As I type this, we are on the way to a Korean folk village, about an hour from Seoul. Leaving the hotel was a small ordeal due to a sudden downpour. But I waited about a minute, and the rain all but stopped. That seems to be how rain works here – completely unpredictable. If you’re not sure, carry an umbrella wherever you go.Now that we’re in Korea, I’ve had a chance to think about a couple aspects of our time in China. As you’d expect, the whole vibe is different. If you’re in a line for something like airport security, you will get cut if you don’t actively protect your spot. This applies to driving on the road, as I’m sure has been mentioned. Traffic lights and roadway signs don’t mean much, but somehow, it all works out.
Sure, we saw a few accidents in our time there, but considering the lack of rules (that are followed) I’d say that’s pretty good. To us, it may seem a barbarous way to go about, but it all somehow flows. You can bet people don’t sit idling at red lights if there’s no one coming the other way. The pedestrians don’t flinch when the cars and trucks are mere inches from hitting them. When our three-bus caravan would run red lights (which was often), there wasn’t any honking or outward signs of anger. They let you do what you need to do, but they may get very close before they stop. It can be a little unnerving, but traffic actually seems to flow a little more smoothly because of these unspoken rules of the road.
I think being in China has relaxed me a little with things like driving and not getting road rage. However, I feel a little less meticulous with cleaning up after myself. They seem to just leave things everywhere, and expect someone else to take care of it.
Although when we’d try to arrange tables or move our luggage, someone would jump in to take care of it. There were a lot of people that would work at the hotels and the shops, and they must want something to do. I have a Chinese friend back home, and a couple years ago we were walking down the street eating some burgers. When he finished, he just threw his trash in a ditch on the side of the road. I yelled at him until he picked it up, but now I understand why he did that.
Another difference that I liked is the buyer/seller relationship, where the seller is very active in trying to reel in buyers. Sure, all the hassling can be quite obnoxious, especially in the confines of the Silk Road Market (the one with 7 floors of mostly fake stuff), but the relationship is more open and honest. Yes, honest. The sellers want you to buy stuff, and they let you know it. As the buyer, you can share exactly what you think about their wares, and exactly how much you think it’s worth (or more likely, how much you want to pay). They open with an absurdly high price, which is what they’d love you to pay for it, but of course you wouldn’t. So you let them know what you’d like to pay, and eventually, after threatening to leave, you get to a price you like. Or, if you don’t want their stuff, you just tell them, or walk away.
This open dialogue is how I imagine commerce took place in past eras. But today, in the US and in other developed and commercialized countries, this aspect has all but disappeared in the small- and medium-ticket market. Our prices are mostly locked down (and to be fair, kept reasonable) by larger chain stores. So where should we, the nascent consumers, learn to bargain when it comes to big-ticket items like cars or even furniture? Thanks to my time in China, I’ve learned how to save myself money on purchases, and to not be afraid to ask. I have also learned to leave emotion out of the equation. I won’t be surprised if the next time I go to buy something in the States, I’ll try the walk-out trick, but they’ll happily show me the door.James R.
Hat shopping in a Korean Folk Village
