bargain hunters

Vietnam is a pirate paradise. I’m not referring to the sailors with parrots and peg-legs, but rather counterfeit goods. Ben Thanh Market, Saigon Square and the night market at Ben Thanh Market are just some of the places we visited that were filled with pirated goods. From the high-end LV and Fendi to the lower-end Adidas and Nike, everything could be found there.

Since the products are all pirated, there were no fixed prices so we were free to display our bargaining skills. We were told that we could get up to a fifth off the quoted price so we were often found doing extensive, mind-boggling mental calculations when bargaining with the shopkeepers.

busy people

However, this one-fifth price was often too low for the shopkeepers and they would laugh at our absurdity. It is also a common myth that Vietnamese never say ‘NO,’ because they have said ‘NO’ to us countless times.

Me: “How much?”
SK: “100,000 dong.”
Me: “20,000.”
SK: “NO!”

Unfortunately I was not really interested in the goods they had to offer, but that did not stop me from bargaining just for the fun of it. It was quite an adventure venturing into their territory, getting offers shouted at me from all angles although I haven’t given any sign that I was interested, and then getting molested by various shopkeepers once I stopped to take a look. I would scream when they came too close to scare them off.

It seems that being from Singapore is a disadvantage when it comes to bargaining because our country is well-known for being wealthier than our neighbours so they would quote us higher prices than usual. Once I lied and said that I was from China, and that the shirts in China were cheaper. “One dollar!” she said immediately, but I wasn’t interested in the first place.

Sometimes we would walk away from a shop, thinking that we've scored a good bargain after haggling like our lives depended on it, only to discover that someone else got the exact same item for an even lower price. At this time, it would be most appropriate to shout "TIO SCAM LIAO!" and then retreat to a corner to sulk over our lack of bargaining skills.