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I went out and bought me a tree. She’s a looker that’s for sure and if i understood the chinese guy who sold it to me she will have flowers by april.
But understanding the tree seller was a major problem. I finally got off my lazy ass and went down to the plant market with my compradres. More exactly we went to the 金花鸟市场 the golden flower and bird market. This plass lived up to it’s rather grand name. There were rows upon rows of plants, i didn’t really know what any of it was, cept the orange trees, cause they had oranges on them. but Luckily carl’s friend was in from the states and he was a fount of plant knowledge, I was very glad to have him along, it made me smarter.
The plants were also cheap as whore in a the 金小姐自行车市场 (that’s the golden whore and bicycle market, they got markets for everything here in China!) A three foot orange tree could be had for 40 kuai, about 5 bucks, a 6 foot bamboo grove or a delicate orcid for the same price. Supposedly the natives can get ‘em even cheaper, but hey you got to pay your laowai tax.
They also had a bunch of cool ass bonsai. Now these weren’t the best specimes as they had kinda tacky sapes and most of them had the wires left on to long, but the were big old and cheap. Just look at the gnarls in the trunk of my baby. She’s about 3 feet high and probably was planted by mao himself!
I hate bargaining, and buying this tree was a prime example of why. First we walked around the whole market to get an idea of the selection and the prices. This one guy seemed very happy to talk to us and said he would give us a special deal ’cause we were americans. But usually that means about fifty times what everybody else pays.
I like his trees the best so i go in to talk to him and pick one out. he starts talking fast about the plants, i catch that th ones with smaller leafs are more expensive, you have to keep some plants outside and that some of the plants are decidous. But i’m a little wary because in China you are always told to assume someone is trying to screw you over and talking fast to confuse the foriegner.
When you bargain in China it’s generally along these lines
Laowai: How much for this fake north face hat?
Bootleg hat vender: 500 kuai
laowai: hahaha
Bootleg hat vender: feel it it’s real cashmere!
Laowai: I’ll give you 10 kuai
Bootleg hat vender: hahaha, you insult me, I need to make money here, look look it’s real cashmere
laowai: (starts waling away)
Bootleg hat vender: Ok ok, I’ll give it to you for 20
laowai: 15
Bootleg hat vender: ok 15 (sells hat)
Chinese person: How much for the hat?
Bootleg hat vender: 10
Chinese person: I’ll give you 5
Bootleg hat vender: ok
After having to many of these experiances i am rather jaded and i didn’t trust the guy selling me the tree, plus it was getting drak and i didn’t want to have to go through the ordeal of bargaining. So he offers me a price, i thought he said 280. i only had about 240 on me and i needed a cab ride home, so I tried to bargain him down to 150. After this he got very frustrated with me, I couldn’t figure out what he was saying so i asked if 200 would be ok?
then carl walks up and he looks at carl, points at me and says “听不懂 (dosn’t understand) He then clarifies to carl that the asking price for the tree was 180, not 280. In all my apprhension about having to bargain, i had totally misheard what the guy had said. The main seemed a little embarrsed about all this and in the end gave me the tree for 150 even though I tried to pay him 180.
The moral of the story is that bargaining is stupid because : One, it is a waiste of time, just tell me the damn price so I don’t have to argue with you for five minutes. Two, it makes me hate people, Three, I often inadvertantly insult people by asking ridiculously low prices.