Silk Market Scuffle

I have been to the Silk Market many times since the 1990s but in recent years, I despise going there. The sellers have become extremely rude and insulting. No matter what you do- whether you ask the price before examining the item, or examine the item before asking price, they will still generally curse you with rude swears in English if you chose not to buy the item.

I strongly recommend NOT shopping at the Silk Market or Yashow. Go instead to the Zoo clothing market where the goods are the same, and the sellers are generally polite and nice.

At the Silk Market, the seller's rude attitudes must surely be a result of their owner/bosses encouraging them to curse potential customers in an attempt to intimidate and pressure them into parting with their money. I strongly recommend boycotting such planned nastiness. By encouraging this type of crude behavior, the owner/bosses also damage the minds/personas of the young girls who work as sellers in the place. Nobody would chose to be a nasty person. It is the marketing-methods that the boss encourages that influences and transforms the sellers into rude people who lack respect for everything other than money.

The Silk Market is a sad place- its a distilled version of everything that is wrong with China: obsession with money and glorification of money over everything else including respect for other human beings, employing village girls at a crappy salary and make them behave in dehumanizing ways so that the owner/bosses can get rich.

Overall, the Silk Market is disgusting and dehumanizing for everyone involved (except for the owner/bosses who get rich from this system).

In Beijing, there are many low cost, nice places to shop with pleasant and polite seller/clerks. Let's patronize those shops instead.

Stay away from SILK MARKET and YASHOW, the people who work and sell there are greedy and very rude. When you go buy a bag this is how it starts. First they say, "I usually sell this bag for 1200RMB, but for you I will sell it for 550RMB" Then they will ask you for your price and punch it in on the calculater to see how much they can rip you off. So I suggest that when you go to SILK Market spend the first day just asking prices, don't bring a penny with you. Bargain with them untill they kick you out of the store and start cussing you out. Also be aware that they share information, so when you leave a store, they will follow you to the other store and say things about your price your looking for and not to go below it. Its all dirty business, so if your looking for good prices you got to get dirty with them too. 1 year experience dealing with these A-Holes. To tell you the truth, there are better places in Beijing who do not target foriegners to rip off. Shoes Max 100, Bags best quailty MAX 200, avoid all t-shirts worst quality, Polo shirts can be bought between 20-40RMB. Also dress shirts max 40RMB. Jackets Max 200 and thats a rip off. Please avoid this place at all cost. It will save you headache and you will not have to meet the greediest people on earth.

Also for replica bags, please be aware that they come in different Grade levels, So if you try to buy a bag from Silk Market or Yashow and you have no experience in grade levels you will get ripped off. But if you know the different grade levels in bags and know how to tell the difference then you will be ok. Also BEAWARE when you ask for the best grade, most of the time they will bring a lower grade to test your knowledge to see if you know the difference. I have bought hundreds of bags in Beijing for international customers, and I will absolutly strongly suggest to stay away from Silk Market.

Maybe they were fakes of the official fakes. you can't let things like this spiral out of control, there has to be a line drawn somewhere!

A better title would have been:

7 Stall owners refuse to pay graft money to authorities.

It's called A 版 in Chinese, 高仿货。