The Act of Bargaining

The act of bargaining

Over the weekend my fellow Pitzer classmates and I decided to take an adventure over to the silk market. This is a very famous place in china for it’s fake aspect and infamous act of bargaining. All the products there are fake and the people at each shop try to overcharge you by about 10 times the actual amount. They think that foreigners will get convinced that they are either buying something real, or that it is worth the price it would be in America. The silk market is about a 30 to 45 minute subway ride from Beijing University. It has about 6 stories and it is built like a shopping mall but each little shop is like a stand that you would see selling t-shirts out on the street in New York city.

I had no intent to buy any clothes really because I figured it wasn’t worth it. I did not go to the silk market intending to buy anything, which I think was a pretty good decision because I only bought one thing, and those were fake beats headphones by Dr. Dre. These headphones cost $300 dollars in the US, we got them for 40$. I would say it was a pretty darn good deal. We tried out a lot of the beats headphones and phone the best quality ones in terms of sound. Apparently according to my friend, they sound exactly like the real beats. I’m not sure what the real beats sound like, but upon putting on the headphones:

1. I didn’t know they were noise cancelling so that came as a big and splendid surprise

2. It sounded like there was a concert happening right in front of me, except with really clear and perfect sound quality

The best thing about beats headphones is the bass and drum aspect of them. They are made for rap and hip hop music, obviously because they were made by dr. dre, but other music sounds absolutely amazing as well. What I found sounds really amazing is Sigur Ros and that’s all I have been listening to this week since I bought the headphones as I walk around and explore China. It provides a good sound track for exploring and pondering.

Here is a music video with a song by Sigur Ros: Glosoli
If you feel like listening to some icelandic music, it's amazing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwQmDvuORY0&feature=related

Basically beats headphones make you feel like you are high, with out actually having to be high. The music is AMAZING.

My North face jacket that I bought in America, that was 150$ had a pocket zipper break this week. I wonder where it was made – probably somewhere in Asia – and if the clothing at the silk market are maybe just as good as the real products?

Bargaining can get extremely intense, especially at places like the silk market. This is because the people who work here are probably migrant workers and are really desperate. I had a very interesting experience with one of the shop workers.

I was at a hat booth and the woman told me that the hat was 380 kuai…A complete overpricing of a hat that is fake and in China. She asked me how much I wanted to pay and I told her 60 kuai, which she proceeded to tell me was impossible. As I started to walk away she began to decrease the price until finally she decreased it to 60 kuai. Then I decided that I was actually paying too much and didn’t even want the hat that badly so I told her I didn’t want it anymore unless she was going to decrease the price more. She got so mad at me she started yelling at me in Chinese, (we had already been speaking to each other in Chinese) and she started to hit me and push and shove me, so hard that I lost my balance. It was really strange and kind of sad that she was that desperate to sell that hat. It was also definitely culture shock, this sort of thing would NEVER happen in America.

The Silk Market