Shopping
For specific recommendations on where to shop and what to buy, see Shopping (x-ref to come). For a general overview of shopping in Běijīng, cautions, and vital information on how and when to bargain, see below.
Class was a topic on the lips of Chinese long before they ever heard of Karl Marx. Confucian China spoke of the ‘four categories of people’ (四民, sì mín), who were the shì nóng gōng shāng (士农工商): the gentry, farmers, and artisans, with merchants the least respected at the bottom, two grades below even peasants. These distinctions date back as least as far as the Eastern Hàn dynasty (25–220CE), and while altered during the Mongol Yuán dynasty, were firmly reinstated by Hóngwǔ (r. 1368–1398), first of the Míng emperors.
The Chinese may rapidly be gaining a reputation as the world’s most ardent shoppers, showing an unmatched obsession with Western brand names, but they still distrust and often despise those who sell to them. There used to be some measure of trust in the old fixed-price state-run stores, although individual purchases would be examined microscopically, but these, where they still exist at all, now have a large measure of non-state ownership, and have been forced to change practices to compete. At least this means that sales staff will now give you the time of day. The main competition is small-scale private enterprises called gètǐhù (个体户) offering a wider range of goods at much lower prices, but whose offerings contain much that is fake, misrepresented, or of poor quality. The gètǐhù merchants are not trusted at all, although for most of Běijīng society price is almost everything, and shopping with them is not an option. But it’s a war with the purchaser firmly on the defensive, nervously expecting to be overcharged and cheated, and entirely right in that expectation.
As journalist and pioneering Shànghǎi ad-man Carl Crow wrote in 1937:
Though they put great faith in the integrity of a brand with which they are familiar, Chinese appear to be in constant fear that the manufacturer will take advantage of that faith and palm off inferior goods, or that someone will fool them with a closely imitated packet. The result is that the least change, even such an unimportant changed as a street number, will arouse their suspicions and make them refuse to accept the goods.
Carl Crow, 400 Million Customers, Guernsey 1937
Nothing’s changed, according to a 2008 survey of shopping attitudes in China:
The threat of purchasing fake of poor quality goods created even more anxiety than haggling over prices, however. Like many developing economies, China’s marketplaces are rife with shoddy merchandise, copycat and fake brands, and numerous schemes to cheat or deceive (shangdang) in some way, though usually on the relatively small scale of being overcharged for something or being sold a defective item… A habitual reader of the local news would quickly get the sense that in modern-day China, scams to cheat you out of your money lurked everywhere and just about anything could be fake — including police officers or marriage introduction services.
Amy Hanser, Service Encounters, Stanford 2008
So if the Chinese are cautious and extremely sceptical, knowing fakes and misrepresentation to be commonplace, you, being far less experienced than they are and perhaps looking at Chinese souvenir items you’ve never purchased before, should be more sceptical still. In China, anything that can be faked more cheaply than it can be produced gets faked. Any claim that can be made without obvious contradiction will be made. Truth is irrelevant. Purchase of anything expensive, offering as it does far more potential for profit from misrepresentation, should be avoided. Anything, from tea to carpets to antiques (there are no genuine antiques) whose quality you’re not qualified to judge, should be regarded as not being what it is claimed to be: not made of what it is said to be made of; not as old as it is claimed to be; and never, ever, unique. If you must have classic souvenirs then stick to the simple: silk fabric from an ordinary store, chopstick sets, fans, silk (but check carefully), political posters (still found in many Xīnhuá bookshops), ordinary wooden abacuses, prettily packaged tea (but nothing claiming to be rare or expensive), and soapstone seals. (Jade? No, they’re not.)
Some standard misconceptions
If you think you’re going to buy cheap electronics you’re mistaking Běijīng for Hong Kong. Hong Kong is the tax-free city to which Beijing’s citizens travel with long shopping lists from family members. In Běijīng genuine luxury foreign goods attract heavy import duties and are for the most part sold for more than you would pay at home. China as yet produces few electronics of its own you’d want to consider, although parts and accessories can be very cheap, as can repair.
Similarly Běijīng isn’t the place to be looking for cheap tailoring. It can be found, but it isn’t good. Again, Hong Kong is the place for that (best at tailors of Shànghǎi descent whose premises are not at street level).
You cannot find cheap jade or pearls in Běijīng (and especially not at the so-called Pearl Market, 红桥市场, Hóng Qiáo Shìchǎng). Anyone who manages to believe, as most do, that the Chinese are canny businesspeople and yet at the same time that they sell items with an international market value at below market price are sufficiently capable of doublethink to qualify for Party membership.
You should also be nowhere near the tourist-targeting Silk Street (秀水街, Xiùshuǐ Jiē), which has little silk (although much that is labelled ‘silk’) and absurd prices for everything it sells.
打折吗 Dǎzhé ma? How about a discount?
Convenience stores, corner shops, and supermarkets aside, there is nowhere that you shouldn’t ask for a discount, marked prices or no. The Chinese certainly do. The worst is that you’ll be told that you’re in a fixed price store, although you’re probably not, and receiving this news with good grace (if with incredulity) and walking away will tell you whether the claim is a true one or not.
When there is no labelled pricing you can find out nothing whatsoever about the lowest price you should pay by asking your group tour or ‘private’ guide (who is it unwise to hire in the first place). You should in fact never shop in the company of a guide as this will universally lead to you paying considerably more than you need to pay, however sweet your guide may seem to be. See Guides.
A shop that claims to be government-run or that has a sign declaring it an ‘Authorised Tour Unit’ is a shop in which you are just as likely to be sold overpriced or fake goods as any other, or even more so. Even post offices have been known to sell underweight silver commemorative coins.
You don’t need to know either Chinese numerals, the commonly used handsigns for numbers, or how to read an abacus. A calculator is always to hand, or the screen of a mobile phone.
Where to shop
Remember that for the most part, wherever you shop, you’ll mostly need cash. Stores willing to take foreign credit cards are those that have seen you coming. You may be asked to pay up to 4% surcharge (and if you’re not then you can be quite certain you’re already paying several multiples of what you need to pay).
The big department stores and glossy shopping malls offer little that any visitor is likely to want to buy, but a stroll through them is instructive, as long as it is not thought representative of the buying power of the average Běijīng citizen. Ground floors are typically lined with high-end Western brands and chains, from luxury watches and fashion to cafés with all goods and services at higher prices than found in the West. Chinese wannabe-glam brands are on higher floors. Basements often house glossy supermarkets with familiar foreign snack foods (for Great Wall picnics, and long bus and train journeys), and basements or top floors typically have warrens of cheaper restaurants and a food court. These malls are also often home to branches of reliable Hong Kong convenience stores, such as Watsons, with genuine foreign toiletries.
In department stores the shop assistant will typically give you a multi-part paper to take to a cashier, who will take your cash, stamp the papers, and give you several parts to take back to the sales assistant to exchange for your goods.
The city government has spent much of the last twenty years closing down both traditional markets and those newly created by the easing of the prohibition on private trade, or forcing them indoors. Some formerly open air markets have been moved into purpose-built spaces with much higher rents, and others exiled beyond the Third Ring Road in the name of making the centre look more modern and reducing traffic, although more typically the reason is the profit to be made from redeveloping the land they occupied. In particular a cluster of wholesale markets in the west of the centre, where it was possible to browse for hours, have all been banished.
Nevertheless, some markets dedicated to traditional crafts and pastimes have much to fascinate, and should be regarded as an essential part of any visit to Běijīng. Others are multi-storey warrens selling anything relatively inexpensive you ever heard of, and, with some bargaining, at real local prices. Some specialise in computers, phones, or cameras, but those are slowly losing out to on-line marketplaces.
There’s a growing number of small, specialist shops, targeting foreign residents, foreign visitors, and young Chinese in that milieu with well-presented traditional goods (e.g. tea, arty chopsticks), self-consciously Sinified standards (T-shirts), and designery bits and pieces. None of these are cheap, but most are better made and more thoughtful than those of such standard souvenir outlets as remain at high-traffic sites.
Do not shop for anything ‘duty free’ at the airport, where you’ll pay more for anything and everything you might have seen elsewhere in town.
Preparation
Considering the purchase of something that can be bought at home because you hope to find it cheaper in China? Glasses, perhaps? A memory card for your camera? Then do your homework. Shop around at home for the best price for the frames you want and identify them exactly. Note the exact model number and capacity of any memory card as well as its price, and preferably take a snap of it in its packaging to take with you for comparison. This goes for any other item on your shopping list.
Value
Anything useful that you have at home that’s made in China, which these days is practically everything, can be found cheaper without the packaging, branding, and shipping costs. Pots and pans, woks, spatulas, sieves, knives, choppers, and small household implements of all kinds; small-scale electronics such as calculators, radios, alarm clocks, some mobile phones; toys, jigsaw puzzles, and packs of cards; cables, leads, lens caps, and accessories of all kinds for cameras, mobile phones, and computers.
Of course these are not romantic, and not evocative of a trip to the mysterious East, to be sure. For that consider coffee-table books of images of old China (from bookshops, not from tourist sites where the price will be marked up). Visit traditional markets to buy kites and kite-making kit; miniature cages and feeding equipment for pet crickets; bamboo bird cages; calligraphy equipment (inkstones, brushes, paper); modern art (with caution, however — see A Licence to Paint Money.
The sort of problem with small electronics such as an mp3 player, camera, or in particular mobile phone that would cost more to repair than the item is worth in the West can often be sorted out with a short wait and for a fraction of the cost in Běijīng. Parts for long out-of-date cameras may also be found. So don’t just think about what to take away, but also what to bring. There are large markets for stamps, coins and notes, phone cards and similar portable collectables, and while fakes abound, if your interests lie in this direction bring items to sell or trade.
Many visitors come shopping for fake luxury goods, although a fake Louis Vuitton handbag that functions as a handbag is clearly a better choice (except for LV’s profits) than fake Beats by Dr. Dre headphones or a fake iPhone that may not function anything like as well as the real thing. Note, too, that the vendors of fake Nike running shoes, fake Rolex watches, fake Burberry scarves and so on are well used to dealing with foreigners, many of whom are wrongly setting their expectation of what they should pay with reference to what they know the real item costs at home, which is entirely irrelevant (see How to Bargain in Běijīng). Fake DVDs have long been popular but with a high rate of failure, and peer-to-peer downloading has reduced the trade considerably. Needless to say, if you hold intellectual property rights in contempt and make illegal purchases you live with the consequences, including any arising from detection of fake goods at the border on your way home.
Wandering round markets will also bring you in contact with items beyond even the wildest imagination of lovers of kitsch (and often well beyond the bounds of good taste): flourescent mȧjiàng (mahjong) sets, radios in the shape of mosques, cigarette lighters in the shape of New York’s now destroyed World Trade Center; luridly coloured plastic creatures that when flung to the floor reform themselves from their splattered remains.
But consider that if you want to take home something truly representative of modern China then in the land of fake government, fake democracy, fake policemen, fake journalists, fake ethnic minorities, fake news, fake paperwork, fake taxis, fake identification papers, fake Apple stores (even the employees thought they were working for Apple), fake Nike/Walmart/Ikea; fake McDonald’s/KFC/Pizza Hut, fake cigarettes, fake medicines, fake dating agencies, fake boyfriends (rent one to take up to show the parents at Chinese New Year), fake Harry Potter novels, and fake goods and services of every possible kind, a fake may be the most representative souvenir of all. It won’t be long before you come across something cheap and obviously unreal.
Receipts
There are two kinds of receipt in China, the shōujù (收据) and the fāpiào (发票). The first notes the sale but has no value in the Chinese tax system. The second is required should you be claiming expenses or compensation from some third party in China, but issuing it forces the seller to acknowledge the income for tax purposes. If you’re purchasing from a gètǐhù (个体户) or small private business you’ll end up paying much less if you either require no receipt or if you settle for a shōujù. Many receipts are now produced electronically, but some are still vouchers torn from books issued by the tax authorities. Some have a lottery-style scratch panel with the possibility of winning small cash prizes, all designed to give the customer an incentive to ask for a receipt and thus increase the amount of revenue the business has to declare for tax.
If you spend 30 minutes gradually winning a refund for some non-performance then are unable to produce your receipt, your cause is lost. It does not matter if it is undeniable that you paid. It does not matter that the clerk is not denying that you paid. It does not matter that you offer to write a receipt for the refund yourself. If you don’t have the original, then you can’t have a refund. You will quickly accumulate piles of receipts in China, but keep them until you are well clear of the country. You never know.
Shipping
See Post Offices. If making your own parcel for shipping you’ll need to take it open to the post office and seal it once it has been inspected. If you’ve bought a carpet or ‘antique’ or piece of furniture with shipping to be undertaken by the seller, be extremely cautious when paying in advance as you may well not receive what you paid for. You are unwise to buy any highly priced item in China unless you are expertly able to judge its quality and value, and if you can do that then you are unlikely to see anything you’ll consider worth buying.
See also How to Bargain in Běijīng.
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