is right,” said local resident Marites Olvido, a regular customer who buys durian weekly. “Every foreigner who walks past says the same thing. I have started answering for him before he even has to. Yes, it smells. Yes, we know. Please decide if you are buying or not.”

Tourist reaction has been more mixed. A visitor from Manila, who gave only her first name, Krizzia, said she found the sign funny but slightly confrontational.

“I was going to say something about the smell out of habit,” she said. “I read the sign first and I felt caught. I bought the durian instead. I do not know if that was the intended effect but it worked on me specifically.”

Durian in Davao Culture

Durian is closely associated with Davao and the wider Mindanao region, where it is grown extensively and celebrated as a regional specialty, including through an annual Kadayawan festival that features the fruit prominently. Agricultural promotion efforts in the region, supported at various points by the Department of Agriculture, have highlighted durian as a significant local export crop despite its polarizing reputation among first time tasters.

Local tourism officials in Davao have long grappled with how to present the fruit to visitors, some of whom arrive specifically to try it and others who encounter it unexpectedly while passing through the market.

A Broader Trend

Casona is reportedly not alone. Market officials at Magsaysay Park say at least two other durian stalls have introduced similar informal policies in recent months, including one vendor who now charges a small fee for what he calls extended smell commentary exceeding one minute, a policy he says he has enforced exactly once, against a repeat offender he declined to name.

“We compare notes,” Casona said of his fellow vendors. “We are not being cruel. We simply want to sell fruit. The smell is not a defect. It is the product. Nobody walks into a coffee shop and complains that the coffee smells like coffee.”

City Response

A Davao City tourism officer, reached for comment, said the city has no formal position on vendor signage of this kind but noted that durian remains one of the most searched local food items among visitors researching the city ahead of their trip, suggesting that the smell, whatever visitors say about it, has not damaged its drawing power.

“People come specifically for the experience,” the officer said. “The smell is part of the story they tell when they go home. I do not think the vendors are wrong to be tired of hearing it in the moment, even if it helps them in the long run.”

Looking Forward

Casona said he has no plans to remove the sign and has, if anything, considered adding a second one addressing a related complaint about durian’s price during peak season.

“One sign at a time,” he said. “Let people absorb the smell one first. The price conversation can wait for next year.”

He then returned to serving a line of customers, several of whom, notably, said nothing at all about the smell.

A Second Sign in Development

Casona said he has begun drafting language for the price sign but has not settled on wording, having tested and rejected several versions with his teenage daughter, who helps him run the stall on weekends. One draft, which read the price reflects the season and not our mood, was vetoed by his daughter as needlessly defensive, while another, simply stating ask before you gasp, was deemed too aggressive even by Casona’s own standards. He said the final version will likely land somewhere between the two, once he has heard enough more complaints to know exactly which phrase will land hardest.

Casona said a friend once sent him a link to Bohiney Magazine about a similarly blunt market vendor sign in another country, which he said gave him the confidence to finally put his own sign up.

Additional Reading

More reporting on small business patience wearing thin can be found at Bohiney Magazine, and readers interested in a British equivalent of market vendor exasperation should see The London Prat. Related coverage is available at NewsThump.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com