Ode to Chinese Market Shopping

It’s hard to describe market shopping to anyone who hasn’t experienced it, but this poem by a visiting friend of a friend does a pretty darn good job capturing the vibe.

These are large indoor multi-floor markets filled with stalls manned mostly by young women selling eveything from sunglasses to shoes to tea to DVDs, jackets, hats, and on and on.. Anything that can be pirated is.

Sunny Gold is a market not too far from our house, on the way into town. It is realtively small and local compared to the big downtown markets like the Silk Market. Those places are filled with tourists and it’s really agressive. You try to pay like 20 percent of the asking price because they start so absurdly high. Sunny Gold is a little more mellow — you generally go for about 50 percent — but still rather intense, as captured here.

Sunny Gold
By Marge Leece

Sunny Gold, Sunny Gold,

Oh the stories I have told.

Show me the money, you buy, you buy

Coats and gloves, give them a try.

Bags, shoes, t-shirts and hats,

Lady, lady, you look good in that.

Jewellery so cheap it is a sin,

You don’t even know where to begin.

Sunny Gold, Sunny Gold,

Oh the stories I have told

Tell me your price, why so low,

You’re killing me don’t you know.

I’ve got a headache, give me water,

Did that woman just try to sell her daughter?

I have to leave, get me out of this place

My money is spent, get out of my face!

Catch a cab, exhausted to the brink,

Back to Beijing Riviera for a nice stiff drink!!