We're not in Peddler's Village anymore, Toto!

by Richard Button

Today we spent the whole afternoon in the Yu Garden Bazaar, better known as Shanghai's "China Town."

Of course, all of Shanghai is a "China Town", but the bazaar is called that because it is large, probably six blocks by four blocks, all marked off with pagoda style gates. There are many types of stores in the bazaar.

The vast majority are very small specialty shops...really, really small and extremely specialized, like shipping tape stores. Yep, there were two shops that sold nothing but clear shipping tape. And chopsticks stores. Many foods stores, full of vacuum sealed opaque bags. Those were a problem for those of us looking for a snack. The writing, not surprisingly, was in Mandarin and we had no idea what was in the bag.

There were large and small chotchki shops, with the same buddas and trinkets. I came very close to scoring a Chairman Mao analog wrist watch, with the seconds delineated by Mao's waving hand. We couldn't agree on a price. She asking fifty yuen ($7.50), but I knew others in our group had bought them for $1.00. I offered 5 yuen. She scoffed, countered with forty. I said five. She scoffed. I turned and walked away. She chased after me. "Thirty," she shouted. I kept walking. "Twenty." Walking. "OK, ten." I said, "Five." She walked away. I guess Chairman Mao is staying in China where he belongs.

There was a department store in the bazaar, sort of on the scale of a BonTon. No air conditioning. But what really surprised me was the aggressiveness of the sales clerks. They behaved just like the vendors outside. They came up to me from behind their counters with merchandise in hand, offering to lower prices before I said anything.

Our meals have been very boring and only marginally good. So we were all looking for treats at the bazaar. I pride myself in generally looking for indigenous foods when I am out and about. I had been a pretty good sport, I feel, about trying everything and not prejudging food. But my taste buds were bored. I just couldn't resist the lure of TWO Starbucks in the bazaar. Even with international chains, don't order coffee drinks in a country that is the basis for a phrase like "...for all the tea in China." I tried two different drinks, and they were mediocre. They also didn't have decaf, which is all I have drunk for thirty years, so I was pretty wired by the time we left.

Speaking of tea, yesterday we visited the Dragon Well tea plantation in Hangzhou. Tea is very serious business here. We learned about the growing and harvesting...and the hand drying of the tea leaves. We learned how to really brew tea and learned that the tea in tea bags comes from floor sweepings, according to the tea sales rep we met! Really good green tea...the best...smells like freshly cooked spinach and makes a robust beverage that cures most human ailments, again, according to our sales rep!

Tomorrow morning we head back. It is a very short flight. We leave Shanghai at 12:00 p.m. and arrive at JFK at 2:15 p.m.!

Dick