Karissa's Guide to Bargaining

Karissa's Guide to Bargaining

Part One: A Sample Purchase

 (hypothetically bargaining for a pair of shoes or a bag, that I'm willing to pay 100 RMB for)

-Once you ask the price, the seller  immediately pulls out a calculator, in order to ensure no difficulties with a language barrier, and says something like, "My normal price is this (punches 680 into the calculator), but you are a student/speak Chinese/are young/another excuse to reduce the price so you think you're saving, so I'll give you this (punches in 450)

- -Depending on the price, my reaction falls somewhere between looking distressed and shaking my head, or laughing at the ridiculousness of it. "I'm just a poor student!" (Punch in 60)

- Seller responds with a complaint about their need to make money/the quality of the item/the cheap price they're giving you. (punches in 350)

-- I respond with something along the lines of, "Can't do it", or "I don't have a ton of money!", and punch in 70

- Seller rolls her  eyes, and says "Okay, I give you really good deal. Don't tell anyone, I can't give all my goods away this cheap!" (punches in 200)

-- I recycle the line of being a poor student, maybe add on the explanation that I've studied Chinese, which is very difficult, they should give me a discount! (punch in 75)

- Seller says, "Final price, 150".

-- I counter with my final offer, 100.

- Seller says no, 130

-- I shake my head no, and leave the stall.

- If  the seller absolutely cannot sell at that price, they'll let me go. If they'll make even a couple dollars off of it, though, they'll yell after me, "Okay, okay, 100!" or reduce the price another 10 or so.

--If they come to 100, I'll go back and buy the item, but if they just reduce the price, I'll yell "100!" back, and just keep walking, at which point they'll normally agree.

Part Two: Useful Lines in Bargaining

1.) "I'm just a poor student, you have to give me a discount!"
2.) "I don't have much money!"
3.) "But I've taken the trouble of learning Chinese, and it's so hard to learn!"
4.) "Too expensive!"
5.) "But I have to eat, too!"


Part Three: Alternative Bargaining Methods
 By and large, the dialogue above is how most of my exchanges have gone.  There are other techniques for bargaining, including:

1.) Playing the stupid foreigner card, and just keep repeating the price until the seller is so anxious to get rid of you, they'll give it to you at that price (I've never tried, preferring to exercise my Chinese skills, but others have had success)

2.) Name the price you're willing to pay flat out, and when they try to get you to come up, just leave.  This skips to the last step of the above dialogue, and you'll know if your price is reasonable or not (that's how I got my boots, I was so tired I wasn't in the mood for bargaining).

3.) Saying, I only have xx amount of money. Only attempt if you actually only have that amount of money, otherwise it looks really bad when you claim you only have 20 rmb, but then pay with a 100rmb note. (As one of my classmates did - it's now referred within our group as "pulling a Kaitlin" - name changed to protect the guilty).

Part Four: Favorite Antics of Sellers

1.) Theatrics. Sellers love theatrics. One classmate said he's had a seller fake cry when he named a price, and they will vary between immense anger that you want to go so low, or immense sadness, which generally includes explaining that this is how they make a living, how do you expect them to survive and feed their family if you only pay 20rmb for a scarf?

2.) Insults: Rarely used, but I've had one seller who was slightly aggressive in explaining that you couldn't even get the materials for the item for the price I had just named. The tone she said it in was most definitely an "Are you out of your mind?!" tone.

3.) Compliments: Flattery is the sincerest form of getting someone to buy something? Going to the markets is always a confidence booster - I get told frequently that I'm so pretty and my Chinese is so good! Less frequently heard compliments include being told that I'm very intelligent.


 Part Five: Finer Points of Bargaining
There are also finer etiquette points regarding bargaining.

1.) Don't insult the quality of the product, because that makes the seller really mad at you. (I've not done it, but I've seen others do it in an attempt to get the price lower).

2.) If you name a price and the seller agrees to it, you should buy the item. (I just had a debate with a classmate as to whether this was true or not - I think it's ethically wrong to walk out after the seller agrees to a price you named, but he thinks it's okay. My philosophy is don't name a price you aren't willing to pay, it's just good manners.)

3.) Don't ask the price if you aren't actually interested in purchasing the item - it's kind of the point of no return, though you can certainly just name a price so insanely low there's no way they'd be willing to come down to and then leave. But in general, don't ask the price unless you're interested in buying.

4.) Don't treat it too seriously - it's much more fun if you consider it to be a game.

To Market to Market...

As my time here in Beijing winds down, I've been going to a lot of the different markets to get gifts and souvenirs for everyone at home. It's been fun to go back to the Pearl Market, which was the market I visited during the beginning of my time here. My perception of it has changed quite a bit; it seemed a lot less intimidating and aggressive than last time I was there. Going back to places that I visited much earlier in my time here has also shown me how much my Chinese has improved. I'm so much more willing to interact with the sellers, and rather than just naming a price, I might launch into a longer explanation of why my price is so low. (I'm just a poor student, I have to eat, too!" )

An important thing to note is that you have to bargain at the markets here - if you don't, you'll probably spend 500% more money than you would otherwise. I bought a pair of boots for 100rmb (roughly 15usd), but the seller had started at 680rmb. While most of the stuff I've bought is Christmas presents (and as such, the items and their prices must remain confidential until after December 25th!), I also bought a "Tiffany" bracelet for 45rmb, down from 250. Oh, I also bought a pair of "pearl" earrings for 20rmb and a "cashmere" scarf for 20, too (roughly 3 USD each). Bargaining can be a ton of fun, but also a bit exhausting. Look for my guide to bargaining later in the week, in case your planning a trip to China anytime soon. I also try to write a post on my shady Louis Vuitton experience. :)

As far as the markets themselves go, there's three that I think are the main ones in Beijing: the Pearl, Silk, and Zoo markets. The Pearl and Silk markets are both very similar in that they tend to be oriented towards foreigners (although I've seen Chinese shoppers there, too) and have a lot more kitschy items (ie, Mao's little read book of sayings) and designer knock offs ("Hello Lady, you want to buy a Prada bag? How about Louis Vuitton, okay?). However, I like the Pearl Market better, because the price they start bargaining at tends to be a bit lower, and they just seemed more friendly. The Silk Market is a bit bigger, so has something of a better selection. The Zoo market isn't really a tourist market, and when I went, I didn't see any other foreigners. The Zoo markets sell mainly clothes and daily necessities, so it's usually packed. Not many designer knock offs (except for Uggs), but dirt cheap prices, but so insanely packed, it isn't much fun. Overall, I think the Pearl Market is my  favorite, but the Zoo market is great for getting clothes and shoes.

Thanksgiving in the Land of Chopsticks

Happy belated Thanksgiving! While this wasn't my first Thanksgiving away from home, it was my first one outside of the country. As far as Thanksgiving break, our professors pulled a "China" on us - giving us a day off, but requiring us to make up the work. We normally have Wednesday off, but Thanksgiving week we had class on Wednesday, but got Friday off for Thanksgiving break, though we still had class on Thursday. This raises an important philosophical question: when you're thirteen hours ahead of home, does that mean Thanksgiving is Thursday (while it's still primarily Wednesday in the US) or Friday (when it's Thursday there)? The student complaints about not getting Thanksgiving off later proved to be a moot point; on Thursday morning, our TA emailed that our professor was sick, so class was canceled! I still had language class that afternoon, but it meant we got an extra long weekend (4 days, but 5 if you count the field trip on Monday that we have instead of class).

Thanksgiving was largely uneventful, with just language class and too much time watching US television shows online. As a group, we didn't do anything for Thanksgiving, but a few small groups went for Beijing Roast Duck. Asta and Sibei, two of my classmates, invited me along to go eat a real Thanksgiving dinner, prepared by one of the restaurants in San Li Tun, the foreign embassy district. We called ahead for a reservation, but alas, they were completely full, and so we found another restaurant serving Thanksgiving dinner. We hurried back to our dorm from the UChicago center to change/get all spiffied up, and then took to metro to the stop Asta said was closest, in the northeast part of the city. Unfortunately, as we left the subway stop, Asta and Sibei realized neither of them had thought to write down the address or phone number of the restaurant, and I had assumed they had. This problem was only compounded by not knowing the Chinese name of the Marriott hotel, where the restaurant was. We wandered around for about half an hour, and took a taxi who's driver said he knew where it was. We were happy to finally be on our way, right up until the point he pulled up in front of a Sheraton hotel.

We eventually made it to the restaurant, and had a complete Thanksgiving dinner, with green bean casserole, butternut squash soup, and pumpkin pie. :) The only thing missing was mashed potatoes, though we joked about going and getting some from Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was kind of funny (not in a "haha" kind of way, but in a "hmmm, that's very interesting" kind of way - Princess Bride reference, for those of you who didn't recognize it!) to eat with a fork and knife again, but it was great to eat Western style food and hang out in a restaurant where English was spoken. :) Getting there was certainly an adventure that made this Thanksgiving another memorable one. :)

Saving Money and Eating Scorpion

So after not doing too much the past two weeks, I was starting to get a little antsy to see something other than my campus and the UChicago center. This coincided happily with my classmate's final presentation on the Beijing markets, more specifically the Zoo Market, which she explained has the lowest prices. So on Sunday, a me and a couple friends went down to the Zoo market, to see what we could see.

Walking through the market, I was reminded of why I don't go out a ton in Beijing- waaaay too many people crammed into waaaaay too small of a space. It was so insanely packed, I can't imagine how people could go shopping just for fun. As mentioned, the prices were good, but I was looking more for gifts for everyone at home, so I didn't buy much. I was thinking about getting a pair of "Uggs", and some of the misspellings were funny - "Nggs", "UGCs", or best yet "Aukstalia". :) The Zoo market was a lot like other ones here in Beijing, absolutely packed with people, and about 7 stories tall. The Zoo Market was a little different, in that it was far more "legit" - they don't have a lot of knockoffs and aren't geared towards foreigners.

After the Zoo Market we went to Wangfujing, where I've been a couple times before, with Charis and then once other time. I tried to buy a knock-off Tiffany's bracelet, but the lady wanted 85 RMB and wasn't willing to drop it very low. Having tempted Asta and Eddie to come with me with the promise of scorpions ad other assorted things sold for sale there, after going to get my dad's Christmas gift, we went to get Asta and Eddie a deep fried scorpion. Asta bought it and ate two, and then I ended up eating one, too! It was pretty decent - deep fried and covered in seasonings, so that was what you tasted. We also got fruit covered in sugar, and then also deep fried ice cream. The deep fried ice cream was so terrible, it was just covered in cold oil - a waste of 10rmb, that's for sure.

It was fun to go back to a place I'd been at the beginning of my stay in China. I was a lot more friendly and willing to talk to the sellers a lot more - one said, "Hello, you want to buy?" to me in English, and I told him, "It's okay, I speak Chinese!". I also got use the line, "I'm a poor student, I don't have much money!", though even then the lady didn't give me much of a discount. Another shopkeeper thought I was Russian, which isn't the first time I've been thought to be from Russia. I kind of like it, it means I look European. :p

A Very Icy Weekend

But in the best way possible! Over the weekend, Kie, Sibei, and I went to the Cup of China figure skating competition held here in Beijing every fall. It's part of the Grand Prix of Figure Skating, which is a series of six competitions held around the world each fall, where the top international skaters compete for medals and money, but also to qualify for the Grand Prix Final, which is also being held in Beijing this year (I miss it by five days, darnit!)I was really excited to be here for the Cup of China, though- I'd never gone to a major international skating competition before, and with the conversion rate, tickets were really cheap! To go to every event, the cost was $50, and that was for the best seats. Had we wanted to buy the nosebleed student tickets, we could have gone for only $10. To go to the Grand Prix event in the US, Skate America (which is next weekend, I think), would cost $100 for the cheapest seats, so this was quite the deal!

The competition was held at Capital Indoor Gymnasium, which is only about 15 minutes away from Renmin. It's also where the Chinese national skating team practices, and was a location for the Beijing Olympics. (What it hosted, we're not sure - it was kind of a small venue)Walking in, I was surprised by the size - having watched youtube videos from last year's competition held in the same place, I was expecting it to be bigger. All the better to see the skaters, though, and we had seats right behind the judges, which was great. The skating itself was fantastic, but I won't go into massive analysis of it - but one of the US's men and a pairs team were on the podium!

The best part, other than watching the skating, was getting to cheer on the US skaters in a foreign country. Had we been in the US, it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun, since everyone else would have been screaming just as loud. Here, however, the audience's response to non-Chinese skaters was...lukewarm, at best. Whenever one of our skaters took the ice, we screamed when they were announced, we yelled in unison, "Go !!!!". Several of the skaters looked at us and smiled after hearing their names, and the audience surrounding us tended to look at us, too.

Over in the corner of the arena, we saw a few people waving an American flag, and during one of the breaks went over to say hi. They ended up being the officials and parents with the skaters, which was cool. One of the pairs skater's moms told me, "You have no idea how nice it is to hear an American accent!" and I said, "Oh believe me, I do!". Her daughter ended up winning bronze, and we watched/cheered at the medal ceremony with her. The other parent who was there is the father of Ross Miner, one of our mens skaters. He told us to make sure we made lots of noise, since Ross hates the silence. Having been encouraged to keep screaming our hearts/lungs (?) out, we yelled when Ross was about to get his scores, "We love you Ross!", and he held his hands up in a rock start pose in response. We yelled it for our other mens skater, Brandon, too, but he was busy talking with his coach. After finishing his program and getting changed, Ross came up and said hi and gave us all a hug (He said, "You guys said you love me, we gotta hug it out!). Getting to meet him was a lot of fun, and he stuck around for awhile and talked skating with us.

That was the best part of cheering, getting to see the skater's responses, whether it was actually coming up to say hi or just a smile. That was something that I think is unique to going to a competition abroad as opposed to one in the US - like I said, in the US everyone is screaming. Getting to meet the parents, team doctor (also from Chicago!), and other officials was one of the highlights of the event, and would probably be less likely to happen in the US. Overall, it was a fantastic weekend, and I'm looking forward to getting back to working on my skating tomorrow. :)

Oh, and there was one other person we yelled for while they were waiting for the scores. Mirai Nagasu, our National Silver medalist, is coached by Frank Carroll, who in the sport of figure skating is legend--wait for it--DARY. An absolute god among skaters. So while Mirai was waiting for her score, we yelled, "We love you, Frank!". While he did not respond with a rock star pose, the brief smile on the normally stoic coach's face made my night. :)

Pizza and Art

As part of our class this session, we're required to complete "excursion projects" that are meant to get us out and about in the city, rather than just being holed up in a classroom. I decided to do my excursion project on 798, a complex of art galleries in north-eastern-ish Beijing. The 798 galleries are fairly well known, and I had heard of them before and wanted to go visit. But contemporary art isn't really my thing, but I figured if I had to do a project on it, then I would be far more likely to actually go visit. And so, last Sunday, I dragged Kimberley, Louis, and Eddie along with me to the galleries.


798 (or in Chinese, 七八九) is so named after the street which runs through it, shockingly called 798 street. It's an old manufacturing complex, so many of the galleries are in old warehouses and buildings, which was really cool. The complex had a festival like feel - all the galleries had their doors open, and there where street musicians and jewelery makers selling things on the street. There were also quite a few small cafes scattered on corners, many of them selling Western food, which is where the first part of the title comes in. While I was off discovering the deeper meanings of pictures of bamboo burning, Kimberley, Louis, and Eddie had stopped and ordered french fries and pizza at a cafe. I met up with them just as the french fries arrived, and they were delicious (the cafe even had ketchup!). The pizza was equally delicious, but it didn't taste like pizza - just cheese bread with chicken and seasonings. I guess I feel kind of reluctant to eat Western food - after all, I can eat it all the time at home, so there's no reason to eat it here. As much as I can sometimes get tired of Chinese food, I guess I'm trying to keep the experience as realistic as possible.

The art itself was actually really interesting - I went there with a list of things to look for in the art, such as how Chinese traditional painting aspects were incorporated, whether it was a critique of the government, and if there was a disdain towards the new consumerism mentality China has shown. The most prevalent theme I found was a critique of urbanism and consumerism, such as the painting that depicted 'moments' in a life, such as getting married, with a picture of an Audi imposed on the scene. It was kind of random, but for the purposes of my presentation, it's a critique of consumerism. :) The best part of 798 was that it was free, only .40 RMB bus fare to get there. An excellent way to spend an afternoon in Beijing, if you're ever here.

And anecdotally, I also went to China fashion week. In the midst of trying to find where Kimberley had went, I turned a corner and found myself surrounded by a bunch of glamorous people wearing black with nametag credentials. Amidst the suits and insanely fashionable dresses, I felt a little out of place in my UChicago sweatshirt and jeans and quickly turned back around that corner, but now I can say I went to China Fashion Week! :)

The Skating Regulars

A cold rink, with garish lighting from the children's play area above. A 30 minute music CD on repeat, with the 24 minute mark belonging to Shania Twain's "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!". A sheet of ice, scratched with the tracings of hundreds of blades, with pictures of coaches past and present staring down on it. A slight chill in the air, almost unnoticeable with the movement of skaters, circling endless around the too small surface.   In this setting, skaters come and other skaters go, but a core group of determined souls skate on forever, circling the rink and then leaving, only to return again, observed by huddled parents and the rink staff. And so I present to you, The Skating Regulars:

Twizzles:
One of the coaches at the rink, with Bieber-like hair that he frequently flicks back from his eyes ever so genteely. So named because, in the course of instructing people how not to fall over, he frequently becomes bored and launches into advanced footwork sequences, generally consisting of a series of super fast turns called "Twizzles". And thus a nickname was born. Not much personality evident from a distance, unless admiring one's posture in the rink glass could be considered a personality.


Crazy Dancing Guy:
Skates to the beat of his own drum. Listens to his MP3 player and "dances to it". His moves are not what would fall under the category of conventional skating movements, but he makes it work. He is a skater's worst nightmare, in that he is simultaneously not terribly in control (too much crazy dancing, I'm afraid) and completely unpredictable, swerving as the music moves him. Combined with his frequent haphazard stops in the middle of the rink to change the song, and you have recipe for potential disaster. No camel spins when he's around!

Figckey Guy
Crazy Dancing Guy's figurative cousin (I've seen his hip wiggling and quasi-Irish jigging to "Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend was Hot Like Me").  So named because he attempts to complete figure skating moves whilst wearing hockey skates, which both hockey skaters and figure skaters will tell you is impossible. Still, he attempts to spin and jump, and has a fairly decent spiral.

Little Boy Blue
Wears a blue silk shirt to practice every day. Also wears black pants and black padded shorts, which combined with his stick skinny legs makes for an interesting silhouette.   A good little skater with nice stretch, but unfortunately it seems his father wants him to be a figure skater more than Little Boy Blue himself does. This leads to long discussions at the board as the father tells him what to do, dilly dallying tying the skates, and a wrinkly forehead and teary eyes after missing a couple lutz jumps in a row.

The Erudite
A completely unremarkable skater, one of the many older people who comes to the rink to skate around, practice two foot spins and waltz jumps, and get their daily exercise in. However, her knowledge of the Chinese skating is spectacular, and she is more than happy to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of having a national training program, why a former World Bronze Medalist coaches in a private rink, and to tell you where the national team practices are held and that they are open to the public.  A very valuable resource who speaks English.
 

A Few of My Favorite Things

- Watching Winnie the Pooh in Chinese

- Being able to read an entire sign without having to ask someone what a certain character means.


- Field trips to archeological museums

- The pop music that plays over the campus loudspeakers at the end of the day

- Dumplings :)

- The happy-glowy feeling of success when I say something in Mandarin and people actually understand me. (Related: the euphoria of realizing I'm able to survive in a foreign country by myself)