BEIJING ? It's while consuming my post-midnight training
snack of hops and barley that the realization strikes: It's time to stop
spectating and start competing.
Time to channel my inner Kobe and enter the
fray. Time
Wholesale
Buffalo Bills Jerseys , of course, to visit this city's famous Silk
Market.
The Silk Market is a six-floor shopping center where the games away
from the Games occur. It's where the competitive ? and often physical ? sport
known as bargaining plays out with alternately smiling and pushy clerks, who
grab you to give a "special price for a special friend" on everything from
[fake] Rolex watches to Ralph Lauren shirts to Sony electronics.
This is no
Olympic sport, which is just as well because even if medals were awarded, they
could be fake gold. But it certainly is an exhibition.
"Your wife is very
beautiful, but your price is very ugly
Wholesale
Baltimore Ravens Jerseys ," a 20-year-old clerk named Alia says to
Orland Park resident Paul Janik.
Janik is the uncle of Bradley Guzan,
starting goalie for the U.S. men's soccer team and a Providence Catholic
graduate. His wife, Carla, is engaged in a healthy debate over the correct price
for a multicolored scarf that may or very well may not be silk.
It isn't
going well. After initial smiles, Alia clearly isn't messing around. In fact,
shortly after calling the Janiks "my favorite people" and offering "a special
price just for you" in solid English
Wholesale
Atlanta Falcons Jerseys , Alia is frowning.
"You're my first
customer, and you want to kill me," Alia says. "You will drive me out of
business."
As Michael Phelps knows, any dream worth pursuing isn't easy.
Emboldened by the Janiks' exchange, I take a deep breath and dive into the deep
end of electronics. I need a microphone for my laptop. The degree of difficulty
on this purchase? Somewhere around 3.5. But no smiling clerk is going to stop me
from talking to my wife and two sons when I call home via the Internet.
At
the first booth at which I slightly slow my pace to peruse, I'm pulled in. A
smiling clerk offers to sell a pair of "Sony" headphones and microphone for 190
yuan
Wholesale
Arizona Cardinals Jerseys , or roughly $27.
Most guidebooks and
market veterans suggest countering with a price 10 percent of the opening offer
and work only slightly upward.
Clerks punch in prices on calculators and then
turn them over for customers to counter. I offer 19. She asks if I mean
"American dollars." When I say "yuan," she throws up her hands and turns her
back on me.
Even I can translate this. She's annoyed.
She then asks for my
final price, which of course never is. I come back with 22 yuan.
The clerk
points to the next booth, which translates to: You're wasting my time. But I'm
not, because as I start to walk away, she asks for my "final
Cheap
Washington Redskin Jerseys , final price." I move to 28
yuan.
She drops to 50 yuan. I hold at 28 and start to walk away, which is
when she gives me her "yes-or-no price" of 40 yuan. The "yes-or-no" price is
typically the tipping point, when the purchase either happens or does
not.
Not for me, not at 40 yuan. I walk away again. That's when the clerk
says she will take "35 of my money." Sold.
I feel like the original Dream
Team from Barcelona in 1992 crushing Angola. A pair of, ahem, "Sony" headphones
and microphone for about $5.
The Janiks also are making headway. Alia had
opened their gamesmanship by stating one scarf could be sold for 450
yuan
Cheap
Tennessee Titans Jerseys , or roughly $65. Within one counteroffer,
Alia had dropped to 350 yuan, a reduction of roughly $15.
The clerk then said
further discounts would occur should Carla purchase two. Janik, displaying a
steely reserve that might make her nephew proud, isn't swayed.
"Let me think
about it," Janik says. "I have more shopping to do."
Paul
Cheap
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Jerseys , initially there merely as a
"tagalong," joins the competition.
"Tell her to throw in a free hat," he
says.
This clearly displeases Alia, who grabs his umbrella in retaliation.
The Janiks, here in a contingent of 19 Guzan family members, are competing as
intensely as their nephew.
More haggling ensues. Finally
Cheap
Seattle Seahawks Jerseys , two scarves for 350 yuan, roughly $25
apiece. Alia is smiling now and even poses for a picture with her customer. But
she isn't coughing up any free hat. Paul does not medal in this game.
The
Janiks head off in search of leather purses. I head to my hotel to test my
headphones.
The best part is they actually work, at least for now. Gold!
South Korea has hit back rapidly at US tariffs on washing machines and solar
panels, filing challenges and demands for compensation at the World Trade
Organization.
The WTO published the South Korean complaints yesterday, two days after US
President Donald Trump signed the steep tariffs into law. He billed the move as
a way to protect American jobs but the solar industry said it would lead to
thousands of layoffs and raise consumer prices.
The 30 percent tariff on solar panels was among the first unilateral trade
restrictions imposed by the Trump administration as part of a broader
protectionist agenda aimed at helping US manufacturers, but which has alarmed
Asian trading partners that produce lower cost goods.
South Korea challenged the US tariffs under the WTO’s Safeguard
Agreement Cheap
San Francisco 49ers Jerseys , leaving open the possibility of a
full trade dispute later.
The agreement gives the US 30 days to settle the matter, after which South
Korea has a 60-day window to impose trade sanctions, if the US measures break
WTO rules. It was not clear if the United States could challenge that
assumption.
Seoul is already seeking WTO trade sanctions to retaliate for Washington’s
failure to comply with an earlier WTO ruling.
On Wednesday US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross brushed off the threat of
South Korea going to the WTO.
“The fact that they may get a favorable decision (at the WTO) doesn’ mean
that it’s a correct decision,” he said. “But in any event there’s been no
decision yet so it’s a little bit too early to assume . Cheap Wholesale
Jerseys Cheap NFL
Jerseys Cheap MLB
Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys
China Cheap NBA Jerseys From
China Cheap MLB Jerseys Free
Shipping Cheap Authentic College
Jerseys Cheap NHL Jerseys
Online Cheap NBA Basketball
Jerseys Wholesale
Jerseys
Pinnwand