HOW TO BARGAIN ON A HONG KONG MARKET

I don't really understand blogs, if I'm honest. Is it supposed to be a work in progress? Should everything be finished? Do you just put things on here? What, basically, is the point? I might as well open my window and read this to the night sky. At least then it would be drowned out by the constant honking of Beijing's taxi drivers.

I'm on a bike. HONK. I'm on a bike and you're behind me. HONKETY HONK. The lights have changed. Honk honko honky HONK. Etc.

Anyway. This is something I wrote a while back, during an 'I'll write some fluffy stuff for real magazines' phase. I've also done 'Winter Skin Care: Do's and Don't's', and 'Bogeling: Is It The New Tango?' I'm thinking Time Out for the first one, Bella for the last two. Wish me luck.

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HOW TO BARGAIN ON A HONG KONG STREET MARKET

In Hong Kong, everyone is selling something. The city is one enormous shop. But let’s face it: we’re not here for the new mega-malls. I didn’t come to Honkers to go to Zara and buy sweat shop clothes from H&M. This is all about the markets, the dirty edges of commerce, where everything is fake, where bargains lurk, ready to be snared.

These markets can be a little overwhelming to your average westerner. Here’s a guide to survival on the mean streets.

1. Select market. In this instance, it’s the ladies market in Hong Kong, so called because some of the tat they sell is sort-of for women, if by ‘women’ you mean people who respond to shiny things. This demographic thus extends to Elton John, Liberace and magpies.

2. Walk down the length of the market. Marvel at the sheer range of tat. We’re talking gem-encrusted elephants, Aberkrombie and Fitcn t-shirts, child’s sunglasses with a GCCUI sticker on the side, plastic smoking buddhas, fake transformers that don’t, shrink wrap kits for all your shrink wrap needs. Absolute rubbish.

3. Select item you wish to purchase. March up to luckless stall owner and begin to bargain. CRUCIAL: at this stage have a rough idea of how much you are willing to pay. Try not to do the I’m-doing-currency-conversion-in-my-head-and-it’s-not-going-well look, or she’ll sense weakness.

4. Stall owner will be much too nice to you and flatter you with lies. Commonly heard mistruths include: they make you look thin, handsome, beautiful, buy all of them, you are very pretty. This is fine.

5. He or she will point out that the half-cocked sunglasses or dangerously miss-spelt t-shirt you are clutching is, in face, an authentic piece of designer ware. Do not laugh. You are equals in a life or death financial struggle.

5. Stall owner will produce a leaflet showing either a) Kanye West wearing said sunglasses or b) a photocopied certificate which attests to the UV blocking qualities of the lense. In Cantonese. Stall owner will hit/burn/pull/punch item to prove these claims.

6. COMMENCE HAGGLING. Ask the stall owner how much it costs. They name a price at least $100 too high. You name a price half what you’re willing to pay. They’ll bring there’s down to something more reasonable. You bring yours up to something less insulting. There’s still at least a $50 gap.

7. Impasse. Deadlock. This is where it gets testy. Both trader and customer now have a few options. First up: hastily improvised combo deal. Throw something else into the mix (why not add that giant fluffy Nintendo branded pencil-that-isn’t-a-pencil?) and add $10 on to your offer. See what happens.

8. Second option: actually pay something reasonable. Bear in mind that, as a westerner, you are a king in this country, and you should stop being so bloody tight. You’re already living the consumer high-life at home on the back of poor people in poor countries making crap so that you can use it once and throw it away: maybe you can take your foot off the oppression pedal for one evening? Offer $20 less than what they want.

9. Third. Nuclear option: walk away. You need balls for this one. Make sure the stall holder knows exactly what you’re offering. Put the item down, say thank you, and walk off. He or she will barrack you in as polite a way as possible (‘Hey Lady. LADY. WE ARE FRIENDS. COME BACK HERE. YOU COME BACK HERE.). If this happens, offer $5 more just to show you’re a human after all, and make your purchase. The alternative is that they’ll just shrug and mutter an insult/curse, and you’ll walk off into the night. It’s a risk you’ve got to take.

10. Success! You are now the proud owner of something made by a peasant in a hellish factory that will break by the time you get it home. And what’s better, it didn’t cost you much. Well done everybody!

TAXI

You put out your hand. Get in the taxi. Tell the driver where you want to go, and he’ll repeat it to you, the same words with slightly different intonation, to show that you’re a stupid foreigner. You put your bag between your legs and stare out of the windscreen. You pull up to the first set of lights. You can tell he’s looking at you. Time for some Chinese.

THE WEATHER IS GETTING COLD you shout. For some reason, you always raise your voice when you try to speak the language. I WILL HAVE TO BUY A SWEATER. Probably not appropriate, but it follows on in the text-book.

You can speak Chinese! The driver exclaims. A LITTLE you scream. Then the driver will ask you whether you’re French, for some reason, and you’ll say, NO I AM ENGLISH, and then you’ll say I VERY LIKE BEIJING, and he’ll repeat it to himself and laugh. And then that will be it till the next red light. He or she is still looking at you. Still with the same eyes that strangers look at you with here. Not staring, just looking, like you’re on the telly or in the zoo or something. Expressionless. Flat face. Looking.

And then something will happen. Something always happens. The drivers phone will go off, and he’ll answer it, put it on loudspeaker, and then bellow into it, six inches from your ear. The conversation seems to revolve around shouting WHAT? at each other until one of them hangs up. Or maybe he’ll start asking you questions. Which is bigger? Russia or China? Do you cook for yourself or eat out? Where do you work? How long does it take to get from Beijing to London? Do you have any pets? Most of these questions you can’t answer unless someone is there to translate for you, but it doesn’t seem to matter. He is smiling. You’re smiling.

The best is when there’s something else in the cab too. When you get to the third or fourth set of lights, and it’s silent again, and you can hear something in the car going zzz-zzzz. Zzz-zzz. And you think: maybe it’s his phone. Yes, it must be some sort of funny phone noise. And it doesn’t stop. So you point to your ear and ask him: what?

And that’s it. His face breaks into an enormous smile. Beaming with pride, he reaches into his jacket, and pulls out a little plastic pot, about three inches long and one across. He hands the pot to you. Inside there is a huge grass-hopper, cricket, call it what you will. It’s fucking massive, and bright green. Its tentacles move all over the inside of the cylinder, fingering the air holes in the top. It’s quiet because it doesn’t know what’s happening. Your eyes meet. It likes you. ZZZ ZZZ. ZZZ ZZZ, it shouts. And then another pipes up, from inside his jacket. He must have a whole family in there, in their own tubes. You laugh. He laughs. IT HAS VERY BIG SPEAK you say to him. He nods. This is fucking brilliant.

You reach your destination. You feel a thousand metres tall. You are living in another country and someone has just shown you his grasshopper. This has been the best taxi ride you have ever had. He pushes the meter back up. ‘Thank you for take Beijing Taxi bye bye’ says the recorded message, in English. BYE BYE, shouts the taxi driver, grinning. Cheers mate, you reply.

THINGS I HAVE SEEN IN BEIJING PART THREE

NUMBER THREE: LEMONADE

I walked into a shop to buy some lemonade. The shop was in the middle of a grubby row opposite the market, with grey walls and tatty, plastic signs. All the shops sold pretty much the same thing, and all were staffed by pretty much the same family members, so that the only difference between each was the configuration of biscuits, noodles, and coke, and children, parents and grandparents.

I pushed the flapping plastic blinds apart, and stepped over the threshold. The first thing I saw was a little boy, smoking. There was absolutely no way he was older than two. And there he was, stood up, in a blue padded jacket with a dirty grey woolen hat on, and a lit cigarette in his mouth. He held a lighter in both hands, with the flame on constantly, and the end of the fag in the flame.

His parents had their backs to him, busy with some other retail tasks. The only other witness was his equally little sister, but she didn’t seem bothered by her brothers first forays into nicotine addiction. All I could think to say was to point at him and say ‘bu, bu, bu’ which means ‘no, no, no’. The woman heard me, and turned around. I was expecting some sort of exclamation, ‘Heavens to mercy’ or something like that, maybe accompanied with a good deal of running around, like a cartoon character whose bottom is on fire, looking for a bowl of water. But she didn’t seem too surprised. Maybe this happens all the time, and she’s sick and tired of it. Maybe they start them young here. She sighed, reached down and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. He must have had a pretty good grip, because it took a few goes to yank it out of there.

She dropped the cigarette on the floor and stood on it, then scooped up the rest of the pack from the little table that the boy had been sitting at, and put them on a high shelf. Then she turned back to her business. That was it. All the time the child still had the lighter, and it was still on full. She didn’t seem too fussed about this part of the crime.

The only time she seemed actually upset was when the boy stole one of the ice creams she was unpacking into the freezer. He reached up slowly, pulled it out of the packet, and then bolted for the door. The woman started shouting at him, but she was too late. He was off, into the winter street, nicotine rushing through his body, holding his ice cream high, shrieking with happiness. His little sister was left standing in the shop, without an ice cream, but with the same unbothered look on her face. She was holding the lighter. I paid for my lemonade.