Qipu (chee-pu, almost like "cheap") Market

So... Saturday night.

I was at a place called Qipu market (七铺路） where many Chinese residents go to buy things. I went with my friend Jiang Jiang and two of her friends (Tianwen and Lianglili). We met at the Nan Jing East road subway station and walked 10 minutes to get to the market.

This isn't my first time there. I had gone there two previous times but I've never really bought anything when I went. Because a person is a foreigner, upon entering the premises you are bombarded with people trying to sell you watches, bags, DVDs... of course for the most part they ignore the Chinese people. I guess they just assume that if you're a foreigner you're automatically going to have a lot of money that you'll enjoy spending on items listed in their highly informative sales pitch. One thing I don't understand about Chinese culture is that if they are unsuccessful in selling you listed items in their little brochures, why don't they change their sales pitch? Just because this type of sales may have worked in the past doesn't necessarily mean it works now, especially when there are about 20 of these sales people for every one foreigner.

Anyway... before we entered the market the girls taught me how to say "Stop following me" which is "别跟着我“。 I said it in an impolite way but having people following me can be so frustrating at times on Saturday I didn't really care whether or not I was being polite. The sales people who were heckling me were often surprised and even laughed (in disbelief?) that I said something like that to them. But it was effective. They stopped following me.

I wanted to buy many many gifts for various family and friends, but I ended up just buying myself stuff. I've come to a point where I'm bored with my wardrobe. I brought two suitcases but I really didn't bring that much clothing with me and I've been repeating outfits week by week. China is an ideal place to experiment with personal style because clothes are inexpensive here, so even if you buy something hideous or clothes that go out of style within a week you're not losing that much money. For the most part my style is pretty simple and plain. Being in China gives me a new slate with fashion and I just realized this on Saturday.

The Chinese style here lacks... elegance. Older women tend to wear plaids with checkered prints and sometimes they even throw a nice floral into the mix too, but there are some strengths with style here that I do want to utilize. Chinese women enjoy wearing cute often very girly clothing with lots of lace and random bows. While this can be a bit too much at times, the tackiness in some of the clothes can be utilized, in my opinion, to create an interesting wardrobe. Over my remaining months here I plan to cautiously expand my wardrobe and try to combine some of the flashy clothes with my plain ones.

Saturday I was looking for boots. Chinese style boots. Over the summer, my friend Monty had shown off her Ukranian fur lined glitzy boots and I was inspired by her to get Chinese boots for myself (that wouldn't be nearly as effectively warm). When Dad was here he also mentioned that I need to get some glitzy tacky Chinese boots, but when we looked at Daranfa (the local grocery store/mall complex near my home), the boots didn't fit and were quite expensive.

So the search for boots began. I must have tried on at least 4 or 5 pairs of boots that varied in color from black and brown to red and purple. Sometimes they wouldn't even have my size (too big!) Other times the quality of the boot was just terrible, or the shoe didn't fit.

FINALLY we went to a stand that had these cute black boots that went to just below my knee. Around the ankle was a cute silver buckle, and toward the top of the boot were a few jewel embellishments. It sounds tacky but they were (somewhat) tasteful. I asked for a size 39. They had it, I tried them on and they fit so well!

Then the haggling begins. I ask her, "How much?" I see a sparkle in her eyes. She takes out her calculator (which annoys me because I asked her in Chinese, I would understand her response, and they only use calculators with foreigners)... the number reads "680". "SIX HUNDRED AND EIGHTY KUAI?! Are you joking?!" I respond, flabbergasted, in Chinese. "Why are you giving me the foreigner price?" She says, "it's not the foreigner price." At the fabric market you can get a custom made cashmere coat for 550, so the fact that she wants me to pay 680 for (fake) leather boots is insulting and ridiculous. I then say "100", she makes a face, so I walk away. She quickly changes her mind and says "yes yes" but I don't bother-- I want to give my business to someone who's more trusting than her. I just say to Jiang Jiang, "This is China and we are at a market. We will find similar, if not the same shoes somewhere else here." We turn to go down the isle, look at a few stands, and there are the same boots on display. JiangJiang asks the price and tries them on, pretending to be interested in them, and asks the price. The man starts at 260 (not nearly as bad), so then I come in and say I'd like to try them on. They fit, and I say to him "70 kuai". He says he can't, so I go up to 75. He says no, so I say "fine, 80 is the most I'll pay." He says no so I walk away. He then tells me to come back and I get the boots for 80 kuai.

Phew. Later that same day my wallet got stolen. I will update you with this story in the near future.