Turning the Tables

Near our hotel in Xi'an was an outdoor marketplace that my classmates and I visited almost everyday to buy souvenirs and have dinner. At night, the main street by the market place became three or four times as crowded as dozens of vendors of snacks and knick-knacks set up shop and tourists came out to answer their call. I saw things for sale on this street that I hadn't seen anywhere else in China, like fried quail eggs on a skewer and the extremely long kites that I mentioned in my last post.



One night after dinner, my friends and I were walking along the street when we came across a couple of teenage girls selling wooden frogs of various sizes that, when stroked with an accompanying stick, let out a loud, realistic croak. I had seen the frogs at other stands and didn't think very much of them, but these particular vendors were selling an especially huge frog, so I approached one of the girls and asked if she could let us hear what the big one sounded like. She joked that I couldn't hear it unless I bought it, but actually they didn't even have a big enough stick. Feeling gutsy, I picked up one of the frogs on her table and asked, "Do you mind if I help you sell these?" She said it was okay, and soon enough my classmates joined me behind the table, playing frogs of varying pitches like we were a symphony orchestra.

(Mostly Chinese) tourists flocked to our table as soon as they saw a stand manned almost completely by foreigners, and in turn we shouted out things like, "Give it a try!", "These things are so fun!", "Get one for your kids!" and "The bigger they are, the better sounding they are!" and people thought it was a hoot. As expected, dozens of people took our pictures, and thankfully we even sold a bunch of frogs. Our boss told us that our addressing customers as "handsome" and "pretty girl," while acceptable in Beijing, was impolite in Xi'an, and said that if we appeared too eager to sell our wares than people would become suspicious. Apparently mellow salesmen make the best salesmen in Xi'an.


It was especially fun to call out in Chinese to tourists who obviously spoke English. We spent about two hours at that stand, laughing the whole time and interacting with our customers who were amazed that we foreigners could not only speak Chinese, but had "jobs" at the marketplace. A few customers even tried to haggle with us, to which we said things like "No, no, friend, I'm giving you a great price here, trust me," and other things we had heard a thousand times. We didn't earn wages for our time working, but at the end of the night our boss offered us a discount on the little toys. I and a few of my friends bought some as reminders of what was one of my fondest experiences in China so far.