Lost in Guangzhou! (Part 2)

After breakfast at KFC, we walked towards the market. Yiwu International wholesale market had 5 floors and 2 underground. And it’s 7 km long! You would have to take a tricycle to move from each of the 5 districts that are home to more than 75000 stalls!  You read that right! In addition, the weather was -5! I was not prepared for the waka I was about to do.

This place is massive. It had different sections – toys, furniture, hair and cosmetics, souvenirs, leather goods, shoes, fashion jewellery EVERYTHING. 

I bet you are wondering what I intended to buy at the world’s largest wholesale market. As a resident of Lagos, Nigeria, there is one event that happens every weekend! You guessed it! Parties A.k.a Owanbe. And what’s a party without souvenirs? A report of disgruntled Aso Ebi clad guests without memorabilia worthy of the fabric purchased.

While I was still discussing with my roommate, at the large reception of district one, a tall, slim and young Chinese man walks up to my roommate. (Let’s call her Raliyat.) They exchanged pleasantries. And she introduced him as her interpreter. Interpreter??? Why would she need an Interpreter? This is China! Don’t they speak English?

That thought was cut short when I walked into 5 stores and not one store owner spoke English. Goodness! How on earth was I going to buy items if I couldn’t communicate? The only words I knew in Mandarin were Ni hao and xie xie which I learned from a tutor who taught at a school where I used to work.

That thought was cut short when I walked into 5 stores and not one store owner spoke English. Goodness! How on earth was I going to buy items if I couldn’t communicate? The only words I knew in Mandarin were Ni hao and xie xie which I learned from a tutor who taught at a school where I used to work.

Meanwhile, I was receiving texts from Lagos to buy this, and buy that. If only they knew the communication challenge, I was having. This was 2012, I had no app to help me- No Duolingo, Busuu, Babbel nada! 
Well, the good about trading – Money talks! It does. How did I get money to do the talking for me? We used the calculator. I pointed to the item; they punched in the numbers. I negotiated by typing back. Voila!

 However, this was a bit frustrating because 10 stores later I was no nearer to my goal of purchasing. I asked Raliyat why she decided to get an interpreter. “My last trip was horrible! I couldn’t negotiate as much as I wanted to and it began to stress me. So I decided to hire an interpreter on my next trip!”she responded.

“How much does this cost?” I asked.

“$100 per day” she replied.

$100? I had a tight budget of $5000. I thought to myself there is no way I’m paying $500 for an interpreter for 5 days in Yiwu! I still had my trip to Guangzhou for luxury items purchases.

After spending 8 hours scouting stores, collecting call cards, and window shopping, it was time to retire to our hotel. The manager recommended a local Chinese restaurant (well more like an upscale buka) where we had dinner. The food was the real deal! After almost 24 hours of plain plane food, I finally got to taste local Chinese cuisine. 

I returned to the room afterwards and sorted out all the call cards for stores I would visit for the rest of the shopping expedition. I hadn’t done any purchasing because I had been warned by my aunt “ensure you have a shopping list, otherwise you’ll end up buying things you didn’t plan to”. I’m glad I took her advice. With over 75000 stores, stocked with affordable wholesale items. I guarded my eyes and my pocket like the great wall of China!

Part 3 of ” Lost in Guangzhou” in my next post! Have you subscribed yet?