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Bargaining in Beijing Is a Full-Contact Sport

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tetrahedron
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Joined: Sep 29, 2004
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Posted: Aug 08, 2007 - 05:06 AM
Post subject: Bargaining in Beijing Is a Full-Contact Sport

Bargaining in Beijing Is a Full-Contact Sport

Alan Paul

Some people love shopping in Beijing's markets, huge, multi-floor buildings filled with stalls selling everything from counterfeit Western name brands to custom-made suits. I am not one of them.

While it can be fun and exhilarating, I find the experience tense, frustrating and exhausting -- especially at the giant Hangqiao (pearl), Yaxiu and Silk Markets, three of the city's largest, which all lack the charm of smaller, outdoor markets found all over the world, including China's interior. You can't browse because of the aggressive salespeople -- especially if you're Western -- and you have to negotiate the price of everything. If you get tired or lose even a little will, you immediately become a guppie in a shark-filled pool.

It's gotten easier to bargain as my Chinese has improved and I've become savvier, but I still largely avoid the markets. I don't need to enter them for staple products and other shopping options have improved since we arrived in Beijing. I usually visit markets only when dragged by visitors anxious to find a bargain.

To test just how much better my skills have become and how much I was taken advantage of compared with a native, I ventured to the giant Silk Market with Sue Feng, a Chinese Wall Street Journal researcher. We shopped separately, each armed with 500 renminbi (about $66) and a shopping list: a pearl bracelet; a 'Polo' shirt; a silk wine bottle decoration; a child's silk dress; a silk scarf; and a kids' 'North Face' jacket.

The markets are filled with counterfeit goods from Versace overcoats to Nike shoes, products I disapprove of though I can't say I always avoid. Gucci, Chanel and other major brands have successfully sued the Silk Market's landlord, with whom they have subsequently tried to cooperate to bring the problem under control. They have had almost no success.

Joe Simone, a friend and attorney for many of the brands, says a market like this would be dealt with by the police in most other countries, but in China they are leaving enforcement to 'administrative authorities' who lack the power to investigate and arrest violators.

I certainly didn't note any improvement in this area since my first trip to China two and a half years ago when I visited Yaxiu with Andrew, a Chinese American friend who speaks fluent Mandarin. I was bewildered by the place but also fascinated by the immensity, the intensity and the huge range of products available. Nothing seemed impossible, but nothing quite seemed possible either.

Shopping at these places is a full-contact sport, with vendors screaming 'good price for you' and sometimes actually grabbing passersby and yanking them into their stalls. I let Andrew lead the way. The starting prices were twice as much for me as for him, and I enjoyed watching him deftly handle a wide range of different sales techniques. Sometimes they seemed on the verge of throwing punches, other times a young lady flirted heavily, stroking Andrew's forearm and batting her eyelashes. None of this could surprise me now.

Sue and I bid farewell near a huge banner preaching against selling fake items, in both English and Chinese. It read, 'Oppose to purchasing merchandise without authorization. Create a rational and fine shopping environment.' There were thousands of fake goods a stone's throw away. We were also just beside the booth selling official Olympics merchandise -- the one thing you rarely see counterfeited in Beijing, an enforcement often used to illustrate that the authorities can have an impact when they make the effort. One vendor told me that fake Olympics goods are regularly confiscated.

I should probably have spoken only English to really gauge the differences between a foreigner's and a native's shopping experience, but I couldn't bring myself to abandon my best defense against the wolves -- my hard-earned language skills. I decided to be particularly aggressive, making lowball bids before salespeople could set artificially high starting points.

Rather than negotiating with the woman who offered me a scarf for 150 renminbi, I approached two young women at another stall and, speaking Chinese, offered 20. They laughed and said 60. I said 30. They said 40. 'This is the usual foreigner starting price,' one said, pulling back a scarf to reveal a 1,676 renminbi ($223) price tag. No one would pay that, I insisted. They smiled: 'Someone does every day.'

I asked who gets to keep the money if they make such an absurd sale. They answered in unison: 'laoban' (boss). Joe had told me that many of these places are really exporters so I asked if I could buy 10,000 scarves. They said sure and took out a phone to call their boss. I said maybe next time and bid adieu.

When I picked up a pretty floral print silk dress, appropriately sized for my four-year-old daughter, the saleslady beat me to the punch, asking for 320 renminbi. I said 20. She said 150. I stuck to my guns and she offered 50. I got it for 30. Again, I spoke only Chinese. Handing me the dress, the salesgirl said, in English, 'You tough.'

These were good buys, which gave me an insurmountable lead over Sue, who paid 100 for a finer scarf, half the asking price. She paid 70 for the dress, down from 120. I had an advantage, having purchased many of these dresses before.

We both got pearl bracelets for 25, though hers included three strands and mine just one. I have no way of knowing the quality of either. The saleslady took out a knife to scratch powder off mine -- proof, she insisted, that the pearls were natural. Sue bargained down from 50, while I accepted what sounded like a fair price and the 'no bargaining' line that came with it.

Sue haggled the silk wine bottle decoration from 25 to 15, while I paid 25, down from 45. Our deals were surprisingly similar for the 'North Face' jackets, the first item I felt guilty buying; mine started at 650 and ended at 160. Hers went from 590 to 150. She negotiated an Oxford-style Polo shirt from 120 to 60. I took my short-sleeved Polo shirt down from 100 to 80, flattered by the saleslady's complimenting my Chinese and too tired to put up much of a fight.

Final tally: I spent 380 renminbi ($51) to her 440 ($59). She was a bit embarrassed, and I felt more relief than joy; maybe I'm not always getting ripped off after all. The anxiety I felt was not merely a matter of being a stranger in a strange land.

Over lunch, Sue related an unpleasant experience she had while waiting for me to finish up. She felt forced to buy a silk shirt she didn't want. After bargaining from 300 to 80, she tried to leave, only to have her exit blocked. The story reminded me of a recent visit to a local market in search of workout clothes. It is less intense and more pleasant than its larger cousins -- or so I thought. I bargained one woman down from 200 to 50 renminbi (about $6.50) then noticed that the stall next door had shorts I preferred. I went over and made the purchase. As I left, the first saleslady grabbed my arm and said, in English, 'You a crazy man! You said you buy shirt from me, short from her.'

'No, I didn't.' I started prying her fingers off my arm, but she squeezed tighter to deliver a final message: 'I hope you die in a car crash.' It was nasty, vicious and unnervingly specific.

Sue told me that she had finally coughed up 80 for the silk shirt, then felt violated and wondered why she had paid the money. It's hard to leave the markets feeling unsullied; I'm not sure if I feel better or worse that this is equally true for Chinese natives.

currychook

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Posted: Aug 08, 2007 - 09:52 AM

yea, you got to develop thick skins the width of the Great Wall to get pass those vendors. Shopping should be an enjoyable experience- always go in with the attitude that you can take it or leave it- never feel forced to buy anything. Still, you never quite leave with a totally good experience. Best to go on a slow day or at closing time when store vendors are more anxious to make a buck at any price.
Good, honest article- tell it like it is!

mrpango

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Posted: Aug 08, 2007 - 05:08 PM

Well, shopping is indeed a crazy experience in China.

Even in the shopping malls - my fiancee (who is Hangzhounese) really gets peed off when we go to a store, pick the right size (the same size that she always gets) hand it to the sales person to go and try it on for them to say 'oh, you sure you can fit this size, I think the large size is better'. This happens much too often, and then the mrs just grabs me and we leave. They don't seem to grasp the concept of 'the customer is always right'.

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*CheerLeader*Mao
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Posted: Aug 08, 2007 - 07:34 PM

**** this guy is a sh1tty writer. That story could have been 1/5 the length. Is this some lame blog or something.

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tetrahedron
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Posted: Aug 09, 2007 - 05:19 AM

*CheerLeader*Mao wrote:

Is this some lame blog or something.

Actually he makes his living by writing. The article is from WSJ online edition published on Aug 3rd. He also hosts a forum that is a bit similar to Shanghaiexpat where he posted various topics related to expatriate life in China. http://forums.wsj.com/viewforum.php?f=11&sid=95e4d3acbb5fbda6580f741dd 388c5da

He was, before relocated to China with his wife, an senior editor for Guitar World and also wrote for a basketball magazine Slam.

Some of his articles were translated and appeared on Chinese websites and magazines. 　

Perhaps he had to think about those readers who are not familiar with China that resulted in the long article?

Last edited by tetrahedron on Aug 09, 2007 - 05:34 AM; edited 1 time in total

tetrahedron
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Posted: Aug 09, 2007 - 05:25 AM

More from him:

Expat Life: A One-Way Ticket To a New Life in China

By Alan Paul

From The Wall Street Journal Online

Please don't call me a trailing spouse. It's a horrible term -- sexist and demeaning when applied to a woman and downright emasculating when slapped on a man. But lingo is lingo and facts are facts. And the fact is, in expat land, I am a trailing spouse. I became one the moment I put my career on ice, packed up the house and three kids in suburban New Jersey and moved to Beijing in support of my wife and her new job.

This isn't all new to me. I haven't set foot in an office for nearly 10 years, working from home as a magazine writer and editor. As our three children's primary caregiver I am used to being the only adult male in a room, having chaperoned field trips, assisted in kindergarten classes and shown up for countless midday assemblies. Still, the dividing line is much sharper here. After all, we have uprooted our family and moved to the other side of the world for someone's job. And it's not mine.

While my wife, Rebecca, has long had the job that parents like to brag about, as a rising editor at The Wall Street Journal, I'm the one who has managed to live out the widespread male fantasy of getting paid for a state of perpetual adolescence. As a senior writer for Guitar World and the basketball magazine Slam, I was paid to write the kinds of things that most men call procrastination: Who are the five greatest power forwards of all time? Name rock guitar's 10 greatest riffs. Why isn't Lynyrd Skynyrd in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? When it was time to leave home and go to work, my destinations were press-row seats at NBA games or New York rock shows. It's not a life I could easily abandon.

Yet when Rebecca casually mentioned to a friend last December that the Journal's China Bureau Chief job was posted, I urged her to go for it. She was shocked. I had, after all, nipped in the bud talk of moving to Chicago, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, hesitant to give up my gigs and support system to head off into the great unknown. "But this is different," I explained. "It's China!"

Six months later, worn out and frazzled from preparing to pull up stakes, I found myself asking my doctor for a sleeping-pill prescription to help me get some rest. A simple thought ran through my head: "Me and my big mouth."

For months, I had wondered what it would feel like to board a plane with a one-way ticket to Beijing. When the moment came last August it felt like a huge exhale. A tremendous sense of relief washed over me, knowing that our 15 suitcases were secure in the cargo bin, life as I knew it was fading in the rearview mirror and adventures were looming ahead. Whatever difficulties the transition posed had to be a piece of cake compared to the painstaking, numbing process of erasing our existence in Maplewood, N.J., and emptying the house we had lived in for seven years.

Moving to China with three kids -- Jacob, 7, Eli, 5 and Anna, 2 -- seemed so wild and ambitious back in Maplewood. Then we arrived here -- to the Western style "villa" my wife's company owns in a tree-lined, European style gated housing compound called Beijing Riviera -- and felt anything but exotic. Standing on the playground watching my kids run around, I was surrounded by dozens of moms from around the world. One of the first questions people ask upon meeting one another is, "Where was your last posting?" We were not only fresh off the boat, but fresh on the scene in a larger sense. Our most exotic traits were the reversal of gender rules and our straight-out-of-the-burbs background.

I met an 8-year-old girl whose mother was Indian and father Dutch but who had never lived anywhere but Beijing. Eli became good friends with a 5-year-old British girl with a perfect English accent who was born and raised in Hong Kong. At a school assembly, the principal asked how many kids spoke four languages and about 20% raised their hands.

Fellow expats were not the only ones not quite sure what to make of me. The company driver had to get used to not only having a lady boss, but figuring out how to deal with a male tai tai (lady of the house). Like most people in his position, Mr. D is a bit of a heavy. He is also indisputably loyal, officious and efficient. He has driven us around town to perform the many bureaucratic errands required to live here -- processing visas, getting press credentials, applying for driver's licenses. He also provides invaluable assistance in many of these tasks.

On one such errand, Mr. D's view of me was stood on its head. I am credentialed and sanctioned as the Beijing Bureau Chief for Slam magazine. We waited in line at the massive, bustling government office where visas are issued for Chinese and foreigners alike. When it was my turn, the policeman processing my paperwork looked up from his stamping to say, "I very like Slam."

Next came a fairly intense, in-depth basketball discussion. He wanted to know who I thought was the best Chinese basketball player, "after Yao Ming." Mr. D watched and listened in amazement, then turned to the officer and asked him something in Chinese. The two had an animated chat, and Mr. D looked at me and smiled and laughed. Afterward, something seemed to change in the way he regarded me.

While my wife went off to work, burying herself in a demanding new position, the kids were adapting to life halfway around the world with remarkable ease, nonchalantly starting at a British-run school complete with uniforms. Frankly, they inspired me to keep moving forward and never look back, as I walked to Starbucks everyday, laptop bag slung across my shoulder, grateful for the free wireless service as I waited for my DSL hookup to be activated. It didn't take long to sell a story on bike riding through crowded, downtown Beijing and start interviewing the stars of the Chinese national basketball team, in search of the next Yao. You know -- getting paid for the kind of stuff most people call procrastination.

tetrahedron
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Joined: Sep 29, 2004
Posts: 66

Posted: Aug 09, 2007 - 05:30 AM

The Expat Life: When You
Are the Big Attraction at the Zoo

By Alan Paul

From The Wall Street Journal Online

An essential element of living abroad is growing accustomed to feeling like a foreigner in a foreign land. It can be one of the most exasperating but ultimately fulfilling parts of the experience.

One of the first outings we made after our arrival in China was a trip to the Beijing Zoo. Despite some warnings that the animals were not housed in the most modern conditions, we figured we should go see some of China's famous panda bears. After a long ride in which we were fairly certain we were lost and the driver did not understand our destination, the taxi stopped in front of a set of large, iron gates. The zoo is located on the Western fringe of town and there were virtually no other Westerners in sight. But the entrance was crowded and simply getting to the ticket counter was an ordeal.

The moment we got out of the car, we were rushed by a swarm of vendors, all of them aggressively thrusting their wares into our hands. Five-year-old Eli kept thinking people were giving him gifts, so he took the Power Rangers balloon; he took the bottle of water; he took the ladybug whistle. We had to take each of them out of his hand and give them back. The scent of such fresh meat was irresistible to the vendors, so we had to step up our declarations of "bu yao" which literally means "don't want" but basically means "get away."

We pushed our way through the crowd and took our place at the end of a long line. When we made it to the window we had to decide between the very cheap 12-yuan ($1.50) zoo-only ticket or the 100-yuan aquarium-included ticket. Kids were half-price either way. We opted for the latter. As I paid, I noticed a sign saying "Free under 150 cm." I had no idea how tall Eli was and couldn't fathom trying to ask so I paid for four and moved on.

Inside the zoo, we found ourselves in a surprisingly quiet, peaceful, park-like setting, which easily absorbed the large crowd. Searching for a map, we followed the signs to the tourist office, where no one spoke English. A kind lady eyed Eli, took out a tape measure and came out from behind her counter to measure him. She saw that he was only 112 centimeters tall, gestured wildly, gave a big smile and ran out the door. She returned five minutes later and proudly handed over a 50-yuan note. We thanked her and set off – without a map, which didn't seem to exist.

The grounds are nicely maintained, but the animal facilities are sad, reminding me of the steel-bar and cement-floor '50s-era Pittsburgh Zoo I visited often as a kid, only worse. Bedraggled lions and tigers lay on the ground in little cages inside a large, decrepit building. The "monkey house" was several low-lying outdoor buildings consisting of connected and quite fetid cages housing tired-eyed primates. Our kids noticed none of this and were happy to see even the pathetic polar bears, sitting on cement in the sweltering heat begging for peanuts. The four panda bears' status as national treasures is made clear by an exhibit that almost approximates wide open, modern American zoos.

I had been warned about the condition of the zoo, but I did not anticipate our three blue-eyed, light-haired children being as much of an attraction as any animal. From the start, I noticed people staring at us, often pointing, whispering and smiling at the sight of two-year-old Anna. As we filed past the monkey house, two or three people reached out to touch Eli on the hand and face, which he oddly didn't seem to mind. A couple of people wanted to touch Jacob's impressive shock of curly blond hair.

Then we stopped for ice cream. As we were sat eating our cones, a family passed by staring at us, and the father became totally taken by Anna. He stopped, stared, said "ni hao, ni hao" (hello, hello) to her, and turned to call over his extended family for a look. He asked if he could take a picture of his daughter with Anna by wildly gesticulating with his hand, speaking loud and fast Chinese. Sure, we said, nodding and pointing. He shoved his three- or four-year-old daughter over to stand next to Anna, took the picture, thanked us and walked away.

Then two ladies came up and asked the same, in English this time. They were very excited and thanked us profusely after snapping their pictures. By now a crowd had gathered around to see what was happening. What was happening was us. We had our backs against a wrought-iron fence, surrounded by an ever-growing ring of people, all of them pointing, looking, smiling, taking pictures. Eli thought it was funny. Anna was a little sheepish but nonplussed. Seven-year-old Jacob was starting to freak out, not unreasonably. He came up close and whispered in my ear, "Let's get out of here." We rose and waved, smiling and nodding as we walked away, a rapt audience following our every step. It was friendly but unnerving.

A bit later, we stopped at a large map trying to find our way to the aquarium. There was no big red "you are here" X and we were having difficulty locating ourselves. An older man tried to help, but he didn't understand what I was looking for. I guess my fish pantomime wasn't up to snuff. He looked over at the kids and counted on his fingers, "Eee, Ahr, Sun" (1-2-3) then gave me a big smile and thumbs up and shook my hand warmly and vigorously. Having three kids draws as much attention as their blond hair and blue eyes.

I tried to explain to the kids why we were such a big attraction, telling them that we look different. Then attempting to explain China's one-child policy. As soon as I said, "In China, people are only allowed to have one kid," Eli's eyes got big and fearful and I realized he was worried that we were going to have to get rid of him and Anna. "That's only for Chinese people," I explained.

By now, we had found the huge, new aquarium after at least two fruitless circles. It is a beautiful facility, though we were amused that something seemed to be for sale between every exhibit, only some of it aquatic-themed. We steered the kids around it all and gawked at the family of giant sturgeons and the shark tank. But with everyone tired and hungry, we cut the visit short and looked for some lunch. The kids had seen a Pizza Hut outside the main entrance that seemed like a reasonable bone to toss them after countless meals of dumplings and twice-fried string beans. But it was crowded and we ended up a few doors down at the Chinese knockoff called, I believe, Pizza Connection. The kids' slight disappointment was overcome with all-you-can-eat Soft Serve ice cream.

It hadn't been an easy day, but it was infinitely more rewarding than hanging out at the pool at our secluded suburban compound.

*CheerLeader*Mao
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Joined: July 07, 2004
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Posted: Aug 09, 2007 - 12:09 PM

tetrahedron wrote:

*CheerLeader*Mao wrote:

Is this some lame blog or something.

Okay fair point.

I just didnt like the article, its a typical moron who doesnt have any clue how to actually negotiate, writing about a the fake market and acting like this is some sort of insight into China and bargaining.

Very annoying.

And the second article even more so.

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