The Surreal World of Venezuela's Queues

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伊恩·潘內爾, 記者來鴻：荒誕離奇的排隊. BBC Chinese, Apr 24, 2015
www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/trad/fooc ... oc_venezuela_queues

, which is translated from

Ian Pannell, The Surreal World of Venezuela's Queues. In Venezuela many basic goods are in short supply. The government blames America and Europe, which it says are out to destroy its economy. Others say the government has brought the problems on itself. The BBC's Ian Pannell experienced the sometimes surreal art of extreme queuing in Caracas. BBC, Apr 20, 2015.
www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32349473

Quote:

(a) "Shoppers have also been given instructions. You can only buy scarce goods on certain days of the week depending on what number your ID card ends in. So, for example - if it ends in a zero or a one then you can stand in line on Monday. However that doesn't necessarily mean that the milk or soap you want to buy will be available on Monday.

"Another anomaly of what passes for a system is that often the shelves aren't empty at all. It's just the regulated goods that are in short supply. So if you want something else, and you have the money for one of these higher-priced goods, then you can often skip right past the queue and go straight into the shop.

"Often people join a queue without even knowing what's on sale. They get into line and then they ask the shopper in front of them what they're waiting for. It's highly likely that the person in front has done exactly the same thing with the shopper in front of them.

(b) "On this occasion there wasn't even anything to wait for. There'd been a rumour that the shop might be getting a delivery of something - no one knew what - but in the end there was nothing - just an empty loading bay.

Note:
(a) "The least one can expect from a creditworthy foreign correspondent is that he or she can have a decent stab at making sense of the world."

stab (n) = attempt
(b) "People are given time off work to queue."
(i) BBC translation: 上班時間請假去排隊
(ii) But according to the English original, it is not 請假, but a perk from employers (public or civilian).

(c) "The government regulates the price of these goods. It doesn't subsidise them - it tells the producer what they can charge."

translation: "政府控制這些商品的價格，直接下令給生產商規定價格。"  (The translation does not say there is no subsidy.)