Grade A in the Silk Market (Oct 13, 03)

Guess where I was during my lunch hour? I was at the most popular shopping place for foreigners. It was my first time seriously to visit this famous market where a lot of “Grade A” stuffs were sold. Indeed, this marketplace is quite unique in Beijing. Shops are obviously selling over-priced fake stuffs and they customers know that too, however, it seems both parties enjoy this kind of trading method a lot. I was with my foreign clients and this is the only free time that they can have in Beijing, instead of visiting other tourist places, they chose to spend their only free time here. It’s amazing.

After almost an hour bargaining, the price was cut to half, and it seems, both the shop keeper and the client are very happy about this result. Not mentioning the time cost of doing this over a few hundred RMB goods, I guess the satisfaction from cutting down half of the price overwhelmed everything.