Beijing's Not-so-Subtle Art of the Deal

The other day, I took a trip into Beijing’s not-too-distant past, back to a time when the cost of Chinese goods wasn’t set in stone, an era when you could use wit, strategy and staying power to negotiate your own price.

They were the grand old days when you haggled, low-balled, grimaced, got pummeled, rallied, walked away, came barging back, feigned disgust and even anger, finally relying on humor — all with the Holy Grail of a shiny new purchase at stake.

Ah, bargaining in Beijing. How I miss it.

Sometimes, the transactions involve the nuanced art of firm negotiation, other times they descend into bare-knuckled street brawls. I have loved every one of them — from the glorious victories to the dispiriting defeats.

One day, my mother-in-law took my wife and I to a mall complex whose first-floor still featured the old-school-style commerce: individual stalls where merchants sell everything from coats, shoes, women’s underwear, handbags, scarves and sporting apparel.

Think Farmer’s Market, but with steely-eyed women from China’s countryside, their toddlers sometimes wandering the aisles nearby, who have brought their often-knockoff wares to the city for more customers and bigger profits.

And they have a keen eye for foreigners, those visitors from places where, (they assume, from watching TV) everyone is rich and the streets are paved with greenbacks.

When you pass their stalls, they closely watch your eyes, patiently, greedily, waiting for your gaze to settle on some bauble, whatnot or gimcrack displayed on their shelves.

That’s when they pounce.

“Look!” they cry out, holding up some item like it’s a first-place prize. “Good price!”

But I am wily to the ways of these shopping-mall sirens. 

Years ago, when I first came to Beijing, gangs of women street vendors would converge up me, this lumbering foreign galoot, shoving their wares in my face, in a shameless attempt to coax money from my pockets.

With too little Chinese in my communication quiver, I relied on a much-practiced volley of words that I hoped would head them off.

“Bu dong. Bu hao, Bu yao. Mei you quian.”

“Don’t understand. No good. Don’t want. No money.”

And it worked. It stopped them in the tracks. 

They’d laugh, covering their mouths the way Asian women sometimes do, amazed that this goofy White Devil actually spoke a few words of their language.

They gawked as though I were some freak of nature, like a talking dog.

Years later, as my Mandarin improved, I practiced the retail dance at a place called the Silk Market — eight floors of crowded warrens teeming with pure unadulterated merchandising. Hundreds of stalls, thousands of gaping, milling customers. 

Or in the eyes of these savvy women sellers, marks.

I was determined not to be anybody’s victim, so I came prepared, well-armed for those fierce seller-versus-buyer face offs that provided such good theater to onlookers.

I’d see other foreigners, usually older Germans, Brits or Aussies, being pummeled by a proficient saleswoman, brow-beaten and out-maneuvered, finally lulled into paying way too much for what they were getting. 

It was pathetic, actually.

I knew the successful buyers always maintained a position of power. I didn’t like aggressive sales people who lunged into my path. I waited, furtive, until I spied something I wanted to take a closer look at. 

Only then did I move in.

Still, I like sales opponents with personality, willing to parry prices and accommodate my style — which usually involves humor, even flirtation.

In the fiercest battles, I’ve stormed away, only to have the saleswomen chase me through the crowd, surrendering, telling me she’d indeed take my lower offer. Other times, they just let me go.

Cheapskate foreigner.

Don’t get me wrong, this is no perverse pleasure over taking food from the mouths of the poor. These women do just fine financially, thank you. Most love the price-jousting as much as I do.

But in recent years, the Silk Market has gone Western, opting for take-it-or-leave-it fixed pricing. Now the women sellers rarely bargain.

Offer a price they consider beneath them and they merely pout and wave you off, sometimes ripping the item from your grasp as though you aren’t even worthy of such a thing.

I might as well be in Beverly Hills.

That’s why I was jazzed when we walked into this newfound bargaining palace not far from Tiananmen Square. Inside, amid an endless sea of stalls, I was pumped with that old feeling of rapt anticipation.

I split up with my shopping partners to get the lay of the land.  I quickly noticed that this market battleground catered to locals, not foreigners and those grotesquely large sizes that seem cartoonish to most Chinese.

There was little for me here.

I caught up with my wife and her mother, knowing that I would eventually be called in, assassin-like, once they found something they wanted.

My wife is nobody’s fool. She knows how to get what she wants. But she also knows how much I enjoy these matches. For her, it’s like letting Rover loose at the dog park.

We bought a few things, some scarfs and socks. I bargained a bit but was just warming up. At one stall, both my mother-in-law and her daughter eyed pairs of snazzy shoes in different colors.

I asked the price, just to ascertain the negotiation’s starting point. I knew from experience that most sellers first ask twice or three times their bottom lines.

But there was something about this vendor’s tone that suggested I needed to retreat and develop my strategy.

We walked away.

A few aisles away, my wife spotted a pair of black leather shoes with thick rubber soles she suddenly just had to have. 

I tried to dissuade her. To me, they looked cheap. And she already has a closetful of expensive Italian shoes at home she never wears.

The seller wanted 480 Yuan, or about $70.

I guided my wife away, but she insisted we return. She wanted those shoes, but only if she could get them at her price.

She gave me my instructions, like dialing a target into a cruise missile.

Get those shoes for 300 Yuan, just over $40. 

Or walk away.

When we approached, the saleswoman perked up. 

She had us, or so she thought.

I picked up the shoes, looking for flaws.

“Bu shi zhende,” I said. “These aren’t real leather.”

I was assured they were indeed authentic.

The saleswoman was young. I liked her smile. Her neighboring stall mates gathered around, curious to watch this foreigner who apparently knew his business.

She parried with a deep thrust toward my midsection.

“Where are you from?”

This, I knew, was pure distraction. Once I said American, she would launch into some rap about what a rich country I came from.

“I’m from Shanghai,” I joked. “Our faces are different there.”

The women laughed.

Then I moved in with my most reliable tactic.

“Wo men shi pengyou, ma?”

Are we friends?

Yes, she said, certainly we were friends.

Then, why don’t you sell these shoes for 300 Yuan?

She turned to my wife.

“He drives a harder bargain than Chinese!”

I knew I had to work her a bit, develop a relationship, show some personality in order to prevail. Sour-pusses rarely take the bait, but this women looked game.

I tried another tactic. I was an American peasant, I said. While many people back home might have money, not me. I was struggling, just like them.

Back in the states, I like to play a joke with my wife. When we meet Westerners who marvel at her chutzpah, I’ll offer them some advice.

“Never marry a Chinese girl.”

Now my wife turned the tables.

Never marry an American, she told the girls. They’re so cheap.

The women laughed. After several more go-rounds, I went in for the kill.

I reached out and took my opponent’s hand in a gesture of camaraderie, this time offering not 300 Yuan, but 280. 

She laughed in my face.

I retreated, still holding on, still meeting her gaze, then offered 260.

She laughed harder.

OK, I told her, she won, I lost. 300 Yuan.

With a sigh, she yanked the shoes from my hand and bagged them up.

Sold.

My wife handed her the cash before she could change her mind.

Fresh from our victory, we returned to the first shoe seller. 

Mother and daughter each wanted a pair of the colorful shoes, but only for half the 400 Yuan asking price.

So I got busy. Later, we walked out with two pair, for 200 Yuan each.

“I’m the best dealmaker,” as another old fool likes to say. “I make the best deals.”