6 Yuan to the Dollar

Okay, I’ll confess.  I’m a negotiator by profession.  My eight year old son has the gene and every offer he receives is returned with a counteroffer.  It’s what we do.  We pale, however, in comparison to our Chinese counterparts.  By all experiences and accounts, the Chinese are master negotiators and they are impressive to watch.  My first experience negotiating in China was in Beijing at the Pearl Market.

The Pearl Market, Beijing

After attending a State Department meeting on a variety of topics, including the fact that “IP theft is insidious” in China, we took their advice and headed to the Pearl Market to gain some insight to the issue.  The Pearl Market is a multi-story building in Beijing where domestic and foreign shoppers alike can walk a seemingly endless maze of household goods, clothing, shoes, luggage, and jewelry.  The mix of real and fake is seamless but the common denominator remains the same—it’s all inexpensive in comparison to the prices found in stores in the United States.  For example, a multi-string set of fake pearls in the United States can cost around US$30.00.  Comparatively, a multi-string set of real pearls at the Pearl Market in Beijing can cost around US$35.00—if you are willing and able to negotiate.  Do not worry, however, because an ability to speak Mandarin is not required.

'THE' fake Louis Vuitton purse and real pearls

Now I should preface my negotiation experiences in China with the fact that I do not speak ANY Mandarin.  And by ANY I mean zilch.  I cannot properly pronounce the words “nĭ hăo” (hello) despite slaughtering its use throughout the cities of Beijing and Shanghai.  It’s true and I am not proud of it, but I use it as an example of the gravity of my Mandarin ineptitude.  That being said and much to my surprise, I did not need to speak Mandarin to negotiate in China.  All I needed was an idea of what I wanted to pay, the guts to walk away, and a calculator.  Of course, the market vendors know this and they are prepared for your ignorance.  Impressively, they are fluent in Mandarin and English and will put you to shame if you even try to stumble through your Chinese phrasebook.

So, this is how a typical shopping scenario works.  You approach a vendor, greet them with a butchered nĭ hăo, and point to the object you are interested in.  Depending on your level of confidence, you can simply ask “How much?” or bumble through your embarrassing attempt at the Mandarin equivalent “Zhège duōshăo qián?”  They immediately take out their large calculator, typically one meant for the elderly or visually impaired, and type in a figure and say in perfect English “This is a good price.  Very cheap.”  Now I must confess.  At first, the sheer size of the calculator made me feel stupid.  They already had a leg up on me because they were more prepared for my ignorance than I was.  The vendors knew that not only am I unable to speak Mandarin, but my ability to read a number may be in question as well.

Vendor stalls inside Pearl Market

After presenting you with the number on the calculator, you quickly ascertain if you can easily divide that number by six in your head to work out what the US equivalent price is.  The number six ruled my shopping experiences in China.  Since the number six multiplication table had not been on the forefront of my mind since sixth grade, I relied heavily on the calculator application on my phone.  Typically, the number you are presented with is about two or three times more than the price you are willing to pay.  The vendor’s only mistake is that when they perceive your furrowed brow to be a reaction to their offer, not the fact that you cannot figure out how to divide 6 into 334 Yuan.  As a result of your befuddled face, the vendors ask, “How much do you want to pay?” 

Example of Chinese Yuan

Now here is where some good negotiating skills can come into play.  Do not say a price that is reasonable.  Come up with an embarrassingly low price in your head and tell them that instead.  I promise you, NOTHING is too low.  The vendors are prepared.  They will gasp, laugh, shudder, and sink at your counteroffer, but it is all part of the process.  At that point, you have established your price point.  Through a series of back and forths and games with the calculator for the visually impaired you will creep closer and closer to your number.  Now if you are patient, you can repeat this process ad nauseum at a pace of 50 Yuans per round.  However, if you are in a hurry and need to move the process along, there is one fail safe option:  walk away.

I mean it.  Walk away.  Put down the incredible bag, dirt cheap pearls, or wonderfully kitsch souvenir.  I promise, it works.  And if for some reason it does not, the same item can be found two stalls down.  Once you start to walk away, almost immediately the vendor will call after you, “What is your bottom price?”  You repeat your figure and turn around again, evidencing your take it or leave it attitude regarding the sale.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, they fold and the deal is done.  One-percent of the time you will be literally manhandled back into their stall and will proceed through a few more rounds of the calculator game before you settle on the price you originally offered ten minutes before. 

I know, the whole ordeal can sound trite, but it is expected and trust me there are no unfair deals made.  The vendor will dejectedly give you the merchandise in exchange for your fistful of Yuan, but they are not losing sleep because of the sheer volume.  Following your departure, the process begins again with another American in your footsteps and they, my friends, may start negotiations at a price point much lower than even your own and your ‘deal’ no longer seems so great.  Further, you can walk two booths over and find the starting price for your coveted Fu dog bookends to be even lower than what you paid after the ten rounds of intense negotiations you thought you just won.  Although your shopping high will be crushed, you can easily put it all into perspective with some simple math:  divide by six.  You would have paid three times as much for the same object in the United States.  You did good, fellow traveler.  You did good.

Authentic Chinese chopsticks

Trinkets from China

Negotiation Tips for Purchasing ANYTHING in China:

• Know how much you want to pay before the negotiations begin
• You can never make an initial offer that is too low
• Know your six multiplication table
• Calculators are your best friend
• Hold your guns
• Walking away helps, even if it means being prepared to start the negotiation process over again two booths down.
• It helps to attend an infringement lecture at the Embassy and then visit the Pearl Market to keep a little money in your pocket. 
• The official State Department’s stance is that fake luxury goods are bad, but even State Dept. reps admit they shop at the Pearl Market.  Go figure.
• Finally, everyone's a winner in China.  You are getting something for less than you would in the United States but you are still paying more than the vendor’s wholesale price by about six hundred percent. 

Yukon, Ho!

Anyone who has ever spent time with me will know that I'm a huge Calvin and Hobbes junkie. Almost everything I see or hear immediately calls up into my head some C&H strip that then frames whatever my situation may be (and makes me chuckle on the inside). I mention this because, having now been back in the US for over a full month, I still get the same response when I bring up my recent trip to China: "oh wow, China! what an adventure!"

"Adventure" is a perfect word/concept to illustrate. I grew up a military brat, which, interestingly enough, has its own wikipedia page. That's really cool. While I'm usually loathe to reference any article or wiki page that uses the horribly trite phrase "global citizen," this is nevertheless an interesting entry, and actually seems pretty spot-on. Anyway, I think that "adventure" holds a pretty significant connotation for military brats, and the more I think about and reflect on the trip we took, the more I'm able to comfortably call it an adventure.

Which, of course, brings up the fantastic additional content C&H's creator, Bill Watterson, drew up for the opening of his collection Yukon Ho!:

Calvin and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, secede from the family and decide to away from home to the Yukon. While it doesn't quite work out as planned, there's a terrific story arc that follows, including one of my favorite lines, "Calvin's Log: Journey to the Yukon, Day One: Have traveled 200 yards from our starting point. No snow so far." They abandon their journey shortly thereafter (following a mutinous decree of double-rations for Hobbes, who wants an extra sandwich), but it's nevertheless an enjoyable account of childhood adventure. They rummage up a few supplies, attempt to map out a course, and, in the end, are completely unprepared for what they encounter. (sound familiar, guys?)

We didn't see anything like the Yukon on our grand adventure to the People's Republic, but we did see some really cool stuff, like the Summer Palace,

 

The Temple of Heaven Park

And the Great Wall, all the while following... this:

Seriously. We followed the flower

Where happy flower went, so did we

Ever vigilant

I think it's important to wait between returning from a trip and sharing thoughts about it. Having taken that time, I think it's perfectly reasonable to call this an adventure: we got jazzed up and excited for an exotic trip, attempted to prepare through class sessions and readings, and hoped that we packed enough clothes, money, and snacks to last the length of the journey. I, for one, was not even close to fully prepared... But that's the beauty of adventure - you learn as you go, and usually lament having packed insufficiently.

We traveled as a group and in order to fulfill "contact hours" had only a few hours here and there of "free time." But there was ample opportunity throughout the trip to wander and explore once we arrived at monuments or sites (when we weren't following the flower!). Without a doubt my favorite experiences were my discussions with the Chinese graduate students we met in Shanghai at SIIS. A great conversation I can recall during a discussion with a student about Realist theory and US-China relations, as we were joking around and talking about Mearsheimer - not to be confused with making fun of Mearsheimer):

Liu: "Whenever I've spoken with American students, they always seem to be afraid to ask hard questions; they always want to stick to the easy, non-controversial questions."
Jack: "Ok, let's play hardball then... Does China want to be a regional hegemon at the expense of the US and our ability to project power to guarantee security for willing East Asian states?"
Liu: "Well... according to Mearsheimer, yes! We want you out of our seas so we can be the hegemon in our own region, not you. You should not expect any less from China."
Jack: "Yeah... whether we should or not... that's probably not going to happen. There will always be too much rhetoric against cooperation, since our relative decline is viewed as zero-sum to your rise. So, maybe some accessions could be made on both sides, without China needing to push for hegemony - because, let's be honest, neither side really wants to go to war, right?"
Liu: (laughs) "So you ARE scared of us, then!"

I think this highlights the degree to which we really CAN engage in meaningful dialogue as students of IR, when our respective educational backgrounds line up (a challenge, given that Chinese scholars and students both will readily admit to a deficiency in their teaching and application of theory) but there are obstacles. It's similarly interesting to discuss domestic politics with the students, especially in public. The overriding expectation is that reform will happen soon, but it's interesting to see them express that in a hushed whisper, when one so naturally takes for granted the political freedoms afforded Americans at home. To see a student loudly proclaim himself a member of the Communist Party and laud its merits (and then quietly revert to normal, apologize for the career-necessary digression, and explain why he's sick of the system) is fascinating, even other-worldly.

I'll try to blog again sometime before the end of the week, just to expound more on the political and IR-related takeaways from the trip. They're currently bouncing around in my head in a haphazard manner (I'm still working on the paper), so I assume a few more days will let it all settle out in a more clear sense. In the meantime:

"It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy…Let’s go exploring!"

-Jack

Who needs commercials? The government will take care of funding.

On May 18, 2012, we visited China Radio International (CRI). I was very excited to see how a radio station operates when it is owned by the People’s Republic of China. I did an internship at a radio station in media sales. I found that my understanding of a radio stations operations did not matter for a Chinese radio station. We did a tour of the station, which looked like any other radio station. There were booths for recording, rooms for writing and editing, and reporters running around trying to meet a deadline. As we began to ask questions about how the station operates, the differences became clear. First, someone asked how the stations was raked, who were the target groups, and what were the peak times. Our guide for the radio station said they didn’t really track who listened, but they thought their English programming helps students learn English. In an American radio station, it is important to know who their target audience is and how well they reach that audience. This information is needed to sell advertising and fund the radio station. Then, someone asked our guide how they get money and how they expand funding to grow or update the radio station. Our guide explained that the funding came from the government and they did not need to sell commercial space. The guide also said they always had what they needed and funding wasn’t really a problem. This visit was an eye opening experience of the differences between the US and China. I really enjoyed the visit to the radio station and the chance to learn about government-run entities in China.

For anyone interested in listening to the radio station in Houston area this station airs on AM 1520 AM 1540.

Drew

From Big City to Back Country

Towards the end of our week in Shanghai, we spent the evening at the Bund. The Bund began to grow in the 1840s as a British settlement and trading port. It is now an area for business and finance for East Asia. The Bund felt like being in New York and it even had an Apple store. Below are some photos of the Bund. We had to take our pictures fast at popular places like this before our fans began to take pictures. 

Below is another picture of the Bund with a view of many of our fans.

I think just looking at the Bund does not give a full picture of China. Many Chinese people informed us to see China we would need to go to western cities. We were not able to get west in this trip, but we did go out of the city to see some farms. The agriculture world like in the U.S. is quite different from the big cities. Below you will see some photos of the farms that we visited. Notice that some of the people in the photos are elderly. We were curious why young people were not working in farms. The tour guide explained that young people go into the cities to work at the factories leaving the elderly people to farm. In this town, the people pay experts to come in and help the villagers farm efficiently.

I hope you enjoy two sides of China that we were able to see.

Drew

Hong Kong: Asia's World City

 Hong Kong: Asia's World City

While the trip officially began in Beijing, a couple of us (myself, Taylor, and Drew) decided before the trip that it would be worth our while to include a few days in Hong Kong prior to our arrival in the capital. Since we didn't have lectures or Chinese students with us to engage in intellectual debates, I'll leave my impressions on the class- and IR-related topics for future posts. This one is reserved for our HK adventure.

A city rich with history and culture, Hong Kong literally means "Fragrant Harbor," and has throughout its history has been a British colony, occupied by Japan, and (currently) a "Special Administrative Region" of the PRC. A quick wiki search will net you plenty of information about HK, but we chose the scenic route. According to the internets, HK is one of the most densely populated and tallest cities in the world, with high per capita income, HDI, and life expectancy, as well as (supposedly) great quality of life. More on all of this later!

We spent most of our time in HK exploring, largely at random. Without any willingness or ability to consult a map set expectations, we were able to focus on the experience rather than fitting in a particular set of sights to a tight agenda. As the pictures below show, we spent some time on the harbor, which was the cheapest way to go from Central HK to the Kowloon Peninsula. Since our hotel was on the opposite side of HK island from downtown (and our free hotel shuttle only took us about half of the distance there), we chose instead the Peninsula as our main attraction in the trip's early stages.

We didn't see the top of this building until our last day in HK

View of the Central district of HK from about halfway out in the harbor

Kowloon was a short ferry ride across the harbor (for $2 HK, or about a $.25 US), and, if you peered through the fog, pretty enjoyable. It was here that we indulged our inner nerds and toured the HK Museum of History, where we learned all about the city and region from prehistoric times to the present (well, up to 1997, after which point there was little said).

"Stop Useless Resistance"

Posters from the War

My favorite was the WWII section, covering the Battle of Hong Kong, Japanese occupation, the subsequent famine and forced repatriation to the mainland of many citizens, the guerrilla tactics used against Japanese by HK, and the eventual return of the colony to (once) Great Britain. At this point, HK was largely decimated. In 1984, the British and Chinese agreed on a joint declaration to transfer HK's sovereignty over to the PRC in 1997.

the celebration of the transfer in 1997

As a semi-autonomous region of the PRC, HK ostensibly has control over its own, well, everything. It's allowed an autonomous judiciary, constitutional documents, economic functioning, etc - anything you could want, with the exception of official diplomatic relations or military defense. Sounds legit, except one of the rules of the Basic Law requires that the legislature be largely in the hands of the Electorate Committee, a small group of 400-1200 members (most of whom have strong ties to the mainland), rather than the general population. The system has been heavily criticized by pro-democracy dissidents and Westerners as over-representing the groups close to Beijing and under-representing those deemed "hostile"...

lest we forget who really runs things...

All that aside, HK is pretty great. Most of the people we met in the mainland seemed to view HK as a wonderful haven for intellectual and political freedom. It was certainly a cultural hub. We made our way to a little eatery and had some spicy dim sum before catching the ferry back.

At this point, we were itching to see some history. So we made the trek to the Golden Bauhinia Square outside the Convention Center, where the statue commemorating the transfer of sovereignty stands. At this point, I feel I should comment briefly on how we got around: this city can be navigated almost entirely in English. Just about anywhere you look, you can find an expat, especially in the parts of town where you would find yourself as a typical tourist. Even the little restaurants tucked away in alleys have English menus!

In any case, after that, we felt like we were largely able to navigate the city and spent the rest of the trip seeing specific places of interest. There was the University of Hong Kong...

 ...The marketplace in Kowloon Central...

...And the "Ladies Market," which had just as many items available for men shoppers as women, thank you very much. This was a multiple block-long series of tents full of totally legit products knock-offs for discount purchase (with a little bit of bargaining).

We finished the trip with an excursion up into the Soho region to walk around, ride on the longest outdoor escalator in the world, and explore a little bit more of the "East meets West" that makes Hong Kong such a famous tourist location. We also had fish and chips!

livin' la vida expat

After avoiding the pull of our new friends - a British schoolteacher, an Australian personal trainer, and a Filipino bartender - who wanted to take us to Wan Chai, the home of HK's "famous" red light district on our last night in HK, we settled in and prepared for our flight to Beijing the next morning.

Overall, the experience in HK was great. Most beneficial, I think, was the fact that it gave us a point of comparison immediately upon arrival in Beijing. More on that in another post, though. What stuck out to me was how packed together everything was. The reports of its population density and overall city height are absolutely true. Everything is jammed together with not an inch to spare. Despite the seeming lack of an air pollution problem (when not rainy, the sky was a pretty light blue), the city streets were dirty and there was trash everywhere. Many of the skyscrapers in the poorer areas looked likely to collapse any minute and the bamboo construction sites seemed thrown together overnight. On every day except Sunday, children in school uniforms could be seen darting into and out of schools, tutoring studios, and music lessons from morning until around 6 or 7pm. It's evident that the city has a culture prioritizing upward mobility through sheer force of intellectual effort.

The parents invest heavily in their children, which should come as no surprise given the fact that HK is an expensive city and the children are expected to take care of their parents as early as possible. What I found most interesting is the distinction of people who will and won't talk to foreigners in English: since it is taught from primary school onward (just as in the rest of industrialized China), it's easy to tell who isn't educated based on their ability and willingness to converse in English. When you attempt to engage someone in English, they are either happy to do so (and usually quite good), or will avert their eyes and make every attempt to get you to leave them alone. They usually won't even point at a map or converse in (butchered) Chinese. Note: I don't offer this as a blanket generalization, merely as an observation and a potential explanation. If there's a better one, please correct me. I never intend to insult.

So that's our short trip to HK. I'm sure Drew and Taylor will have more to say on this little adventure in their posts. For the sake of brevity, I'll end here and cover Beijing/Shanghai, as well as my overall views on the China study abroad trip and my impressions of mainland China, in subsequent posts. Later!

-Jack Huguley

"No World Records will be Broken in this Air."

"No World Records will be Broken in this Air."

At the site of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, we quickly toured the the Birds nest stadium and the water cube.

That day the air pollution was so bad that we couldn't stand to be out in the air for more than 30 minutes.

The US Embassy in Beijing keeps a record of the air quality levels throughout the city on Twitter. The Chinese government uses a different system that relatively underrates the air quality. This has become a diplomatic dispute, but the Chinese government has agreed to start using the same monitoring standards within the next few years.  

The day that we arrived the air was terrible. With air readings at over It caused my eyes to burn and felt like continuously smoking cigarette after cigarette. 

 "Hazardous" Air Quality Index greater than 300. This would trigger a health warnings of emergency conditions. The entire population is more likely to be affected.          

The government has implemented a lot of policies to clean up the pollution, but the ever increasing amount of cars, dirty construction, desertification of the surrounding land, and the industrial ring make it a difficult problem to control. While environmental protection is critical goal that carries significant long-term benefits, the short-term pursuit of economic growth sometimes overshadows the efforts.


The next two photos are of an interested local that wanted to join us for our discussions on what we would do next, where we were going to dinner, and how we were getting home. Despite his expression of concern, he didn't offer any input.

Posted by: Lucas Vinze

Howdy:  You all must be in Shanghai.  Obviously so busy that you don't have time to post entries on the blog.  It's very quiet at the Bush School.  Big news here is that last Saturday was the graduation at the LBJ School and they passed out lovely printed programs listing all their grads. The front of the program had in big letters: "Graduation Program 2012: The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Pubic Affairs".  With good proof readers like Janeen, we try to avoid those mistakes.  Have a wonderful time and give my regards to all our friends at the Shanghai Institute for International Affairs.  Chuck Hermann