In China, you can haggle in a far greater variety of places than in the West. It is expected almost everywhere except for formal retail shopping locales such as malls, supermarkets, and restaurants. If you’re not sure, it will never hurt to try, and either way you will come off shrewd rather than foolish.

● Every word of Chinese you can learn is going to save you money. Start with the numbers, which are manageable for beginners and extremely practical, then add “tài gùi le” meaning “too expensive” – which when spoken in Chinese will always drop the price drastically.

● You will never get the lowest price until you walk away. If a merchant agrees to your offer while you’re standing in front of him, you paid too much.

● Don’t be afraid of some passion. Arguing aggressively for a lower price won’t make any enemies; in fact you’ll gain respect for yourself and your home country by savvy negotiating.

● Inspect the item thoroughly. I can’t count how many times I examined an item moments after buying it, to realize how flimsy it really was. The harder you look at it, the more nervous the seller will get about its quality, and the price will drop.

● Take your poker face. Act like you don’t want it. If your eyes light up when you see the item, you’re dead. When you truly don’t want it, you always get the lowest price.

● Getting ripped off drives the price up for everyone. The more naïve tourists shell out far too much, the higher the price is driven up for the rest of us.

● Street vendors and flea markets don’t sell authentic brand names. Yes, I know this is a “duh” for most people, but someone out there is still getting fooled. If you’re haggling for brand name items anywhere, they’re fake, and sell for probably less than 10% of the real thing. Authentic brand name products are available throughout China in its plentiful malls. At officially licensed retailers, you wouldn’t normally haggle.

● Don’t be afraid to mime. Chinese people are remark ably open to creative communication, and amusing a seller with your foreign antics could make him sympathetic to a lower price.

● Almost everyone has the same stuff. Rarely are you going to find anything for sale that someone else isn’t also selling only footsteps away. Remember this when the seller doesn’t agree to your offer. Just indicate that you’re going to buy it elsewhere, start walking away, and watch him shout after you to make a deal.