The act of bargaining is itself performative, as the buyer and the seller act out their respective roles amidst the clamor of other shoppers and salespeople. There is the indifference written on the buyer's face as he throws out a plaintive "duo shao qian?" This is answered by the unflinching vendor, who has quietly sized up the shopper's potential for miscalculation, which is often directly proportional to the shopper's foreignness. The vendor claims to be every shopper's best friend, although everyone knows bargaining is strictly business. The back and forth proceeds, and one's rate of success is related to one's appetite for attrition.

Every transaction is a lesson in supply and demand, even if each shopper determines how much demand there really is for any given item. Indeed, the clothing market allows one to see the invisible hand of the market economy at work-and more often than not, it belongs to you. Rarely in the West are shoppers asked to jump into the fray and verbalize a fair price. It really is a foreign responsibility trying to figure out how much a pair of socks is worth, enough to make you want to give up and start converting to Western prices. By wandering from stall to stall and reenacting the same pricing dance, only with different partners, we can slowly accumulate an idea of the right figure. And nothing gets the asking prices falling faster than simply moving on.

Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules for maximizing the bargain while minimizing the effort expended. Or if there are any, they are tightly guarded state secrets. Some bargainers will play it by percentages; after all, 50 percent off would be a fire sale at most department stores. Of course, if the vendor has inflated the asking price by 10 times, well, let's not do the math. In short, nothing is absolute, especially if the vendor says otherwise. If the bargaining is going a little too easily or the salesperson is just too accommodating, you're probably overpaying.

Some shoppers prefer to go early or go late, as suspicion holds that the first and last sales of the day are comparatively easy pickings. Some say that nothing endears the foreign shopper to the vendor more than simply (or not so simply) speaking a little Chinese, although at most times it's probably better not to say what you're really thinking. Some even carry large empty bags to prove their shopping valor and to get those merchants chomping at the bit.

But in the end, nothing pays like doing as the Chinese do; and nothing is as Chinese as driving a hard bargain.