A couple of queries...

Is it fair to assume that an English speaking vendor at this market will be
hard to find ? I should take appropriately worded cue cards ??

Secondly ... I understand that bargaining in Beijing is the norm in the
market type stalls, but is it still appropriate to bargain at the tea
market, which I assume the locals also shop at ? I wish to avoid offending
anyone.

That's hard to say, but there are a lot of people in Beijing studying
English now, just because of the Olympics. So you can probably bet,
that at least some people there will speak a little English. Still,
it's best if you bring cue cards to avoid confusion.

Thanks, and I assume also that if they finally refuse to sell it at a
particular price you've obviously gone too low - pretty obvious, I'd say !

And as we all know, if we like the taste/smell/experience, and the price is
what you are prepared to pay, it really doesn't matter that much if you
can't read what's on the box/wrapper !

Man, I can't wait to spend a day at this place !

One other thing, if you buy any tea sets or tea utensils, be sure to
check each piece for chips/defects. Probably won't be any, but just to
be on the safe side...
They can change out a piece for you and switch with one from another
set. Just be sure to check when you buy it. And it's expected that the
buyer will inspect the product before buying anyway, so don't be shy.

Also, say you're from Australia, and you're taking it back with you.
If you need some special packing or something, ask them to do it for
you.

Cool - will do, but I think my wife might get a little &^%%$^%% if I bring
home too many more pots ! She's already put a limit of 2kgs on the amount of
tea I can bring home ;-))

She still has memories of our last trip to Hong Kong where we (sorry, I) had
to buy another small suit case to bring home my tea booty.

Mal from Oz be.joking.com> wrote:

There is no place in the world where bargaining is inappropriate. The
worst anyone can do is to say no (which they repeatedly do to me at
Home Depot).

Yeah, a limit of 2 Kgs of tea leaves, but what about tea utensils?
Hehe. When you check into your hotel, ask them if they can arrange
parcel shipping for you to Australia. That might be an option. That
might save your back having to lug so much stuff to the airport and
home. The shops in Maliandao should be able to arrange shipping too,
but... can they be trustworthy?

On 2008-04-20, Mal from Oz hotmail.com> wrote:

I don't think most vendors will speak much English (you might get a lot
of "hellos" as you walk around - this happened to me a lot, though not
as much in the tea malls as in more touristy places), but I think you
shouldn't have a problem communicating. A lot of places will probably
pull out a calculator to give you prices (you can type your own prices
in when you're bargaining), and you can point or whatever.

You will probably find that a lot of people speak enough English to
conduct business, though without a translator, you'll miss out on some
information. On the other hand, you'll also miss out on a lot of sales
pitches, which I would say is a good thing.

I have to agree with Will here. That's why I said it's better if you
do some research first, and know what the prices are like in Mainland
China. If you want to know what prices run here, go to some site like
taobao.com or eachnet.com - and you will have to type in chinese
characters to search for what you want to look for. But that should
give you a ballpark figure of what prices are running.

Another thing, the Maliandao is a wholesale market, but unless you're
buying in quantity, assume they're quoting you the ordinary retail
price. Also, because you're a foreigner, assume they are quoting a
price higher than the retail price.

If you haven't see already, here are photos of the Maliandao Tea
Market:

http://bbs.52bj.cn/dv_rss.asp?s=xhtml&boardid=3&id=1759

http://www.cha.cc/news/thread_8976.html

Man, that place is HUGE!!!!