The Silk Market

I made an expedition this morning to Beijing’s Silk Market. I was dreading going, because I had been warned that everything has to be bargained for, that the merchants are very aggressive (and good at getting their price) and that they will slip inferior goods into your bag if you are not careful.

As a rule of thumb, the initial prices that are quoted are roughly double what you should end up paying.

How did I do? Well, here was the haul: five wool-silk shawls, two silk scarves, two silk ties, a pair of silk pajamas, a set of nested purses, a silk blouse and a reversible Chinese-style linen jacket.

I paid about 1,700 yuan, or a little over $200.

I’m pretty sure I got taken. A bad sign: Two of the merchants gave me their cards and invited me to come back and bring my friends.

The Silk Market is a lot more than silk. In the basement the air is heavy with the smell of leather. Wallets, purses, shoes and luggage are everywhere.

One of the upper floors is all fine jewelry.

Lower floors have designer clothes and casual styles. A ride up the escalator takes you to the silk floor. As soon as you start walking down the aisle, all the merchants start calling out in heavily accented English.

“Hello sir.”

“Hello sir, you want suit? Fine silk suit. Ready for you tomorrow.”

Some of the merchants reach out and grab your arm.

“Hello sir. You want scarf? Silk scarf? Pashmina.”

Pashmina is a kind of wool that supposedly comes from the fine hair under the chin of a Himalayan goat. But it is not an officially recognized designation, and really just means wool or cashmere.

“Come here, sir, and I give you best price.”

The merchants, most of them women, use small calculators for bargaining. They punch in a number and show it to you. (That way they don’t have to say prices out loud for other merchants or customers to hear.)

You punch in your price, which should be about 40 percent of the vendor’s.

“Oh, sir, I can’t sell to you for that. I lose money. But how many you want? If you buy three, I can give you best price. I give you morning price. You are my first customer this morning. I give you morning price.”

(That part’s highly unlikely, since it was about noon when I was there.)

The guidebooks say that your best strategy is to bargain as much as you can and then walk away,

“Sir you are very handsome. Come back. I like you. I sell to you.”

That’s how I got the silk pj’s for 50 yuan, about $6.

As the bargaining went on, I think I got better at it.

One of the tricks I wasn’t prepared for was when a vendor would resist giving back my change. Instead she would offer “deals.”

“Take another tie, and I give you a gift to take back for your wife.”

The vendors do this all day along and have a significant advantage over their customers. You start to feel like a fish that’s getting reeled in.

It’s all very disorienting, and it’s easy to forget where the prices started and exactly how you got to the actual transaction price. It’s also easy to forget exactly what price you bargained to.

A vendor may start stuffing merchandise into your bag that you didn’t want and put aside the things you actually want. But the merchants are intent on making a deal and don’t protest when you tell them to give you the right things.

I had been warned about pickpockets, and so I left my wallet in my room and stuffed folded-up currency in my pockets.

This actually turned out to be a pretty good trick. When I was down to my last 600 yuan, I was bargaining for two items that had started at around 850 yuan. I knew that I had 100 yuan in my right pocket and 500 in the left.

“I don’t have much money left,” I said. “How about if I give you what I have in this pocket? I’ll give you 500 yuan if I have that much.”

We struck a deal, which is how I got a silk blouse and a linen jacket for about $85.

Thinking back, I realize that if I had only 400 yuan in my pocket I probably could have done the deal at that price.