May 22nd: Buying Stuff

They have a lot of cheap stuff here. I wish I knew better how it works. How do they make and sell this stuff for such a low monetary cost is not something I can tell you. Maybe I should tell you first what I bought, and then tell you about buying it. Hopefully you’ll be more impressed that way. I bought a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses for $4, a Calvin Klein watch for $6, ties for cheap but I won’t tell you because I want to give them to some of you; I got a North Face snow pack for $15, I can buy DVDs for 60 cents a piece. They were selling Armani suits for $70 before I started haggling the price. I don’t need a suit, though. I didn’t buy one. I could’ve had a suit tailor made just for my curvy frame shape for even cheaper.


The great thing about all this name brand stuff is that it’s all genuine! That’s right, everybody. A real Armani suit. I’d put my Ray Bans up against any pair out there, on or off the black market. And they were made in the US. You know how I know all this? Because it is printed right on the property itself. And they wouldn’t print it on the frame if it weren’t true, right? I mean property rights are something that everybody everywhere pays attention to. People in China are bound under the same laws protecting human capital as everyone else. I suppose all these manufacturers just must like Chinese people more than westerners and so they are will to give them a better deal on their products.


The place that we are able to buy all this legitimate stuff is amazing. It’s 4 or 5 stories tall and jam packed with sellers, buyers, and merchandise. They don’t mess around with open walking spaces like an American mall. Benches and ferns mean nothing to them. Why take up space with a piece of art or a map of the complex if you could put stuff to sell there instead? I had a blast haggling the price of stuff! Everyone was blown away that I spoke Chinese, so I got a killer price on everything. I want to go back and offer my services to other foreigners, buying stuff for them with their money. I would keep half of the leftovers, and those using my services would save at least 2 or 3 dollars. Ok, maybe not so worth it.


Before we went to Ye Olde Cheape Stuff Mall, we were in downtown Beijing where the really nice malls were. That’s going to be very attractive come this time next year during the Olympics. One dept. store was selling an elephant tusk for $224,000. Taking pictures of it was forbidden (there’s the word again); but it’s still interesting to think about, how a safari visiting the elephants could fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. Too bad wildlife rights aren’t protected as stringently as property rights. $4 Ray Bans. $.60 Hollywood blockbuster. Oh, wait a sec…