the fatal attraction of shopping

Ugh.  No picture this time, seeing as i forgot to bring my camera.  but last night we went to yashao clothing market….otherwise known as the fake mall.

classy, huh?  what makes it even classier is all the scolding that you get when you bargain with them.  i must have heard “you’re killing me” at least a dozen times.  my roommate was amazing at it, though.  i think she might have been very much more successful at it than i was.  i wish i was as good as grandma was at bargaining.

perhaps part of it is that i have a little trouble knowing the value of rmb….while i know the value of ringit.  i wonder if i’d be better bargaining in malaysia than here….

but my chinese is getting better!  i had a really funny conversation with the taxi driver that took us to the market.  it was mentally taxing….but we had a reasonably smooth conversation.  he was really really nice…something that i didn’t expect from taxi drivers in general, since last time i tried to get a taxi, they tried to rip me off…..

but this guy, and apparently lots of other people, keep asking if i’m 中国人, which throws me off.  because to me that means “are you chinese?” and to them that means “are you from china?”  so i’ve said yes a few times and had to catch myself, saying quickly, “不不不不不， 我是美国人”

i really don’t think my chinese passes as good enough to be from china, considering all the stuff i can’t say.  or perhaps they just think i’m mentally challenged….which may be slightly true in a sense, but not true in the way most people think about it.  and i’ve started to garble my chinese…and it actually seems to aid in my audience’s comprehension rather than when i try and speak crisply.  i haven’t decided if that’s disturbing or not…it probably merits more investigation.

buuuuuuuuuut…getting back to the subject, bargaining in china is almost a dangerous business.  i’ve been hit twice by trying to save a fellow student from the grasp of an over-eager salesman in tian’anmen square, been scolded enough to make snape want to cry, and almost tricked into buying something that i really really didn’t want.  and, supposedly i’m killing people when i bargain.

it’s a bit ridiculous that they say that i’m not making them a serious offer, when i really am.  if i wasn’t serious, i wouldn’t be making an offer…and you wouldn’t give me it for that price if you weren’t actually making money off of it.  it’s silly how many times they say that they’ll give it to me for a better price and that they’re not making any profit from it…when we learned in class how cheap labor is in china and how little money each item costs.

the best thing is when they try and tell you that it’s real.  but i figure it’d be really rude to laugh right in their face…

so in the end, i was convinced to part with about 450 rmb.  which, all in all, really isn’t too bad for all that i got, but is probably more than i could have paid for it.  i guess it’s a learning process.  but, rule number one of bargaining: never go lower than you’ve said before, because it makes the shop owners very very angry with you.