Great Moments in Bargaining

At the beginning of the semester, I was petrified of bargaining, especially bargaining in Chinese, but now I love it. Somehow buying clothing is far more satisfying when you have the thrill of the chase. It's like a sport, you vs. the salesperson, each of you trying to come up with better excuses as to why your price makes sense. One popular strategy for salespeople is shameless flattery, where they tell you how good you look in the clothing, how nicely it sets off your beautiful white skin (if you're me), etc., so you don't feel so reluctant to pay the high price they're offering. Whether they really mean it is variable, I guess, although that one time in Xinjiang I really wanted to buy the green scarf and the salesladies practically FORCED me to get the red one because it went better with my white skin, so I feel like those salesladies really did think it looked pretty good. Anyway, today I had a super fun bargaining experience buying a black halter top with white polka dots. I was dubious about the fit, because I have a generally un-Chinese shape so I always have to be skeptical, but when I tried it on it was super cute! The saleslady and I were having a fun bantering time, and the salespeople in neighboring stalls were even getting in on it and yelling things to me(no fair, ganging up on the foreigner!), and I was feeling generally good-humored and silly about the whole thing, so when she started telling me that it was worth the price because it looked really good on me, I countered by saying that in fact, she should give me a discount because I looked so good (you can get discounts for all sorts of random stuff in China, so I figured it was worth a shot), and it totally worked! Well, eventually, although I had to walk away and get called back three times before I got the exact price I wanted, and even then I had to do a fair amount of weaseling out of the last two kuai over my asking price that they were still demanding, but I felt that the salespeople as well as myself were having a pile of fun. My general bargaining strategy is to be kind of over the top and amuse the salesperson so they like me. It's not the most cutthroat strategy ever, but I have more fun! Annnnnd I've gotta go to sleep now so I can wake up at 6:30 to go to the Dirt Market(maybe if you're lucky I'll buy you some dirt; I hear it's really nice). Wooo!

p.s. - just kidding there, the Dirt Market actually sells antiques and random whosiwhatsits, I think. Hen hao!