Day 25 Lohou, China

During the time that I was slacking on the blog last week I forgot to post an update for that weekend. Last weekend we went to Lohou. Lohou is a 45minute ride from our hotel. Lohou is a big 5 story mall, with everything you’d ever want. Most of everything is fake, and if it’s not fake it’s just too hard to tell. Just like the street market in Hong Kong, you have to barter with these guys or you will be ripped off. So, Bryson, Mike, Steve, Dan and Myself decided to stick together and work as a team as much as we could.

Bryson is the best at bargaining. He showed us all how to do it. He was going to buy a jade bracelet for his mom, and they said 480RMB at first, but by the end of the negotiating Bryson had them down to 76RMB. That is incredible. You have to remember at a certain point, you are arguing over pennies. He said 75 they said 76. It’s funny to think that 1yuan (or RMB) is only about 0.15USD.

Still, we had to watch out; they must have thought we were dumb, because we then went to help someone get a pair of shoes we were bargaining with them and they wouldn’t budge and neither did we, so the shop owner says, “ok, ok, you can buy one pair for 250RMB, but next time you come I give you two for 500RMB.” What? Such a deal right? Haha, you just have to laugh.

Dan bargained for about five minutes on some polo shirts and when they couldn’t come to a deal, he walked. He got about 50 steps away, and when the shop owner saw that he was serious about leaving, she ran to him and grabbed his arm and brought him back to the store and gave him two for his price.

This was the most ridiculously fun, exhausting and crazy place to shop. Every corner of the tiny hallways was covered with shop owners calling two you, pulling you into their little lair of counterfeit items. “You want hand bag?” “You want Rolex?” “You want Oakley Glasses?” “You want MP3?”

The mp3 players were hilarious. Some of them were blatant knock offs of the iPod. As I’m walking around I heard someone trying to sell me an Mp4 and then even an MP5! Haha.

You definitely want to be a cautious shopper while in Lohou. You never know what you are going to get. For example I don’t trust any of the DVDs without checking them out first. They know that they have bad quality ones, the kind that were illegally filmed in the theater, so you have to ask if the quality is good. “Hao? Bu hau?” Which means good or bad. They will usually be honest if you ask them, but if you don’t trust them, have them open it up and pop it in the DVD player. They always have one there for that reason.

The DVDs (in Chinese “Deeveedee”) are some of the best deals around. You can usually get the new releases for about 10RMB which is like a buck and a half US. I would have gotten more but I know China and the US are cracking down on anyone who takes a lot of DVDs back with them.

Mike bought some “Qui dza” or chopsticks from Lohou. When we got back to the hotel he was showing it to one of the girls who works there. He was pretty proud he had bargained the shopkeeper down from 300RMB. He asked her if he got a good deal and when he told her he had paid 150 her eyes went wide. “No, No good. 50RMB.” Oh well, I guess you can’t win them all. It was still a pretty good deal for his chopsticks set compared to American prices, but I guess it pays to have some one native who knows how much things should cost.

Although we all had a good, but exhausting time bargaining at Lohou, I don’t think anyone enjoyed the experience more that Steve. By the time he was done, he looked like Shopping Time Barbie, with three or four bags in each hand. It was great. We would watch as shop owners would drag him into shops, pull clothes down form the shelves, hand them to him, and tell him how good he looks. You could tell just by his actions that Steve was saying “Oh, I don’t need a winter coat, but oh, you say it looks good on me? And oh yes, you are correct, this does feel like good quality material…and for that price how could I pass it up?” I think Steve was in second heaven.

We all learned a thing or two about bargaining. You can not go there as a pushover. You have to pick a number hold your ground. Then try not to be fooled by any of their tricks to get you to buy two or pay more than you were expecting.

My favorite was the shop owner who said, “Ok how about 50RMB? No? Ok, how about 25 USD?” HAHA…you are going the wrong way, buddy.