Melanglang Bhuwana: Red Roses of Venice, Italy

Red Roses of San Marco Square, Venice, Italy

a Pink rose

A red rose

If someone gives you a red rose, you might think that you are a very special person. Flowers are symbol of beauty and love. During the Valentine day, people will give yellow roses to their lovers or friends as a symbol of eternal pure love. I love the beauty and the fragrant of roses. Yes, the red roses should give us an happy lovely feeling if it is given with pure love. However, not all roses give us good happy mood. This is what happened in Venice related to the red rose.

July 25, 2014, when we walked around at Plazza San Marco or Saint Mark's Square in Venice, a man gave my daughter a red rose, she took the red rose from him with a happy smile, but that sweet smile became a bitter look because she had to pay Euro 4 for that red rose. When she told him that she didn't want the rose, that man insisted that my daughter must pay him because she has already touched the rose. She gave that man 4 Euro with full of disappointment.

The red-roses man at the San Marco Plazza

Then, my daughter handed the rose to me because she couldn't stand the feeling of anger seeing the rose in her hand. I told her that the rose was not guilty we should just keep it. "Okay mom, you hold it, I am just too upset with that man. Venice is very interesting, I love the views here, but I don't like its people", my daughter mumbled.

We sat down for a while on the bank of the ocean thinking about what we should do next after our day has been ruined by a man of the rose-giver.

Well, I just entertained myself by thinking that whatever happened during our trip, it would be a great lesson for life. We started feeing relax and continued walking around the plaza, trying to forget about the man. But then, we saw a couple of being the targets of the man with roses. He gave the woman three stalks of red roses then he forced the man to pay 20 Euro for those 3 roses. They were mumbled of disappointments, I was not sure if they were happy with the roses or not.

Later on that day, at the same place, a woman with her girl-friend was given a rose by the rose-man, she received it with a wide smile then she was forced to pay. She didn't pay but instead she gave it to her girl-friend who walked with her. The girl-friend grabbed the rose from her and handed back to the man while yelling at him in the language I didn't understand. She got so mad at the man, and told him to "f--k-off". He walked away with a bitter look.

At that time, I thought that he deserved that mean treatment from that tough girl. We didn't feel so sorry for that man, I feel sorry for those people who became targets of the red-rose scam.