This trip to Shanghai was a rather surprising one. I never had so much fun tagging along for shopping in the land of counterfeits. First of all, it started with an ambitious plan to conquer Chi Poo Loo (7 Steps Street, I suppose), to get the most amazing twin copy of the branded luxuries, graded double-A, I would say. It took us about 20mins, riding in a cab to reach this supposedly well-known shopping haven.
To our utmost surprise, we were being pounced by a group of 4-6 people offering catalogues to attract us to their stores, as soon as we got off the cab! Their persistence exceeded our expectation! We initially thought that by giving them a friendly “No,not interested..” would be good enough to shoo off the fellas, but no! They persisted to the point of irritation till we couldn’t help but berated them. It turned out that, they kept following us, tailing us every step with their constant pursuance and harassment. We felt terribly helpless and victimised by the tailing annoyance. We also joked about how important we are to have such a big group of bodyguards!
We came up with a plan to get rid of them, by entering shops and ignoring them but nothing seemed to work. We grew frustrated but at the same time, we felt pleasurable by making them wait while we were in the shops browsing. After a while we began to regain our spirit of shopping. The amazing part was, they literally followed us for close to 2 hours and by that time , we had already gotten what we came for. Well, almost there, actually. I bought 3 pairs of cufflinks and I was happy and amused at the same time.
Oh yeah, for those who believes that barter trading is a thing in the past, well, do think again. I was sincerely amazed by how this kind of trading is possible with the street peddlers! Exchange policy is so advanced here. Why I say this, is because, I personally witnessed how goods were negotiated to the right price and exchange of goods could be done even with the supposedly “competitor” next door! They do accept their competitors’ goods for exchange! The buyer bought a good from Seller A but found that Seller B got the colour of choice. Seller B accepted the good purchased with Seller A and because of Seller B’s goodwill, the buyer actually bought another good from Seller B. The transaction was done harmoniously and the result was quite a win-win for both the buyer and seller. I truly marvel this art of street trading! Everything seems possible here.
