Something to think about
Below is a thought-provoking and eloquent response to This Woman from Jake B. Following that is Josh B's response to Jake. I'm interested in any other thoughts anyone might have on the matter.
Jake B. wrote:
I would think of it not so much as her bragging, but rather her being extremely pleased that she made, with one set of customers, what it would likely otherwise have taken her a good four or five hours (at least) to make. Alternatively, you could think of it in terms of the number of street lunches she will, in turn, be able to buy for herself (her kids?) for the next week or so. Don't forget that, howevermuch it seems as though it isn't on a day-to-day basis, you're in a communist country. It might not be so much that she was charging 5 RMB for the coconuts because she thought she could get it from Waiguoren, but that you paid 5 RMB for coconuts because you could afford to. You know your budget while you're there. Did a fiver for a coconut seem too high? If so, don't pay it. If it didn't until you overheard the lady's reaction, then it probably wasn't too high. After all, not a whole lot of Westerners get the opportunity to drink coconut milk straight from the coconut while they walk down the street in an Asian city as complex as Jinan, and there are fewer of us still who get the opportunity to write about it on a blog for the equivalent of about seventy cents, US.As I recall, about three years ago the going rate for a glass of Pepsi at the TGI Friday's in Beijing was 12 RMB, of which I'd bet about 1 mao goes to the waiter that served it to you. Who's more deserving of the "tsk:" street-vendor lady and her coconut drink, or Fridays?Of course, if she made her remark in a condescending sorta way, I find that returning the next day and dropping 20 RMB or so into the can of the one-legged guy playing the erhu next to her cart, then throwing her a wink does the trick.
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Jake, your reply is appreciated. I freely admit that your spin on the coconut event is definitely the broader view of the issue. You're right, Betsy and I are from wealthy families in a wealthy country. Most foreigners in China are pretty privileged folks, if they weren't they wouldn't have been able to afford the plane ticket. Even as foreign teachers living in China, we are paid a kingly sum for work that is not all that difficult or skilled (it is skilled in the hands of some teachers moreso than others). A woman who sells coconuts on the street in China was dealt a poorer hand in life, no doubt about that. 5 RMB means a helluvah lot more to her than to us. However, I don't think it's difficult to understand (rationalize?) our feelings about the matter.
Bets and I are, afterall, American. In the context of our own culture, charging one person more for an item based on their race, sex, nationality, ignorance etc. doesn't sit all that well in our collective stomach. Imagine a store owner in Cincinnati who didn't advertise his prices so he could charge white people more than blacks. What do we think about credit card companies who give cards with astronomical interest rates to college kids who don't know any better, even if they are rich? But, granted, Betsy and I live in China by choice. If we weren't in the mood to leave our own cultural beliefs at the door we wouldn't be here. But a good number of Chinese I know aren't particularly fond of the mercurial pricing in this country, either.
Perhaps all of this is not the point anyways. If there were a 10 or 15% increase in pricing across the board for foreigners, I'd complain about it but wouldn't resist. A woman who sets up her shop in a touristy area and advertises a price 50% higher than the price in the country, I can see that. That's the market at work, and how communist is China really? But I've seen Chinese students who help their foreign friends with bargaining get vehemently cursed by vendors who were asking a 200% mark up. I've noticed sly smiles and little giggles from shopkeepers who knew they were fleecing a tourist, they rarely look you in the eye. The behavior just seems a little underhanded to me. It doesn't feel like I'm paying a little extra to help balance the economic inequity of the world, the vendor and I both know I'm getting cheated. The many vendors who charge me a fair price and look at me with warm eyes, they have my business for the entire two years I'm in China. That woman will never sell me a coconut again.
Jake B. wrote:
I would think of it not so much as her bragging, but rather her being extremely pleased that she made, with one set of customers, what it would likely otherwise have taken her a good four or five hours (at least) to make. Alternatively, you could think of it in terms of the number of street lunches she will, in turn, be able to buy for herself (her kids?) for the next week or so. Don't forget that, howevermuch it seems as though it isn't on a day-to-day basis, you're in a communist country. It might not be so much that she was charging 5 RMB for the coconuts because she thought she could get it from Waiguoren, but that you paid 5 RMB for coconuts because you could afford to. You know your budget while you're there. Did a fiver for a coconut seem too high? If so, don't pay it. If it didn't until you overheard the lady's reaction, then it probably wasn't too high. After all, not a whole lot of Westerners get the opportunity to drink coconut milk straight from the coconut while they walk down the street in an Asian city as complex as Jinan, and there are fewer of us still who get the opportunity to write about it on a blog for the equivalent of about seventy cents, US.As I recall, about three years ago the going rate for a glass of Pepsi at the TGI Friday's in Beijing was 12 RMB, of which I'd bet about 1 mao goes to the waiter that served it to you. Who's more deserving of the "tsk:" street-vendor lady and her coconut drink, or Fridays?Of course, if she made her remark in a condescending sorta way, I find that returning the next day and dropping 20 RMB or so into the can of the one-legged guy playing the erhu next to her cart, then throwing her a wink does the trick.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jake, your reply is appreciated. I freely admit that your spin on the coconut event is definitely the broader view of the issue. You're right, Betsy and I are from wealthy families in a wealthy country. Most foreigners in China are pretty privileged folks, if they weren't they wouldn't have been able to afford the plane ticket. Even as foreign teachers living in China, we are paid a kingly sum for work that is not all that difficult or skilled (it is skilled in the hands of some teachers moreso than others). A woman who sells coconuts on the street in China was dealt a poorer hand in life, no doubt about that. 5 RMB means a helluvah lot more to her than to us. However, I don't think it's difficult to understand (rationalize?) our feelings about the matter.
Bets and I are, afterall, American. In the context of our own culture, charging one person more for an item based on their race, sex, nationality, ignorance etc. doesn't sit all that well in our collective stomach. Imagine a store owner in Cincinnati who didn't advertise his prices so he could charge white people more than blacks. What do we think about credit card companies who give cards with astronomical interest rates to college kids who don't know any better, even if they are rich? But, granted, Betsy and I live in China by choice. If we weren't in the mood to leave our own cultural beliefs at the door we wouldn't be here. But a good number of Chinese I know aren't particularly fond of the mercurial pricing in this country, either.
Perhaps all of this is not the point anyways. If there were a 10 or 15% increase in pricing across the board for foreigners, I'd complain about it but wouldn't resist. A woman who sets up her shop in a touristy area and advertises a price 50% higher than the price in the country, I can see that. That's the market at work, and how communist is China really? But I've seen Chinese students who help their foreign friends with bargaining get vehemently cursed by vendors who were asking a 200% mark up. I've noticed sly smiles and little giggles from shopkeepers who knew they were fleecing a tourist, they rarely look you in the eye. The behavior just seems a little underhanded to me. It doesn't feel like I'm paying a little extra to help balance the economic inequity of the world, the vendor and I both know I'm getting cheated. The many vendors who charge me a fair price and look at me with warm eyes, they have my business for the entire two years I'm in China. That woman will never sell me a coconut again.
posted by B | 9:20 PM
3 Comments:
"It aint what you do it's the way that you do it"
Or more to the point, it aint what you charge it's the way that you charge it. "That woman" made a perfectly good sale. She blew it by bragging about it before you even had a chance to leave. As Jake points out you know your budget. If a cocnut was worth 5 to you great. The factor that made the difference was that you wound up feeling taken advantage of. No one likes that.
Had she smiled, said "thank you" and remained quiet you may have bought more from her. Much more over time.
I watch the sales people in the company I work for engage in the same sort of pricing games Josh describes. And brag the same way. "Hey - I sold a 34DVXL for $3400!" "No way - that's a $2600 unit." Of course these guys are smart enough to keep their mouths shut for a couple of minutes. Most of the time. Ignorance and convenience always pay a premium. Hell look at the price you pay for a cup of coffee and a muffin in an airport vs. the Starbucks a mile away.
I remember traveling in Mexico years ago by myself. I was so far off the tourist track that people came up to me to practice their English and ask if I was lost. Not a lot of white people on Mexican busses back then. I checked into on hotel and asked about the room rate. I think it was about $150 pesos a night (the exchange rate was 16 or 18 back then). Cheap. My Spanish was good enough for me to read the notice they post on the door - the one that states the maximum price they may charge. When I stopped by the desk to pay for my next night I put down that amount. "No no", the desk guy said. I pointed at the amount on the notice by the desk and said something like "yo pago este." I wasn't lingual enough to get a better deal. Several years later I was in Cancun staying at the "nice" places, which meant they were just like American hotels, and paying the same prices I would in America.
Josh's comments about Chinese being derided for assisting foreigners suggests an attitude of "us vs. them" that can quickly shades from community into nationalism and even racism. The sort of things that are brewing over here about - oh yeah - money and foreigners. The big difference is that we are wealthy enough for the poor people to come to us instead of having to go looking for them.
You may well pay more than the homies. That's life. It's common for restaurants and other businesses to give a "local discount" in places like ski towns and other places frequented by tourists. I might pay $30 for dinner and the local next to me pays $26 for the same thing. You can't eat the view, as they say.
In the US you can charge pretty much anything you want so long as the price distinction isn't based on protected classes: race, religion, sex, physical ability. You can also refuse to sell so long as your criteria avoid the same things. Other countries don't subscribe to this view of human rights. Sometimes I worry how much longer we will continue to.
"It's worth exactly what someone else is willing to pay for it."
I hated that the first time I heard it. I was 21 and buying my first business. I get it now. Coconuts and sandwich shops - it's pretty much the same thing.
Of course, my observations make a heckuva lot more sense in the context of the earlier blog entry before Bets went back and clarified that the woman was not so much innocently elated as apparently connivingly greedy....
She wouldn't have fooled me. I saw right off the bat that those aren't coconuts. Coconuts are brown and hairy. Those were softballs or mushrooms or big old squid eyes or something gross like that filled with sweetened milk.
The apples looked pretty tasty though.
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