Xin Qi San, Qi Yue 30

Wednesday, July 30

            Today my dad took me out to see the city. After working within the hotel ever since I got here, it was really nice to get out and see Beijing. My favorite part by far, though, was shopping.

Ever since I found out that I was going to Beijing, I have been waiting for this day to come! Here in Beijing, its not like the American shopping. At the markets, there are just floors and floors of stalls that each have about whole store of merchandise stuffed into a 5 foot by 5 foot cubicle.

In one market, they had things from electronics to clothes to sunglasses to purses and bags… and almost anything else you can imagine. There are so many knock-off designer name brands, but if you look hard, you can find some pretty good fakes.

Being a foreigner, when I walk through the stalls, everyone just yells at me and sticks various items in front of my face yelling the few words in English that they have learned… “a bag for you today mam? You like these shoes? How about this shirt? Would you like to have a look?”… all at the same time and all in the same, broken English accent. If I would stop walking at anytime, the person’s stall I stopped at would just go crazy to offer me the best thing that they had.

After about 10 minutes of strolling through the clothes section, I found a really cute tank topish shirt. I asked the price, but of course, you never agree to what they originally say. With 7 kwai equaling one dollar, the lady originally said 120 kwai! After much bargaining and sweet-talking to her… and of course, walking away acting as if I didn’t want it, she finally agreed with 30 kwai! That coming out to be about 4 dollars for a nice, well made shirt that would cost at least 25$ in the US. As with all the places in the markets, if you don’t bargain, you will end up paying an outrageous price for something that is worth about 5 dollars or so. If you ask people, they advise you to take off 70% of the first price that they give you.

One thing I found highly interesting is another way that everyone does their business in the market. If they think that you are worth it (trust me, I have no clue how they figure if you are worthy) they will offer you to have a look at their very special items. Sometimes, the vendor will show you a piece of paper with pictures on it, lets say of purses. You could then pick out the purse you like from the picture and someone will run away, back through hallways and into closets to retrieve your requests. Almost every stall does this, and all with various items. Its just so different from the way stores sell items in the US, but I guess that’s just the way China works.

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