The Fake Market Guy
Hitta en intervju på SmartShanghai med en anställd på Fake market:
"We don’t really have a weekend here. The market opens at 10am every day, no matter what day it is or whether it’s a holiday or whatever. I wake up at 9am every day, open my shop and work until we close at 10pm, seven days a week. They’re long days, but it’s a good schedule. I live close by as well, so it doesn’t take me long to get ready in the mornings.
I didn’t study hard enough at school. I worked really hard in middle school, but when I got older I smoked and drank too much. I didn’t pass the gaokao, so I couldn’t go to university. Now, I wish I had studied harder. I could re-sit it, but I’m already 22 and so I should make money and be independent. At this age you shouldn’t rely on your parents anymore, so that’s why I opened this shop. I’m supporting my sister through university right now. I hope she studies harder than I do so that she can have a better future.
The rent for a shop at the market is really high. I need to make at least 800rmb per day. I don’t earn enough to save up, but I’m self-sufficient, and that’s what’s important. You need to be here at least four to five years before you start saving money, and I’ve only been here a year. Some of my friends have been here for that long, because they started working when they were 16.
I learned English at school. Classes start in the first year of middle school, and so you have six years of it before you graduate. Really, even if I had been born as a pig, I would’ve been able to learn the language there after all that time. The rest of my English I picked up at the fake market. I speak it with my customers every day, so I learned quickly.
My products are really good. If you’re not an expert on electronics, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my stuff and the real stuff. Really, I went to a big name-brand store one time to compare the headphones I sell to the ones there, and they sounded the same. Different vendors in the market have different suppliers, but I can’t tell you where I get my stuff from because that’s a secret of the trade. Anyways, the other guys here don’t want me to talk about it in case they get into trouble.
The other vendors tell me that foreigners have gotten better at bargaining over the years, and I can see that too. They’re usually better at getting a good price than the Chinese that come here to buy stuff. It’s because they come back often and they know what they want. My customers are usually pretty happy, so they come back the next time. It’s because I don’t make a very big profit, so they know they’ve gotten a good deal. It’s more important to me that they come back for more than that I make one big sale; that way I have more business in the future.
When I’m not at work, I like to listen to music. I hang out with my friends as well, and we eat and play cards. Chinese New Year is one of the few times when I close my shop and go home to visit my family. If I can’t work any of the other days, I have to ask a friend to take over for me.
You know, I don’t really think about whether this job makes me happy or not. I do the best job that I can because it’s what I do now. Obviously, once I’ve saved up enough, I’ll do something else, but until then I’m going to make the most of it here."
I didn’t study hard enough at school. I worked really hard in middle school, but when I got older I smoked and drank too much. I didn’t pass the gaokao, so I couldn’t go to university. Now, I wish I had studied harder. I could re-sit it, but I’m already 22 and so I should make money and be independent. At this age you shouldn’t rely on your parents anymore, so that’s why I opened this shop. I’m supporting my sister through university right now. I hope she studies harder than I do so that she can have a better future.
The rent for a shop at the market is really high. I need to make at least 800rmb per day. I don’t earn enough to save up, but I’m self-sufficient, and that’s what’s important. You need to be here at least four to five years before you start saving money, and I’ve only been here a year. Some of my friends have been here for that long, because they started working when they were 16.
I learned English at school. Classes start in the first year of middle school, and so you have six years of it before you graduate. Really, even if I had been born as a pig, I would’ve been able to learn the language there after all that time. The rest of my English I picked up at the fake market. I speak it with my customers every day, so I learned quickly.
My products are really good. If you’re not an expert on electronics, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my stuff and the real stuff. Really, I went to a big name-brand store one time to compare the headphones I sell to the ones there, and they sounded the same. Different vendors in the market have different suppliers, but I can’t tell you where I get my stuff from because that’s a secret of the trade. Anyways, the other guys here don’t want me to talk about it in case they get into trouble.
The other vendors tell me that foreigners have gotten better at bargaining over the years, and I can see that too. They’re usually better at getting a good price than the Chinese that come here to buy stuff. It’s because they come back often and they know what they want. My customers are usually pretty happy, so they come back the next time. It’s because I don’t make a very big profit, so they know they’ve gotten a good deal. It’s more important to me that they come back for more than that I make one big sale; that way I have more business in the future.
When I’m not at work, I like to listen to music. I hang out with my friends as well, and we eat and play cards. Chinese New Year is one of the few times when I close my shop and go home to visit my family. If I can’t work any of the other days, I have to ask a friend to take over for me.
You know, I don’t really think about whether this job makes me happy or not. I do the best job that I can because it’s what I do now. Obviously, once I’ve saved up enough, I’ll do something else, but until then I’m going to make the most of it here."
