Door Prize

You May Already Be a Winner!

Door prizes (or “raffles,” as you might know them) are ubiquitous on island. All sorts of gatherings have door prizes as part of their proceedings, and the more cynical among us, namely me, might argue that it’s the way to get people to come to the gathering. In some cases, this might be true. My College had its end-of-year awards ceremony last week, and while I attest to the importance of such gatherings, I generally find them to be the academic equivalent of Valium. However, faculty, staff, and students did turn out in droves because there were door prizes, and the fact that Jamaican Grill catered the event didn’t hurt, either.

But there are lots of events that have door prizes attached that don’t necessarily need to. 5K runs, for instance, always conclude with door prizes, and my sense is that people would show up anyway to run the race and get their free t-shirt and banana and yogurt breakfast. Or the baptism I wrote about in the last entry; why did it have door prizes? Or my credit union’s open house and election of officers yesterday.

My theory is that there’s something about providing for others in Pacific cultures that has translated into the need to not simply feed guests (which people here do at the drop of a hat, and I mean feed seriously) but also to send them home with something. One of my students from Palau has written eloquently about the very complex culture of reciprocity there when families intermarry, and I am guessing that somehow in the modern, Westernized cultures of the Pacific, this has translated not into stone money but into door prizes.

And the things that get raffled off! Prizes tend to be very high quality. Some are purely practical, like a gift certificate for free gas at one of the stations on island; with gas currently running $2.60 to $2.70 a gallon, this is nothing to sneeze at. Or gift certificates to Payless Supermakets, another prize I’d be happy to claim. Then come to fun prizes: brunch for two at one of the many resorts on island. A free day at Mandara Day Spa. An overnight stay at one of the island resorts, or at one of the islands of the Northern Marianas, like Saipan, along with a plane ticket there. Jewelry from one of the jewelers on island. The grand prize at any 5K run is almost invariably airline tickets -- roundtrip, to anywhere in Asia, often for two. They are worth staying around for.

So far I’ve won twice, which means my winning average is 1 in 3, as I’ve run six races thus far. This seems to me to be an extremely high average, so I assume that I will not win again until, say, 2008. My first prize was brunch for two at Soryu, the Japanese restaurant in the Pacific Islands Club. I of course took my running partner Lisa, figuring that anybody who gets up at 5 in the morning to run a race deserves to have brunch, and given that the place was overrun with Japanese tourists, I can attest to the authenticity of the food. (Try the soba noodles if you go.) The second prize is a gift certificate to one of the garden centers on island, and I hope to acquire a Japanese lantern.

I think that everything should have door prizes. Elections? People would vote if you gave them a shot at a day of whiling away the hours at a spa. Weddings? What would you rather have, a box of candy from the wedding table or a VCR? Funerals? They’d be much more fun if there were door prizes. (You could raffle off the deceased person’s stuff, thus saving everybody from the muss and bother of a will.)

Just a thought.

Comments

[Ron]

Rob, I agree with raffle prizes for everything but
funerals. If you dispose of the deceased possesions
that way, there would be no estate sales and if would
put resalers, like me, out of business.

[Rob Kellerman]

Point taken, Ron. I retract the statement and encourage all readers to head down to Detroit's Cass Corridor and visit Ron at Showcase Collectibles -- the best collectible store in the city, with the finest "junque" around.