Just got back from Beifang Shichang 北方市场 or the North Market, It’s a large textile and fabric market in the east of the city, where you can get clothes (or anything really) tailored.

Foreigners come here because you can actually get clothes that fit you, and because it’s so much cheaper than getting tailored things made in the west. It’s strange, many Chinese have a totally different perception of tailored clothing – that it is not so good, they would rather buy from off the peg. Also lots of people tell me they think tailored clothing is expensive, I have friends who say that they only time they had clothes made was when they were children, or many years ago when things were less developed.

I think it’s cheaper – especially if you are too big/tall to find clothing from elsewhere, and there is much more choice (for men anyway).
However, the quality of the fabric varies from very good to very poor, as does the quality of the workmanship.

Therefore, I think you have to be careful when getting things from here, it would be quite easy to get conned.

So they way to avoid this is – of course – to know people who work here, to have a contact that can guaranteed you quality of work for a good price.

There are some very high quality tailors that will charge you a normal price. For example, for a suit (trousers+jacket including all materials except the outside) the labour should cost around 120 yuan. A tailor you don’t know will try to get you to pay 2X 3X 4X this price.
Your tailor will measure you and tell you how much material you need to buy, in order to make whatever it is you wish to have made. I require 2.8 Square Metres of fabric in order to make a suit.

It can be time consuming finding the material you want, but it takes even more time bargaining it down to a price that is reasonable. Many foreigners come here, especially the foreign workers, and I think they don’t get a great deal on the price (what’s an extra 1 or 200 yuan to them?), so when the sellers see a foreigner they expect you to pay more even more than they normally do.

I often tell them, I can’t afford those prices, I’m a poor student with no money – Look at my clothes, do I look like I have a lot of money? Of course this approach fails as by virtue of being foreign immediatly makes me ‘rich’ in their eyes at least, however saying this always makes people laugh.

The great thing is that there are so many vendors you can just move on to the next one, compare prices and use the old ‘but she over there said this cost …’ technique. This is an effective way of getting a fair price I think, but it does take time which makes It great Chinese pratice!
Almost every vendor wil tell you how great this or that piece of material is, how beautiful a certain colour is, which one is best quality and so on. I guess you have to be able to decide what you’re looking for then try to get a price that is reasonable or you could spend all day here choosing, such is the choice.

There are many types of fabric ranging from formal looking materials for suits, to bright fluorescent shiny fabric that wouldn’t look out of place in the 1980s. Actually, comparatively speaking, Changchun doesn’t have such good choice when it comes to different types of materials, Shenyang is much better and cheaper.

In terms of suits, and lets face it that’s what 99% of foreigners have made here, the material ranges from about 50 yuan per sq/m to over 200 yuan a sq/m. I went around everywhere just casually asking the price – I have an idea what things should cost – because I’m interested in what kind of mark up they put on the fabric when a foreigner asks how much it should be. The most expensive price I was given was 275 a square metre :shock:, the lowest 85 – the real price is probably more like 40-50 and 150-60.

I’ve had a few suits made, I’ve tried the cheaper fabric 50yuan sq/m and the more expensive stuff at 90yuan sq/m – and they are all fine, but my tailor said to me that the cheaper material is cheaper because it wont last as long.

Once you’ve got the material you want, you take it back to the tailor who most probably has a magazine full of images of different clothing. You browse through this and pick whatever style you like, the beauty of this is you can ask for pretty much any style you want – I got a very nice suit made but requested bright red lining just because I could!

You can also take pictures of clothes you like, which are perhaps too expensive to buy in the shops, or copies of clothing made – It goes without saying they can copy almost anything!

Took this the other day- ‘Sod’ soap.

Made me laugh anyway. 😀

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So this is the beginning of my last week in Changchun, and my last week living in China  and Asia for the forseeable future at least. It’s quite stressful and hectic having to move, decide what to take home; pack; throw-away; say good bye to friends; stock up on things to take home; get things made; plan things back home; and doing those things that I’ll miss most/regret not doing here.
The weather now is almost perfect, not as hot as other summers I have experienced and so very comfortable for doing anything outside. It’s been 25-35C with a breeze and low humidity, blue skies and that constant Changchun sunshine.

My current contract situation is still going through the motions, It will take time but I suspect eventually something will happen. Despite what you may think from reading my previous posts, I’m pretty laid back about all of this, I’m so used to these kind of situations happening – they are not unsual.

Just sometimes It’s frustrating and this probably comes out through my writing. In a perverted way, I enjoy testing the procedural nonsenses and trying to solve such problems. I like challenges. It provides an insight into the inner workings of organisations that I would otherwise never have an opportunity to see, however good/bad the outcome may be.

The Chinese have a  saying 百闻不如一见 bai wen bu ru yi jian-
meaning seeing something once is better than hearing it 100 times – you really don’t know what its like until you’ve been there yourself.

I’m lucky as I can just walk away from this, tell others, forget and move on. Many are not so fortunate, I am aware that what I have experienced/ing is just the tip of the iceberg.
Indeed, outside the provincial government offices on one of the days I went there, was a group of maybe 30-40 employees sitting on the steps, protesting over corruption. A few of them were holding placards, each with a different character on it, when read – I didn’t understand all of it – said their dept (Jilin province government hygiene dept) was corrupt. I think this is unusual though I have seen pickets like this before outside various government offices in Changchun (esp around renmin guangchang).

I just wonder if you got 10 laowai standing outside one of these government buildings protesting with placards, whether this would prompt action faster? It certainly would spread the news fast…

Some people have emailed me saying saying ‘well if you dont have to go there, why bother?’ If you don’t have to experience something that isn’t all good then why experience it at all? Life is short, right?
For me the answer to this is that If you never even bother to ‘go there’ then you don’t even give yourself the opportunity to see what might happen, what things coud be like. I believe its worth taking the risk if only to realise that you wont do the same thing again, I think I’d feel regret in the future at never doing something , never even finding out.
It’s kind of a paradox, in that its sometimes easy to complain about how things are not fair here; how you often can lose out; how you can find yourself in difficult positions through no fault of your own; But, in a sense, part of this is what makes the place such an enigma – for me at least, things are much laissez faire and free.
In my life here, I am seldom bored, Life is never monotonus. It’s certainly a challenge and at times very tough, but I never wake up in the morning and think ‘this is just another day’.

There is are many blogs with stories about about what Chinese people think of laowai, its also one of the most popular questions that people ask me.  Laowai basically means foreigner (though the Chinese don’t use this to describe Koreans, Japanese)  some dislike being called this but I have no problems with it, it’s the way people use the word not the meaning that is more important.

I’ve had many memorable experiences involving taxi drivers over the time but today beats them all! 😀

This afternoon I was running late, so jumped In a cab to get to a very important meeting I had scheduled.  I get in, tell him where to go, he looks at me and straight up asks me ‘你会开车吗’ ‘Can you drive?’.  I have had cabbies ask me this before and I always say ‘yes I can drive, but I don’t want to drive in Changchun- It’s just too dangerous!’

Many foreigners complain about taxi drivers messing them around, taking them the wrong way, causing problems, not understanding them etc…  My opinion on this is that you have to engage with the driver, chat with him if you can,  tell him exactly where to go, don’t leave anything to chance.  I’ve had some of the most interesesting conversations with taxi drivers, like in any country, a complete fountain of local gossip – you want to know something ask a driver.   I have never had a problem doing things this way, even in different cities. 

If you say nothing, you probably will be taken the long way as the taxi driver will assume you dont know the city (stupid rich foreigner syndrome) and can get more money from you! The taxi drivers at the airport will try to trick you because that’s what they do, so take the coach (its just as fast) or negotiate beforehand for the total price (including tolls, make sure the whole car is yours, not just a seat!) 80 yuan is a good price. 

 Also,  If you give him a piece of paper with an address on it because you can’t communicate with the driver then its very high that you’re end up paying a little more (the same applies for giving him your phone to talk to someone),  honestly I dont blame the cabbies here, I would probably do the same thing If I was in their position to make a little more cash!    

 This time though the cabbbie was persistent and kept on offering so I reluctantly accepted his proposition (and when will I get another opportunity like this!), he pulled up and we swapped seats.  I have to say It was really fun to be a taxi driver for a few minutes, but doing this as a job may not be so much fun. Actually driving the Jetta wasn’t so hard, just  I’m not used to driving on the right-hand side side of the road.  I took it down round Culture Square, Xi’an Street, negotiated People’s Square and pulled up at Chongqing Road.

It’s fun to be able to use the horn all the time, overtake anywhere, ignore traffic signs and traffic laws – however I still would never buy a vehicle in Changchun.

 The cabbie sitting next to me was giving a commentary of the different cars we were passing, asking me for my opinion on them and telling me the price.

 He told me that Land Rover’s cost 70wan or 45K pounds , we then passed an Audi Q7, he said its costs 138 wan/ 1,380,000 yuan  or about 90K pounds – I’ve seen lots of these in Changchun, I seem to see one every day.  Where they get that sort of cash from I can only guess!  

 In think as a general rule Chinese people value social status highly, ‘To be rich is to be glorious’ said Deng Xiaoping  and they sure like to show their status to others, whether this be through the clothes they wear, the car they drive, whether they have a pet dog, whether their child goes to the most expensive school – you name it.  Some people are like this in the UK too, but in Changchun I think many, many people are materialistic – especially those new to money, its as if they need to announce ‘they have made it’ to the rest of society.  Just eaves dropping on peoples conversations you get to understand that it’s all many people ever talk about, It certainly is very important.

It’s a little different from the UK, in that Changchun has a very small middle class – there are super wealthy and the working class but this big gap in the middle, which is gradually increasing.  

I read about the gap between rich and poor in the UK increasing, but here the gap between the haves and have nots is massive.  When you see such cars and people collecting 3 Jiao plastic bottles side by side, It really makes you wonder how can things keep on going like this?  I think the gap is growing.      

This came up in a conversation the other day and it reminded me of something that happened to me when I first got to China.  It certainly isn’t something you ever think would happen, but It happens to most foreigners that come to China for the first time, usually for the first few weeks here.

Unless a person is particuarly distinctive (i.e dyed hair,) , I remember the only way I could tell most people apart was by the clothes they were wearing. Once, when I’d just got here I had some friends visit me, but I didn’t even recognise them until they introduced themselves!

 I’m sure you could write a paper on why this happens,  but I have my own little theory based on experience. I think It has something to do with the differences in recognition through facial characteristics. We perhaps look for the hair colour, eye colour, the structure of the nose and eyes, maybe even the build of the person.   

As most Chinese have brown, smaller eyes, black coloured hair and different facial structures, It may be that those with little experience of seeing such looks, haven’t been able to fully work out how to recognise such people.

Therefore in China, I think different rules apply.  Perhaps we subconsciously look more at the structure of the face, the height, the hairstyle, different facial characteristics.

I think most westerners are initially less familiar at seeing so many Chinese looking faces and being able to differentaite those such differences.  Just as many Chinese I know say that all foreigners look the same – are fat, big, different coloured hair, deep eyes, big noses, the list goes on.   

I guess we’re all conditioned to an extent based on the environments we’ve been exposed to.   I’m willing to bet that Chinese travelling to the west for the first time experience the reverse of this.