Silk Market

I was scheduled to work a 2pm to 11pm shift today (Saturday) so I went along with a few other folks to the Silk Market. Basically, it's a big building full of vendor stalls (think flea market). Tacky: definitely. Fun: depends on whether you consider haggling over a bunch of souvenir items and designer knock-offs a sport. This place is intense...the vendors are incredibly aggressive. There's no such thing as "just browsing"...they come out and try to pull you into their areas, and all you hear is a cachophony of "hey mister" all around you. If you decide to take the bait and look at something, the first thing they'll tell you is how nice the product is and how they'll give you a "special discount". Then out comes the calculator. This is where the fun starts. They'll type in a number...an absurdly high number. The rule of thumb is to offer them a small fraction of that by typing in your own number, then the haggling begins. Best bets...don't show too much attraction to what you're looking at, begin negotiating at a really low number, keep a smile on your face and don't take the negotiations personally and most importantly...be willing to walk away (which will usually result in them chasing you with a final offer that's frequently the same as or close to what you told them you were willing to pay in the first place. You know they won't sell at a loss, and even though some of the stuff is probably made about as well as the stuff it's knocking off (we all know that just 'cause it's expensive doesn't mean it's high quality), so you can typically get a pretty good bargain and if you can't, you can walk around the corner to another vendor selling similar stuff and start the negotiation at the break-point you arrived at with the previous vendor. See...it's sport!

I bought a knock-off Tag Heuer Tiger Woods watch that would go for $1500 US if genuine for $200 RMB ($30 US). The negotiation began at $850 RMB ($125 US). Yeah, it might end up turning my wrist green, but I'm not really out anything if it does.

It was definitely a one-time-only thing to see, but I'm glad I went. It was a good "cultural" experience if nothing else.