Regardless of the country and language, the reasons for going to the second hand store are universally the same: have fun haggling, try (but usually fail) to save some money, and make yourself unnecessarily exhausted and frustrated. Well, thanks to this weekend's events, mission accomplished.
I went shopping with a buddy for a used fridge and fan. Unlike the US, there's no real store or building, merely a collection of dark and wet alley-ways with equally dark and wet salesmen. We settled on fan pretty quick, but I asked if I could lower the price and the lady recommended another fan that was 20 rmb cheaper. After inspecting it, I settled for the cheaper one as it had relatively the same wind speed and functions. But "you get what you pay for" and we discovered once home that the middle shaft and adjustable height screw was just held together by a big wad of tape. Hmm...
The fridge took a bit more work. Once finally finding one we wanted at a good price, we plugged it in just to check (ALWAYS test your products in China - even the "new"ones). Not so "cool." So we finally got another one. Unfortunately, the salesman refused to deliver the machine for us so we flagged down a giant rickety motorized tricycle (no really that's what it was) to take us and our electronic goods home. It was a squishy and bumpy ride home. It was a challenge to figure out whether to use my two arms to keep the fridge from flying out of the vehicle, or to hold myself from flying away.
After finally getting home, and finding some help to take the fridge up to the 4th floor (luckily it wasn't my apartment on the 7th floor), we both took much needed showers and cooked a lovely dinner. Ironically, we were so hungry that we ate all of the food, thereby not needing to use the newly purchased refrigerator to store any leftovers...
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Byron Yee
TEFL English Teacher - Shenzhen, China
I went shopping with a buddy for a used fridge and fan. Unlike the US, there's no real store or building, merely a collection of dark and wet alley-ways with equally dark and wet salesmen. We settled on fan pretty quick, but I asked if I could lower the price and the lady recommended another fan that was 20 rmb cheaper. After inspecting it, I settled for the cheaper one as it had relatively the same wind speed and functions. But "you get what you pay for" and we discovered once home that the middle shaft and adjustable height screw was just held together by a big wad of tape. Hmm...
The fridge took a bit more work. Once finally finding one we wanted at a good price, we plugged it in just to check (ALWAYS test your products in China - even the "new"ones). Not so "cool." So we finally got another one. Unfortunately, the salesman refused to deliver the machine for us so we flagged down a giant rickety motorized tricycle (no really that's what it was) to take us and our electronic goods home. It was a squishy and bumpy ride home. It was a challenge to figure out whether to use my two arms to keep the fridge from flying out of the vehicle, or to hold myself from flying away.
After finally getting home, and finding some help to take the fridge up to the 4th floor (luckily it wasn't my apartment on the 7th floor), we both took much needed showers and cooked a lovely dinner. Ironically, we were so hungry that we ate all of the food, thereby not needing to use the newly purchased refrigerator to store any leftovers...
--
Byron Yee
TEFL English Teacher - Shenzhen, China
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