Shopping in China - Part 6 - Chinatown in China

The last day of our China trip was in Shanghai.  Many of us were exhausted with the cultural attractions, and we just wanted to do some shopping.  I think that the two things we skipped out on that day were the bullet train, which reaches speeds around 220 mph, and the rug factory.  Not wanting rugs nor being that enchanted with a long wait and another fee to ride a train, we opted to have an easy morning.

We had Celery write down on a piece of paper where we were going, and we got in a cab to go down to a popular shopping area that they call Chinatown.  That being where our dinner arrangements were for that evening, all we had to do was lounge around there all day, collecting souvenirs, of course, and wait for the rest of the group to wait up for us.

We slept in and had a late brunch, followed by a trip to Starbucks, where we ran into someone with a sweet hat that I had to have a picture of.  Here's Kevin, modeling that hat:

Kevin models the sweet "Comme des Fuckdown" hat.  He also seems to be modeling HTML gang signs, too (angle brackets "< >")

So we had the hotel hail us a cab.  The cab driver didn't speak a lick of English, so it was good that Celery had written down our destination.  The cab ride was something else.  In a future post, I'll detail the "white knuckle rides of death" that every commute in major Chinese cities seem to be.  I'd rather be a pedestrian in Boston.

Anyhow, we pull up to Chinese Chinatown.  The place is a massive outdoor market the likes of which we hadn't seen yet.  Street after street of little shops.  These weren't the little food shops in the Suzhou market, nore were they the American style department stores of the Wangfujing Marketplace.  The best equivalent we'd seen thus far was the back alleyways of Wangfujing.  Each little store was clean and full of its own set of Chinese souvenirs.

Here's a little video clip to give you an idea of what it looked like:

There were stores that specialized in silk scarves.  There were stores that specialized in luggage.  There were stores that had electronics, and jade figures, and pillows, and toys.  The closest equivalent to these shops I'd ever seen would be either in a Mexican border town or a place like the port cities you visit on a cruise.

And everything was negotiable.

Before we left for China, we were warned to negotiate for absolutely everything.  The mosquitoes afforded the most obvious opportunities to negotiate, where you really didn't care whether (and often hoped) they walked away. But we were warned to negotiate with everyone for everything.

The rate of negotiation was variable by city, however, according to a guidebook friends in our group had.  In Beijing, we were warned to start at about half the offered price.  In Shanghai, however, it suggested we start at 10% of the offered price.

That's right; we were advised to start by asking for a 90% discount.

Now, "ask" is a bit of a misnomer.  Because they didn't speak much English, the proprietors of the stores often would tap out a price on a calculator in RMB, meaning you had to do a quick mental calculation to get to USD.  Then they'd almost shove the calculator into your hand, a gesture we understood as "you don't like that price?  Name your price."  And we'd tap out the same number they had typed, less a zero.

And oh, the uproar!  The feigned offended reaction to our horrendous effrontery!  They would shake their heads and wave their hands and often would just wave us off, as if to say, "You're not worth dickering with.  Too low."  But most often, they knew you wanted the item and that it was now down to price.  They'd punch a counter offer into the calculator, and eventually you'd either come to a number or you wouldn't, but you could always walk two stalls down and try again with the next vendor that had similar items.

It really did become kind of a game.  I had things I knew I wanted to get.  Lasers for the nephews, for example.  A loudspeaker to wear around your neck (the tour guides all used them, and I'd never seen such a a thing, so I of course had to look for one).  Beats audio headphones.  Silk scarves.

And they were all to be had in Chinatown.

We walked around all day, picking up new toys as we went.  Here's a couple things we didn't buy:

A cat-based thermos for kids.  You know, for "happy drink time"!

You'd think I would have heard of these before, but yes, that's anime girl mouse pads with interesting wrist rests.  Of course, you can get these at alibaba.

The second picture here was taken at a toy store where they had for sale an entire wall of Monchichi.  That's right!  Oh so soft and cuddly!  Those Monchichi!

One of my favorite shopping episodes happened about midway through the day.  Nicole was in shopping for scarves in a more upscale shop.  I was feeling silly, so she would ask me how I liked the scarf she had on, and I would look at her and say "Ooooh!" and then I'd look at the say "One dolla, one dolla!"  The sales lady took me as joking and laughed and patted my chest and said, "One dolla?  For you FREE!" grinning so wide.  The whole experience was just awesome.

At one point, I was left alone with a camera in an open square.  I decided to give you a 360 degree view, but you know me.  Sometimes I get out of hand:

So that was Shanghai.  I really enjoyed shopping there.  But there is one tale left to tell of Shanghai.  And it is a tale of the seedy side of Shanghai shopping.  The underworld.  Come back for Part 7 of Shopping in China - The Black Market.