Shanghai To Shenzhen - March 5, 2010 Part Two

The flight from Shanghai to Shenzhen was uneventful. We arrived at a nice airport that like the old airport in Shanghai is dated. It reminds me of LAX or one of our old airports in the US. Functional but not up to the standards set by Korea or the new China airports.

The first impression of Shenzhen is that it is a very new city. I learned online that Shenzhen has about 10 million residents. That is a big city. However, Shanghai has about 20 million. Shenzhen was a sleepy fishing village about 30 years ago and really didn’t start to grow until about 15 years ago. It was designated the first “Special Economic Zone” in China which allowed it to flourish as the manufacturing center of the world. Everything you can imagine is made her. Most of the products that say Made in China are made in Shenzhen.

It was about a 30 minute cab ride from the airport to our hotel. Riding on the freeway here is a lot like riding on the freeway in California. The traffic is the same, there are a log more western cars here – Andy says that is from the money in manufacturing and the proximity to Hong Kong – and the sides of the freeways are lush and green.

We are staying right near the primary train station for this part of China. Looking out our 15th floor window we can see hundreds of thousands of people moving in and out and around the train station. This county has some impressive infrastructure and everywhere you look they are building a new freeway or expanding a subway line.

We went shopping at a market called Luo Hu. This will be hard to describe but here goes. Imagine a 4 story building, each floor the size of a Smith’s grocery store. Every 10 to 15 feet there is another shop selling everything under the sun; electronics, jewelry, watches, clothing, shoes, toys – you name it and it is probably there. Shop workers are standing in the hall calling to you in broken English with “Hey! Want a watch?, or Hey! How about a DVD?, or Hello! How about a nice jeans for you…” The easiest way to navigate through is to just ignore everyone who is calling out. Then these “helpful” personal shoppers will engage you and ask to help you find what you are looking for. In reality they work for commissions from the stores they take you to. They are a little harder to get rid of. If you ignore them for a while and they still follow you, a polite but very firm “No Thank You” usually does the trick. A couple of times we had to be very forceful with our decline but the personal shoppers are harmless really. They are just trying to make a buck in a tough environment.

The total amount of sensory overload can be unsettling at first. If you go there, walk around a bit in the shops and then go outside and take a breather. I am not kidding – this will help you get your bearings.

Then the fun begins. Whatever you want or find in the markets is negotiable on price. In fact, many times the starting price and the finishing price are a long way apart. For example, one item Andy bought stared at 800 RMB and he got it for 100. That is good negotiating. Learning the art of negotiating, and being willing to walk away is critical in this place. We learned quickly that if a couple of vendors let you walk away at a certain price that you are probably below what the market will bear. We used one shop to help negotiate another.

These are great lessons how business is done in China. Everything is negotiable and nothing is as it appears on the surface. Not speaking the language is a barrier but it is not insurmountable. We watched Andy work the vendors for a few hours and then went to dinner. It was fascinating, and exhilarating, and exhausting.