The Metro stop below the the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum is home to the city's largest "black market" of knock-off western brands. Dozens of stores display shirts, jeans, jackets, leather goods, shoes, watches, electronics, DVDs, luggage -- just about everything you could find at a mall in the States.
When you are ready to make a purchase, the store keeper will produce a pocket calculator, spend a few seconds pressing some buttons and then hand you the calculator with a price. You then look at the number in disbelief and punch in a counter offer (helps if you take a few moments to press a lot of buttons and and pretend like you're actually calculating something). After a few rounds of this, you'll finally settle on a number that's around 1/4 of her original offer.
Above are the items I bought. Two sweatshirts and a pair of Chuck's for around$35. Probably could have done better, but not bad for a first-timer.
1 comment:
I thought they shipped the knock-offs to us! Didn't get any pictures.
Mom
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