Edit: This post is about their behavior, which I'm questioning. Not "Why would you think 120$ is appropriate for a gold ring?" which seems to be very important for some.
So before our marriage a few years ago, we were checking out wedding bands in Manila's Chinatown, because apparently they are known for their gold shops. This was a suggestion by my wife's auntie, who had been purchasing a lot of gold there. She had been working in the Middle East, and everytime she went home, she would go there to buy gold jewelry as an "investment". Kinda understandable when you're in a place risking your bank account being wiped out all of a sudden.
So we went there, looked at the different shops her Aunt would purchase, etc. We specified solid gold wedding bands. Plain. No stones. but the rings they presented us didn't seem quite right. They were always light, almost like they were gold plated plastic. I have an 18 Karat gold ring from Europe, same size as those wedding bands, but it is waaay heavier. And there were no marks indicating purity or anything. If there are no markings, why did they tell "Sir this is 18 Karat", and "This is 22 Karat", etc. And they were all in the 20,000 peso range for a pair. We went to maybe 4-5 shops, and they were basically presenting the same thing. I rejected. Did not feel right.
Then her auntie brought us to the last store. Here, I found a pair. They were heavy, but still no marks indicating if it was gold. I asked if they were real, solid gold, and the staff told me "Yes Sir. All our jewelry is real gold". The price was 7500 pesos for a pair. Taking the weight and price into consideration, I bought them.
Now fast forward a year. I do some manual labor. Sometimes without gloves. I realized my wedding band has turned from "Gold" to steel color after being worn for just a year. Comparing it with my wife's who do not do manual labor, they do not look the same anymore. Hers is golden yellow, mine is like a stainless steel nut. So I was scammed.
Just trying to be helpful, I shared this discovery with the Auntie who showed us those places where she used to buy, and I told her that she might want to have her purchases checked out by some professionals, because our wedding bands are fake. She immediately walked away. She refuses to talk to me or look me in the eyes when we meet, and she blocked me on Facebook. She also told her relatives that I'm "rude" and that I think she is "stupid". I was just coming with a friendly suggestion.
It is like when I try to tell my wife something, and she always reply "I'm a college graduate, I'm not stupid.".
Am I saying things that are not culturally appropriate here, or is this how they roll the blinds down to escape reality?
TL;DR: Before our wedding, my wife’s auntie took us to several gold shops in Manila’s Chinatown to buy wedding bands, saying she had bought a lot of gold there herself. Most rings felt suspiciously light and had no purity markings, but one shop sold us a heavier pair for ₱7,500 and assured us they were real gold.
A year later, after normal wear and some manual labor, my ring turned from gold-colored to steel-colored, while my wife’s still looked yellow. So the rings were clearly fake or plated. I warned the auntie that she might want to have her own jewelry checked, since she had bought from those same places. Instead of taking it as a friendly warning, she got offended, stopped talking to me, blocked me on Facebook, and told relatives I was rude and implied she was stupid.