Haggling & Other Adventures in Shanghai

I hate haggling. It scares me a little. Having worked in sales, I get frustrated when people try to negotiate on the price with me. Even though it’s the norm here, I’m just not used to it. But I wanted to get some gifts to take home, so I decided to give it a try.

There are a few items I know I want to get which could be a little pricey. So that I don’t get ripped off, Vivi has agreed to go with me on Wednesday night to pick them out. Some of the other stuff I felt confident I could find on my own.

Sabrina suggested the Science and Technology Museum as well as the Yuyuan Garden area to find good, Chinese themed gifts. I’d made a list of things I’d seen that I thought people would like. My first stop was the Science and Techonlogy museum (aftually my first stop was Family Mart to pick up a muffin and yogurt for breakfast and then I went to the Science and Technology Museum.

The experience was crazy. The Science and Technology Museum station looked a lot like the metro in Japan. Shops were everywhere, and the people were aggressive. As soon as I got up the escalator one man came up to me.

“Ni hao,” he said and rattled something off in Chinese. I kept walking so he switched to English. “Hello, you want bag? You want watch?”

I shook my hand in the Chinese geture for “no” or “I don’t want it.”

“Necklace? Jewlery? Belt? Suicase?”

“Meiyao,” I said [I don’t want] and kept walking.

He followed me, “Bag, watch,” he repeated. “What you want?”

“I don’t know!” I said, a little overwhelmed. He got the message and ran after someone else.

It happened again just 10 seconds later. A woman came up to me, “You want t-shirts?” she asked. “Polo.”

I shook my head and kept walking, but she grabbed my arm and pulled on me, “Men’s shirts. Ladies shirts. Sports shirts.” I pulled my arm free and walked away.

I put on my sunglasses hoping that they would disguise me just a bit. I read in one travel book that a common disguise foreigners use when they want to “blend in” is a pair of reflective sunglasses and a fedora. I haven’t actually bought a fedora, but I’m thinking that even if I wore one, my Jewish curls and German jaw-line probably are never going to blend in.

There was definitely a lot of stuff to buy here, but none of it was really souvenir stuff. There was cheap clothing and some nice luggage (I made a note of that in case my bag I ordered online doesn’t arrive tomorrow) but nothing gift worthy. So I went and got back on the metro to head to Yuyuan Gardens.

When I arrived at the metro for the gardens, I rode up the stairs, crossed the street and made my way to the entrance. Suddenly I heard a voice call out to me, “Hello.”

“Hello,” I said. I saw a young boy and girl. They were both Chinese and  both looked to be about my age.

“Excuse me,” the boy said. “Can you take our picture?”

“Absoltuely,” I said. They handed me their camera.

“With this building,” he said in crispy clear English. I took two photos and handed back the camera.

“Are you from Australia?” the girl asked.

“No, the US,” I said.

“Oh,” the boy said. “How long you have been n Shanghai?”

“Two months,” I said. “Since May. It’s…67 days, I think.” I’d counted just the other day but I wasn’t sure how long it had been since.

“That’s cool,” the girl said. “What other cities you have gone to in China.”

“I was in Bejing last week,” I said.

“We were in Beijing too!” the boy said.

“Yes, and I’ve been to Hong Kong and Xi’an,” I said, not listing all the others.

“That’s cool,” the boy said. “You look young. Are you studying in Shanghai?”

“No I was working,” I said.

“But you are student, yes?”

“Yes,” I said. “It was an internship.”

“Oh” the boy said. “We are students too. What year are you?”

“Fourth year,” I said.

“Me too!” The boy said.

“I am a first year,” the girl said.

“What are you studying?” I asked her.

“English language,” she said. “I like talking to foreigners to practice.”

A thought crossed my head. Maybe these two could help me haggle. They could do the translation for me, and I could help them practice English!

“Where have you been in Shanghai?” the boy asked.

“I’ve been to The Bund,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Lots of beautiful buildings. Did you go up any?”

“Yes,” I said. “I went up the World Financial Tower.”

“Oh,” he said. “Is very big. The Pearl Tower is famous in Shanghai. It is originally tallest building in Shanghai until they built World Financial Tower. And now they are building an even taller one. Maybe you can come back on holiday and see it next year.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve seen it. It’s very impressive.”

“Have you been to Yuyuan Gardens?” he asked.

“I have,” I said. “I am going there now to get some gifts.” This could be a perfect segue.

The boy pulled out a map and pointed to brown dot next to the gardens. I couldn’t help but notice it was an English map…and they were a Chinese couple. Something didn’t add up.

“Do you know this restaurant?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’ve only been to the gardens.”

“Oh,” he said. “It is a tea house,” he explained.

CRAP! I thought. The tea scam. Here we go. I know I explained this once before, but basically the tea scam is China’s answer to the pickpocketing problems in Europe. Chinese locals approach tourists saying they want to practice English with them and they invite them to a “traditional tea ceremony.” They will go to the ceremony and then leave part way through it, forcing the tourist to pay sometimes hundreds of dollars to the restaurant staff (which is often in on the scam.)

“Have you had much tea in China?” the boy said.

“I have,” I said, getting a bit defensive at the fact they were trying to manipulate me.

“What is your favorite tea?” he said.

“I like the oolong,” I said, giving the cliché tourist answer.

“Oh,” he said. “I like oolong too, but I like lemon more. Lemon I like one, oolong I like two.”

“Oh,” I said a bit emotionless.

“This restaurant does a tea ceremony,” he said. “It is very traditional. Have you seen the Chinese Tea Ceremony.”

“I have,” I said, hoping to throw off his schtick.

“You have?” he asked. “When?”

“A few weeks ago,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “I think this tea ceremony is the best. We can all go together and we will explain to you what is happening.”

“Actually,” I said. “I don’t have much time. I need to go buy those gifts now.”

“It will only take 20 minutes,” he said.

I’m sure it will I thought.

“No, I don’t have time,” I said.

“Fifteen minutes,” he said. Apparently the thousand year old tradition can be modified to meet your needs.

“No thank you,” I said.

“You can help me practice English,” the girl said.

“It was nice to meet you,” I said. “Have a nice day.”

“Ok,” they said. “Bye bye.”

I turned to walk away.

Haggling turned out to be a lot more fun than I expected. I found one stand that sold most of the things I needed. While I’m sure other people could have talked the girl down further than I did, her English was very good, she was very helpful, and she seemed sympathetic to my line that I was a poor student running out of money. I negotiated a bundle price on everything I bought and while it was a little expensive, it was less than the maximum I had set in my head. By looping around to a few other stands (and stopping at DQ for a green tea blizzard) I found just about everything I needed.

Going back to the hostel, I dropped off my stuff. I decided I would try to squeeze in a little bit of site seeing, so I went to find the Jade Buddha temple. This temple is a tourist favorite and often featured on travel shows and blogs. Basically a Buddhist monk went to Burma in 1912 and brought back a two ton, two meter tall white jade Buddha statue. A temple was constructed for the statue, and it has become a pilgrimage site in Buddhist faith. Over the next century, the temple acquired 4 more jade statues, bringing the total to five.

Initially when I looked up the directions in one of my books, I thought that the Jade Buddha was off of Chengshu road. When I got to the metro, I figured that just couldn’t be right, mostly because all of the maps showed the Buddha as being close to the train station. As I studied the map of the metro system, I realized that there was a stop on line 7 called Chengshou road. Looking at the map on my phone again, Chengshou road was close to the jade Buddha. I decided to go there.

When I got out of the station at Chengshou road, I turned left. I didn’t really know which way to turn so I figured it was a 50/50. After walking a few blocks and about 10 minutes, I decided to turn around. And it was a beautiful day for a walk. It was really hot and I was really, really sweaty, but the air was so clear and there was a brilliant blue sky overhead. I think Shanghai is trying to show off for me in the last days I’m here.

As I was walking the other direction, two white girls approached me. “Excuse me,” they said. They had heavy Eastern European accents. One was tall and blonde and the other was shorter with brunette hair. The brunette had the most stunning eyes I’ve ever seen.

 “Is there some temple around here?” the brunette asked.

“With a jade Buddha?” I asked.

“Yes,” they said.

“I’m actually looking for it myself,” I told them. Joining forces we continued a few blocks.

When we walked by one restaurant, the blonde girl stepped inside. In flawless mandarin, she asked for directions.

“You guys speak Chinese?” I asked.

“Yes,” the brunette girl said. “At least a little. We’ve studied it, but all of the dialects here make it hard to understand.”

At that point, we started swapping life stories. The two of them were from Ukraine (and it did take a lot of will power for me not to blurt out, “So how bad is it over there?” when they told me that) and they were on a three week language emersion program in Shanghai from their university. They were both Chinese language majors, although the one was double majoring in English literature too. China had not been kind to the two of them. Being from Ukraine, apparently spicy food was a new discovery, and they were not a fan. They also did not like the crowded cities or the chaotic metro.

The temple, which we did eventually find was a big yellow building. The courtyard was so filled with incense, that ash floated in the smoke as it whirled around the air.

“It smells like the churches in Ukraine.”

The first room of the temple, which was the main prayer room, had three large gold Buddha’s. They were very beautiful, but I think the altar on the back side of the BUddhas was more colorful. It showed all of the incarnations of Buddha coming to worship one central Buddha. The ceiling was also beautiful. It looked like a black hole, with light spinning in circles, leading up to a small opening of Heaven. The sides of the chamber were lined with other golden statues and I’m not sure if they were Buddhas or guards.

The admission to the temple was 20RMB, but to see the Jade Buddha was another 10 RMB (8USD total.) It was kept in a glass display case in the top story of the monastery behind the temple. The wooden staircase leading up to it was tight and twisted. I had to duck to keep my head from hitting the next flight of stairs above me.

The Buddha was beautiful. The room it was in was dimly light, but the incense smoke was so heavy you could see the beams of sunlight coming through the window on either side of the Buddha. The statue itself was made of white jade and really was quite elegant. The ceiling was guilding with thousands of tiny little buddhas.

Not only could you not take pictures of the Buddha, you also could not approach it, or pray to it. The brunette girl got in trouble for snapping a photo, but they didn’t really do anything to her other than make a scene about it.

Downstairs, there was another jade Buddha, which was actually laying down instead of siting. The one upstairs was the original from Burma but this was the only other one of the five open to the public. We also stepped into the hall of ancestors and a few other prayer rooms, but they all looked a lot like the other temples. One entire wall of the temple had been torn down and was under construction (which kind of killed the atmosphere a bit) it was a nice “last temple” to see before I go home.