Special Price

Well. I'm knackered. It's 1:45am and I've just gotten back to the hotel after a long day of touring and watching the Opening Ceremonies at a party held by our tour company (unfortunately, while my company is very generous in supporting this trip, I don't think I could get away with submitting a $10,000 ticket reimbursement as part of my expenses.)

Day One on the ground here was mostly personal time for me - I took the time to meet some friends and do some shopping before the events gear up tomorrow. My Uncle Joe lived and worked in Beijing for seven years, and so I visited a friend of his from Texas named Tim, who runs a joint called.....Tim's Texas BBQ, a great joint in the embassy district replete with dusty wooden floors, rattlesnake skins on the wall, and Hank Williams on the jukebox. Now, I've eaten and will continue to eat some wonderful local cuisine on this trip, but I was more than happy to enjoy some of the best brisket and barbequed pork ribs I've had in a long time. One never knows what local flavor will present itself. Tim was a wonderful host, especially considering that he had been up at 2:00am this morning to serve Georges W. and H.W. Bush lunch at the ceremony opening the new American embassy building in Beijing. Quite a day for all of us.

After lunch with Tim, I headed down the street to the Silk Market, famous in Beijing and other parts as THE place to shop for "Authentic Chinese" goods - i.e., great knockoffs. Now, picture a seven-story building, and then picture each floor of said building filled with rows and rows of stalls no more than ten feet wide, an endless parade of tshirts, coats, jeans, purses, suitcases, electronics, you name it. It's like attending the world's largest Convention of Quality-ish Crap. I spent three hours there, roaming the aisles and picking through nearly everything for sale (the top floors actually have real pearls and jade for sale, huge quantities, but after sifting through piles of knockoff Dolce & Gabanna shirts and Diesel jeans, I wasn't about to try my luck at distinguishing real freshwater pearls from the faux variety.

Now, I am by occupation a negotiator, handling contractual terms for my company. I'm used to spending weeks, sometimes months, hammering out the finer points of distribution rights and production fees. Sometimes very involved, sometimes very complicated. Shopping in the Silk Market is to my regular job like speed dating is to wooing the only daughter of a devout Roman Catholic. It's a hell of a lot of fun. And it goes something like this:

Walking down an aisle of stalls, the laowai ("white dude") sees an item that would be a perfect gift for one of his family members (let's say it's his wife, since she's currently stuck at home with a one year-old who has a cold and two molars coming in, and this laowai knows what's good for him. Yeah, that's a good hypothetical). His pace slows, and a hand snaps out from a row of tshirts to grab his arm.

"Hello, sir! You look so hot. (Said laowai has sweated through his shirt for the second of three times on the day). You like t-shirt? Good price, special price for you."

"Well, actually, yeah, I kind of like this one...."(checks out the size, looks at others, decides to go with the one in hand. How Much?" And with those two words, a contact sport begins. Out comes the obligatory Casio calculator.

"Regular price...(types in a number)....280. For you, special price of 200." At 7 yuan to the dollar, that's about $30.

"Let me see that." Laowai takes calculator. Tap tap. "20."

Now, I wish to God that in my real job I could get away with countering at only 10% of an opening offer. If I tried that in a negotiation at work, I would be met with wailing and gnashing of teeth, and if I was dealing with an agent my boss, or my boss's boss, or his boss's boss would soon be receiving a phone call describing me in terms best left to people who get a daily ration of pills in small paper cup from their nurse and clap their hands because they're getting jello with lunch. Feelings would be hurt. Relationships could be damaged. In the Silk Market, it's just business.

"20?!? Oh, you mean U.S. Dollar? Euro?"

"Nope, 20 yuan."

"You crazy! You give me best price, your best price."

"20."

"You crazy! No way, I lose money. I do.....(tap tap)...180."

"25." (Again, roughly $3.50).

"Here, I give you best price, best price...(tap tap)...140."

"30, and that's it. No more."

"No no no. You crazy! 120. Final Price. Best price."

"30 is best price. That's it."

"120."

And then...you walk away. Turn your back and flee.....but slowly. And you'll hear a tiny voice, receding into the market din, say "Sir! Sir! OK! OK! 80!"

Whatever you do, don't stop. KEEP MOVING. Because then you hear - "50!"

Now you can stop. And turn. And prove your mettle, because this is where most people settle. (Actually, scratch that - most Americans are notoriously bad negotiators, and settle somewhere much higher, in the neighborhood of half the opening offer.) But you've gotten this far, and this is now actually the fun part. As you walk back to the stall, they will try like hell to budge you off of 30, just to claim victory. Don't let them do it. They will always, always insist on 35, even as they begin to bag your bounty for you. Don't pay it. Stick with 30, even to the point of carefully and specifically pulling out exactly 30 yuan from your stack of 700 yuan. They will always take the money.

And here, finally, is the payoff - seeing how they react on the close of the deal. Most of the time, transaction completed, their angry frown will melt away and you'll get a big grin. Game well played, and they're happy to acknowledge it. Everyone once in a while though, the vendor will be truly, honestly pissed off. Not because it was a bad price for them (believe me, it's not), but because they lost the game. They practically push you out of their stall.

It's fantastic.