Vietnam Report - March 14, 2011 (PM)

Sapa Shopping Experience

I hate to shop anyway,but try shopping in an open market where bartering is the norm. I don't know what it is about my appearance or personality, but I am a magnet for street hawkers. At one point, I had 12 girls around me all hawking similar wares: "You buy from me?" Was the rhetorical phrase.

These women must have gone to some school in the art of selling because they are saavy. Get a potential customer talking with you in conversational exchange and you immediately increase the probability of a sale. "Hello! What your name?" and "Where you from?" are the standard opening lines. "How old you?" and "How many kids?" showed that they had some convesational depth beyond the initial exchange.

We went to the open-air market. The Vietnamese occupy the choice main-floor spots, whereas the indigenous people occupy the top floor. One portion of the upstairs is occupied by a tribe that binh knows well, so we try to do business with them. They have a type of coop and they share proceeds together. Alot of these women are too young to be walking the streets selling their wares, so they do all the sewing there, even custom made to order pieces.

The average shop owner makes about 100 USD per month while the farmer makes about 50 USD per month. Minimum wage has been raised to about 0.75 USD per hour. Whereas income is relative to the local economy and expenses, still inflation has hit the Vietnamese countryside hard. An average 30' x 30' space will fit 10 people and cost about 20 USD per month with a common kitchen.

Back to these ladies. I did learn to say "no" in Vietnamese ("vang") but evidently I don't say it forcefully enough with authority. Thanks to Brick Thompson, who has the knack of saying "no" in way that they understand as "no," I was able to escape and retreat back to the hotel. Comparatively speaking, as a man, the clinics with their long hours and steady stream of patients is preferred to the otherwise short, albeit traumatic experience of shopping in Vietnam.

Staff, don't worry, I'm still planning on bringing back some gifts for all of you, but they won't be open-air market purchased -- not after today's experience.

Love to all back home,

P. Jeff