Not so smooth and silky street of Silk Street, Beijing.
Even before we landed in Beijing, we had read stuffs about the notorious sellers of Silk Street, Beijing.
Silk Street is a so-called shopping paradise where they sell mostly fake designer items at exorbitant prices, conning some-clueless-shopaholic-aunties into believing that those items are... *gasp* original!
Silk Street was once a street (duh!) lined with shops and stalls. Those shops and stalls were later grouped into the same shopping-complex-like building with the popular name still retained.
(image googled)
This the-worst-shopping-place-on-Earth consisted of several storeys, each classified into different departments; bags/luggages, arts/crafts, shoes, etc.
Our tour-guide gave us about 2 hours to shop in Silk Street. This is so unfair! They only gave us an hour to climb the Great Wall and TWO hours to SHOP? Of course, the tour guide must have received some commissions from the Silk Street financial/profit board or something... *glares*
Some of my friends really loved shopping, they just loved the feeling of haggling for the best prices, and to bargain for stuffs that they wanted.
Yours truly on the other hand, knows nothing about that.
Once we entered the warm, heated ambiance of this palace of swindlers , we split into different ways.
Syau my trusted comrade was with me. I told her that I wanted to look for
An original Kipling bag costs as much as RM400. Okay bye...T__T
Is there any psychological study about people who love to buy imitations instead of the originals? Well, you don't need any psychological study for that. It's simple. You don't have money to buy the freaking expensive originals. So you can just be contented with possessing the imitations. xD
Okay fine. I will buy the original Kipling one day. I WILL! At least one! Chanel? Prada? What are those? :P
I digress.
Syau and I held to each other closely as we embarked into this unknown sinister realm of scary sellers.
Each shop is placed in a small glass shop cubicle. Well, it's pretty small but there are so many shops. Those sellers were just standing outside their shops, calling for us to come into their shops.
I saw a Kipling bag through the glass of this first shop that we saw. The owner of the shop, a seemingly friendly Chinese woman in her mid to late twenties saw me doing that and asked me to come in.
BAD DECISION SARAH. ABORT MISSION.ABORT-
Too late. I had been enticed to enter her shop. She asked me
"What do you want?"
"It's okay, I'm just looking at it," pointing to one Kipling bag.
She then took that Kipling bag. I then asked her nervously
"Is there any other colours?"
She brought out more Kipling bags of assorted colours, but not quite what I was looking for. Besides, it was just my first shop!
I then asked her (*headpalm*) "How much is it?"
She took out her calculator and began pressing the buttons "It's *insert price, can't remember*"
Well actually, I really wanted to get out from there. That woman was creeping me out.
I looked at those bags and said to her "It's okay. I'm just looking around,"
Not so fast. She tugged my coat really hard and said "Tell me how much you want!"
"It's okay!!" I said, trying to release myself from her.
She pressed her calculator again and said "What about this?"
"I really don't want. I'm sorry!"
I was about to go out again. She tugged my coat harder. Syau looked scared and her already pale face turned paler.
The woman looked at me straight in the eyes and with her dangerous voice, she asked
"Faster tell me, how much do you want?"
She ended up giving me a quite good price for the bag but by then I was too terrified by her. I was scared of her all right, but I was more scared of losing my money. :P
Plus, no one could force me to do something I don't want to (except my parents).
I pulled my coat away from her and said "IT'S OKAY! I DON'T WANT!" bringing Syau with me out of that hell-of-a-shop.
She then screamed "YOU ARE VERY RUDE MY FRIEND!" (seriously, who's your friend? Are you demented or something?)
to which I screamed back "NO! YOU ARE RUDE!!" and I stormed off to somewhere else.
Both of us were looking pale. Clearly, we felt traumatized by the whole incident. If this were to happen in Malaysia, it will go viral and the owner would be forced to apologize to us. xD
We looked at different shops. Syau wanted to buy a handbag. So she went to this shop and asked the owner how much does that particular handbag cost?
The owner: *Insert price*
Syau: Oh, I don't have enough money
The owner: How much do you have?
Syau: *insert amount of money*
The owner: You're crazy! Get out! and she chased Syau off the shop.
I went to different shops to look for the Kipling bags. I entered this particular shop and asked a guy
Me: How much is this?
That guy: *insert price*
Me: Too expensive! How about *insert price*?
That guy: Are you crazy?
Me: No I'm not!
That guy: This is Kipling okay!
Me: This is fake Kipling! Not original! *dush!*
That guy: *shook his head and went somewhere else, ignoring me*
So lastly I managed to get a blue Kipling bag for the price of 100 yuan. RM50. I could have bargained for a lower price but I was too mentally and emotionally exhausted. I'm a Ravenclaw, it's in my nature to stay away from conflicts! It's an acceptable price anyway because I saw the same Kipling bag being sold in a shop located next to our hotel for RM100+. I can vouch that it's a fake Kipling bag. I know how to differentiate between original and fake Kipling bags. I've made my research. Thus when buying Kipling bags, I'd make a minor inspection to ensure that the bag that I'm going to buy has a small degree of 'imitation' to it. HAHA.
Another thing is that, you should always give those sellers the exact amount of money when you're purchasing something from them. Those crooks are notorious for giving back the changes to the customers in the form of fake bank notes. *shudder*.
Syau offered to hold the bag for me, clutching it close to her chest because she said she felt vulnerable and wanted some protection, LOL. I took out my trusted pepper spray, ready to spray it to any rude sellers in case they refused to let me out from their shops. We didn't enter any other clothing shops since then. We were still in a state of trauma.
We just walked around. Another 1 and a half hour to be spent there! Our buses were locked so we could not sit in the bus. It was too cold outside so we had no choice but to stay inside this prison.
Suddenly, we heard somebody shouting in Mandarin. And we saw a drama being unfolded in front of us.
A middle-aged Chinese woman was pushing off a Middle-Eastern couple out of her shop and shouting at them in Mandarin.
The couple looked confused and they just walked off.
We met some guys in our class and they told us of their 'haggling and bargaining experiences'.
Some of the dialogues uttered by those rude sellers:
"You are crazy!" (been there, done that)
" Your mind is crazy!"
"You should go to hospital!" (LOL)
Then Syau and I went on to join some of our female classmates, watching them bargaining and haggling for the perfect prices. They were awesome!
Alas, the hellish and unbearable 2 hours were finally over. We entered our bus and everyone kept on complaining about the rude sellers of Silk Street. We couldn't complain nor vent our feelings on facebook or twitter because the Chinese government banned those websites, LOL, so we just let our feelings out to each other. Haha.
There are other funny and unforgettable shopping experiences in other shopping places in Beijing. One that involves a literal game of tug and war between my friends and the persistent seller, another of which involves my friends devising a brilliant strategy whereby a large group of them (about 10 in a group) would go to the seller of each shop, demanding low (not that low) prices for the items they wanted, and if the seller refused to give them that price, they will move to another shop. The seller would then be forced to accept the price stated for if not, they would lose a large number of customers. Genius eh?
It was late afternoon on our second last day there. We were sleeping in the bus when it turned to a corner and stopped. We woke up and looked outside. To our surprise, the tour guide brought us to that prison again!
"Silk Street?!! Not again!!" we cried out in dismay. This time around, I just spent my time at a cafe with some of my friends, sipping hot chocolate. In fact, most of us waited outside the Silk Street rather than to wait inside. The freezing temperature outside was definitely easier to be dealt with rather than facing those rude sellers of Silk Street.
I hate Silk Street. THE END.
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