Silk Street

Today, being a pretty special day and all, went pretty well. Sarah - who if you are not aware, came up to Beijing to celebrate with me, and I went to the silk market along with a new facilitator Abby. The silk market is nearly 1,500 vendors selling everything (literally everything) from DVD's to expensive jewelry to artwork to tourist tshirts to fine luxury clothing. One of my favorite shops is this woman who sells pure cashmere and silk scarves. Unless you have been to Northern China, Inner Mongolia or Persia, you have never felt anything this soft or smooth. Most of the silk you buy in the US is a blend of silk and another fabric to keep costs down or colors bright, but pure 100% silk is hard to find in the US. Pure cashmere is even harder to find, but when you find it, it is softer and smoother then silk. A while back, I helped a facilitator bargain at this particular shop and the lady tthat runs it gave us a pretty fair price for what we wanted, so since then I've brought them all the new facilitators who come
into TIP. This ensures that they get great prices for what they want without having to worry about being ripped off during the negotiation phase
of buying and it gives her business. This also help me establish what is called "guan xi." In China, it's not what you know that gets things done, but largely
who you know and how good of a relationship you have with them. This is guan xi. Guan xi is used in thousands of ways for thousands of circumstances, but in this case
guan xi enables me to get a better price than most people would. For instance, suppose the silk scarves this woman is selling cost her 50 yuan each. If a complete stranger comes to her and asks how much, she will probably start off at around 700 yuan and then negotiations would ensue with (depending on the skill of the bargainer) an agreement around two or three hundred yuan or so. However, because I bring this woman customers and because I am her friend, I have built up guan xi with her. Thus, today Sarah and Abby were able to get pure silk scarves for 90 yuan each. This would be impossible for someone who has not spent the time and effort to build up guan xi with the vendor. sarah and Abby bought a few more things there as well, and when she found out it was my birthday, she gave us a free gift of a small cashmere table accessory. Negotations would have started out at over 300 yuan for this free item.
Her brother runs a stall nearby that sells exquisite men's clothes, including very formal traditional silk Chinese shirts. While Sarah and Abby were haggling it out for one last item, I wandered over to his shop and my eye caught a very handsome
silk shirt that is navy blue with intricately embroidered gold dragons down the front. As I was looking it over, the brother said in pretty fair English for me to try it on. So as I was slipping into it, he told me "you always make my sister so happy when you come and bring new business."
We talked for a little more and as I was admiring the shirt, he pulled out a calculator (the preferred way to negotiate) and said "normally, I would charge this amount for that shirt" and he typed in 1,175. It is a well loved trick by vendors to go down in price maybe 50 yuan and then put on a big production about how much they went down so i was expecting this while trying to figure out how to tell him I could not pay over a thousand yuan for a shirt. However, he quickly typed in 270. I was incredibly shocked by this massive drop in price and he delicately hinted that it was the base price and only for me only because of my specialrelationship with his family's shops. This is guan xi paying off. To understand how meaningful this is, you have to understand a little something about how the silk market works. Every vendor is on commission and if he or she fails to sell a single thing on any given day, their base pay is just ten yuan. About a buck and a half. To them, the phrase "another day, another dollar" is a scary incentive of what will happen if you don't make a sell. So to take a bath like they did today, by drastically underselling the merchandise and evengiving some away is a huge cut into their paycheck, and it meant that would have to work that much harder for the rest of the day. Pretty hard to do considering there is another 20 or so stalls selling the exact same thing. Granted, they've more than made up the losses in the business that I've brought them over the past few months, but still, I was very impressed. If I had been completley fluent in Chinese and an expert on silk and cashmere, but a complete stranger to them, I still would not have gotten the treatment I got today. It pays to be a friend.