After our last class of the week, we went to Zhongguan cun—the so-called “Silicon Valley” of China. There were lots of big corporate office buildings there there from Microsoft, Gateway, the “Google of China”, and Sun. We didn’t really get to spend too much time looking at buildings, instead we went straight to the Electronics Market. I felt bad because we went there on my request—I wanted to know where the electronics market was so that I could go look at computer and camera stuff, but I felt like since we were there on my request, I wasted everyone’s time a little bit. I didn’t even have money to buy anything. There were some good prices (~$90 for a Canon 1.4x EFII Extender) which was pretty sweet but I didn’t spend enough time to price all the goods. I hope to go back.
We also saw a gentleman’s computer store in the market. I have to say, it wasn’t what I was expecting. We were told we were visiting the company that this man owned in Computer City, but it turned out to be a larger than average booth on the 5th floor. The owner didn’t speak any English, and no one really had any questions for him which felt somewhat awkward. There were 8 floors to this place, and each floor had at least 100 vendors. Each vendor had at least 2 employees, and they all wear blue vests (Best Buy much?) . Walking through, you get accosted like crazy by lots of people who know how to say 3 phrases in English. I don’t see how anyone stays in business there—there didn’t seem to be any differentiation, anything to make one vendor stand out over another. All sales seem to happen based on pure luck for the vendor.
After the electronics market, we went to a French supermarket to see how they differ from American supermarkets. This place was really cool just because it was comfortable to me—haggling prices and bargaining is fun for a little while, but having to go to all the markets to get food wouldn’t be ideal for me. The prices here were definitely more than they were at markets, but were surprisingly even more expensive than the same foods in our munchies mart! We found some fun Engrish translations, and even more fun product names (their line of condoms is called Jissbone).
It was a long day of walking, especially after going out hard last night. Tonight is beer pong at Pyro Pizza over in Wudaokou, and I’m pretty excited. Wish me luck.
