Beating those boxing peddlers to the punch

Suddenly, this strange little lady started slapping me around. And the harder I bargained, the harder this vicious vendor whacked me.

It was all in good fun, and part of the theatrics of the haggling game at this open-air market behind Beijing's Wangfujing shopping street, but despite being about one-third my size and weight, this peddler packed a mighty punch.

I had taken my visiting family and friends on a shopping mission. For my culture-shocked visitors, China's open-air markets seemed to be truly bizarre bazaars, and they had some trouble getting used to flexible pricing. But they soon found that a trip to a Chinese open-air market is like playing Let's Make a Deal and The Price is Right simultaneously; and sometimes, it can even be a bit like Nintendo's Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!

This spirited saleswoman was selling scrolls preferably, to fresh-off-the-boat Westerners, such as my visiting friends Jenny and Andrew. She had just about talked them into paying several hundred times the value of these artworks, when I showed up and started driving a harder bargain.

Her: "How much you give me?"

Me: "20."

Her: "Gasp! Gasp! Oh, my God! No!" (As if her stomach burst).

Me: "How much, then?"

Her: "300 yuan."

Me: "Gasp! Gasp! Oh, my God! No!"

Her: "No, really, 300. Good price!"

Me: "No, 20 is a good price. I know; I'm not a tourist. They're offering 30 over there."

Then, this sadistic saleswoman started clobbering me. After a half hour taking blows from these fists of fury and having only knocked off 50 yuan, I decided to seek better deals elsewhere or at least refuge.

The next week, I came back with my parents to finagle with my friends behind Wangfujing.

And one by one, my unwary family members wandered into her stall ready to splash too much cash, and I would come to the rescue. I just hoped to give them a fighting chance; the vendor just hoped for a chance to fight.

Every time that I'd offer a slightly lower-than-reasonable price, she'd hit the ceiling then start hitting me.

It was very entertaining to my visitors to watch this sprightly saleswoman throttling this oafish foreign galoot. But I would not be beaten into submission or overpay for the scrolls.

And once all of my guests had independently stumbled into the stall of Beijing's boxing businesswoman and we had no more shopping to do there, the vendor began suddenly appearing wherever else I was in the market. She'd deliver a few good cuffs then disappear back into the crowd.

The whole thing was particularly amusing to the mostly Chinese crowd, especially when she burrowed another vendor's calligraphy brush to take my corporal punishment up a few notches.

By the end of our third trip to the market, I left with an armful of traditional trinkets and sore spots.

But kneading my freshly tenderized shoulders while walking toward a cab, I reflected on this shopping experience that proved to be more than I'd bargained for. And I realized: That's the price you sometimes pay when bargaining in Beijing's bazaars.

(China Daily 04/25/2007 page20)