Today's field trip took us just next door to our hotel, into the Sohu.com headquarters. Sohu is basically like Yahoo! in the states - it's a sort of all-encompassing news, entertainment, search, whatever-other-crap-you-want source. This year, they also happen to be the designer of the Beijing Olympics website. And unlike CRI or CCTV, Sohu's not run by the government. We took a tour of the building and then had a presentation and Q&A, only this time the presenter opted to speak in Chinese, so the whole thing was interpreted by a student we brought along from Tsinghua. By the end, it was all pretty painful to sit through.
Once all that was over, a group of us headed to the Silk Market in two cabs, blasted for about an hour in mid-day heat and traffic. We all were a bit moody upon arrival, but once we got into the market, we were so overwhelmed that we forgot about the cab ride. The market is set up inside a huge building, with 6 or 7 total floors of rows and rows of tiny shops, selling everything from toys to silk gowns. We split up into small groups based on who had cell phones, so my friend Stephanie and I set out to see what there was to see. As we walked up and down the aisles, there was a constant barrage of shopkeepers yelling at us in broken English phrases, employing their perfectly practiced marketing techniques to lure us into their shops. Techniques before and during bargaining include, but are not limited to, the following:
1. Complementing appearances ("Pretty lady!" "Sexy lady!" "Beautiful hairstyle!")
2. Other forms of more subtle flattery (asking if you're shopping for a boyfriend/girlfriend)
3. Assessing what you're wearing and what's in your bags, then pulling out similar items in their shop
4. Trying to take advantage of noobs by starting out at a price that's marked up about 1000%
5. Claiming that their shop will give the "best price"
6. Telling you that you're getting the "Chinese" price
7. Telling you that you're getting a better price for being a student
8. Telling you that you're getting a good price because they like you
9. Telling you that the low price you set is "impossible" and would cause them to lose money (aka guilt-tripping)
10. Building a false sense of confidence by telling you that you're a very good bargainer
11. Playing good cop/bad cop with another shopkeeper
12. In the case of my two friends shopping together (one being fluent in Chinese), using another shopkeeper to block the Chinese-speaking shopper and only dealing with the American
Of course there are many more that I can't think of at the moment. And of course, there are also techniques used by shoppers, as I will outline in the following true story of my haggling.
There are these little cloisonne fish that I have a freakish obsession with, and they're all over Chinatown in Philly (for about 6 or 7 bucks), so I knew they'd be at the Silk Market. But cheaper.
At one point I was walking to the bathroom, and on the way, I spotted the fish at one of the shops. I stopped to take a quick look, and of course the shopkeeper immediately comes over and asks me how many I want and offers me a starting price of 10 yuan (a little over a dollar) each. His fish were small and really crappy, but the price still sounded surprisingly low. I told him I'd come back after I went to the bathroom, which he interpreted as me trying to get him to lower the price while walking away, so he started yelling for me to come back so we could work out a price. I informed him that I really did, in fact, need to go to the bathroom (they just call it the toilet here), and kept on walking.
Once I was done peeing in the hole in the floor, I started looking for another shop with the fish to see if I could find bigger and better quality ones. I stumbled upon a shop after not much searching, and asked the guy for his starting price. Sixty-five yuan. And thus, the first buyer strategy: "What? I can get it from the guy over there for 10!" I probably could have lied here and said the other shopkeeper started at 5 or something, but alas. So then the guy proceeds to tell me that the other shopkeeper's stuff was poor quality (true) and probably made of plastic (false). "No, I felt them," I said. "They're metal, and he started at 10." "Okay, okay," he says. And here we go. He asks me what my starting price is, I tell him 10 yuan each, and he objects. He asks me how many I want (five), and then punches a number into his little calculator to show me. It was something like 180 for all five, so I said absolutely not. He punches in a price a little bit lower, and I remind him that the other shopkeeper started at 10. A pause, and then the second buyer strategy: walk away.
So Stephanie and I start walking until we here him say "Okay, okay come back!" We comply, and start again. He must have gone down to 80 yuan or something and then said it was his final price. I said that 50 for 5 was my final price, so we walk away again. And again, he calls us back. We go through the motions and he goes down to 60. "Final price," he says. "No lower." I reiterate my 50, and we walk away a third time. As we were walking I quietly counted aloud to Stephanie: "Five...four...three...two..."
"Okay! Okay!" the guy yells. "Fifty!" Finally. So we walk back, I pick out the ones I want, get ready to get my money out, and then he says, "Sixty." Stephanie and I just look at each other, amused and a little bit confused. "No! You said 50," I tell him, and he offers 60 again. I noticed he had some pretty big fish too, so I decided to offer him 55 for four little ones and one big one. He refused, I offered again, and then at last we had a deal. All that for some little wiggle fish.
I paid up and another guy working at the shop placed the fish into the bag I got from an official Olympic store downstairs. Being the perceptive salesman he was, he grabbed a tray stashed on a hidden shelf and quietly proceeded to offer me some fake Olympic gear in the form of Fuwa (the official Olympic mascots) keychains. While the production of fake goods is rampant in China, the government promised to crack down on counterfeiting as a part of Beijing's bid for the 2008 Games. Thus it's pretty difficult to find fake (read: much cheaper) Olympic gear because China has been pretty serious about "upholding the integrity" of the Olympic logo. Turns out, though, you just need to know where to look and who to bargain with.
SO CUTE.
2 comments:
when nancy and i were bargaining with them, we talked in spanish so they wouldn't be able to understand.
that was an awesome story, you played it really well. you are a much better haggler than me.
awesome story kitty kat. honestly, I'm really glad we live in a country without bargaining because it makes me so uncomfortable even if it's worth it...!
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