If Mandarin isn't your strong point, you'll need a trusty calculator to negotiate the maze of bargains and hoodwinking shopkeepers. Ashwin Ferro brings you a fool-proof plan to beat the reds at their own game
If Mandarin isn't your strong point, you'll need a trusty calculator to negotiate the maze of bargains and hoodwinking shopkeepers.u00a0Ashwin Ferrou00a0brings you a fool-proof plan to beat the reds at their own game
China is one of the best places to go shopping in, because, after conversion, the rate of anything and everything is lower, cheaper, if not equal to price you'd pay in India. The only challenge? Getting that mean bargain with a man who understands no English. 
I have been to China before (to cover the 2008 Beijing Olympics), so this time round when I visited the world's most populous nation again (for the Guangzhou Asian Games 2010), I carried with me one of the most important tools I'd need to a bargain -- a calculator. Yes, my mobile phone has a built-in calculator, but there was a reason I didn't use it. More on that later.
Prices in China's fake markets -- and believe me, it's impossible to tell the original from the duplicate at first glance -- vary incredibly. Quotations as high as 500 RMB (referred to in local dialect as Yuan), can be brought down to as low as 50 RMB (Rs 320 approx.) It's the language barrier that the vendor tries taking advantage of.
As soon as you enter any shop, inquiring about the price of an item, he whips out a calculator, if he has one, to begin negotiations. It's commonplace for a first-time buyer to type in a figure that is 10% to 20% lower than what he sees in the digit bar. And, it's a deal! The vendor mutters something in Chinese, goes on and on and on... and in a bid to shut him up, you eventually pay up that 10% -- when your actual bargain should have been 10%.
No wonder most vendors hated me. As soon as I'd enter a shop with my pals, even as the vendor began his hectic calculator hunt, I'd have my own whipped out, greeting the guy with "Nee Hao" ('hello' in the local language). Strike one.
Once at ease, he'd enter his mammoth figure -- in this case, RMB 1600 for an 'original' Louis Vuitton ladies handbag, which he coolly referred to as "LV". The calculator exchanged hands 10 times (now you know why I wasn't comfortable using my cell phone) until he agreed to my price of RMB 150, but not without the grumbling. Strike two.
"You Hindu?" he asked. I corrected him. "I'm Catholic." Confused, I then realised that he meant 'Indo. In China, India is referred to as Indo. "Yes," I said, "Indo, Indo" in the hope of a further reduction. Instead, he shot back, "You very cheapo."
Before that's interpreted as rude, I must come to his defence. What he meant was that I'd got the bag at a cheap rate. Deal done, strike three.
I said "Xie Xie" (pronounced 'sheea sheea'; means "Thank you") and moved on to the next shop in a bid to break down yet another Great Wall of Chinese communication.
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