In Shanghai, we decided to skip the trip to the government-run silk rug “factory”…many of us were suffering from wallet fatigue and opted out, even though we knew we might be missing out on a great opportunity to get a “quality” handmade silk carpet at a fantastic not-for-export-market price. At least, that’s the party line. C’est la vie.
After getting some urban survival tips from the concierge, we head into the bowels of the mall attached to the hotel to find the Metro, their subway system. The instructions sounded simple enough but proved harder to follow once we stood face to face with the machine that dispenses tickets based on distance travelled…we don’t read Chinese. After trying in vain, trying to muddle through a conversation with the service desk then returning to the machine in the hopes for a divine intervention, we finally passed the first hurdle when a helpful assistant, sensing our confusion, came over and pressed the button labelled “English”…
After inadvertently going in the wrong direction (apparently, the “East line” starts East and goes West…not my first guess”) we finally made our exit and strolled East Nanjing Road and toured the French Concession sector, so named after France won concessions to the area following the Anglo-China war in the last century. As very visible minorities here (the Chinese refer to us as the “long nosed ones”) we were easy targets for sellers of cheap umbrellas, amazingly inexpensive Rolex watches and Gucci bags. We repelled them with the definitive “bu hao” (don’t want) which seems to work better than “bu dui” (literally, ‘not yes’), which seems to mean “try harder” to the street vendors.
At the river front, we turn right on Zhongshan road and stroll down to the Ancient Garden where we find the tourist Mecca on Fuyou road…picture a small pagoda-style village filled with dollar stores and high end jewelry stores. The Chinese call the street vendors “Mosquitos” …and it’s not hard to understand why. They are very persistent and telling them you don’t want the 5 dollar Rolex watch only suggests to them you might take it for 4 dollars. And if you relent, negotiating a 2$ price, this signals the Gucci bag lady that you’re ready to spend. Soon you are surrounding by “Mosquitos” hawking all kinds of bargains.
We spend the afternoon in the market, surrounded by thousands of shoppers, vendors and a few hundred police and security officers. We scored a tea set, some commemorative coins and dozens of souvenirs for the children…almost all of which is negotiated to almost half of the posted price. The exception is the tea set…118¥ at the government run souvenir shop; don’t negotiate but they have the best prices. Capitalism is not such a bad thing, they’ve discovered.
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We meet up with the rest of the group for our last Chinese dinner…I yearn for the Buffalo chicken wrap at the Royal Oak but settle for rice, soup and some dishes allegedly made with pork. On the way to the bus, we encounter a large swarm of mosquitos, apparently desperate to wring out any stray dollar bills from our group. They mostly ignore our cries of “bu hao” but we have a hard time sidestepping the 30 or so vendors who have gathered, some of whom run from the tail end to the front of our group under the belief that they might get lucky the second time around. The experience concludes with the sight of a very sweet little girl, about 18 months old, sitting in her stroller by the side of the road, holding her baseball cap outstretched to accept “donations”…she pulls back a bit upon hearing our howls of laughter.
After a short bus ride to our hotel, we make our way to our room on the 30th floor and start packing our bags. The 4am wakeup call will come soon enough…we’re ready to come home.