The Moving Box Purchasing Adventure
I bought 3 bundles of 5 boxes each, all mint and flattened, and struggled to carry them to the curb outside. The boxes were surprisingly heavy and bulky, impossible to carry for more than a few steps. I stood by the curb intending to hail a taxi, and a man riding by on his primitive bicycle-driven cart spotted me.
He stopped, beckoned me over, and asked where I needed to take my load. I told him (it was approximately 5 blocks away), and he quoted me a price of 50 RMB. Were I to grab a cab, the ride would cost the minimum fare of 10 RMB, but I figured his way would be more interesting than a cab. I bargained down one more step to 20 RMB, which is undoubtedly more than any Chinese person would pay for the journey, but felt silly after noticing that his hole-ridden jacket was barely held together by frayed threads and did not bargain further. I loaded the boxes onto the back of his bike-truck, and he motioned for me to sit on top. I feld a little bit self-conscious about this. I’ve occasionally seen people sitting on top of these carts, but they’re usually very old women from the countryside.
We rode out into traffic, weaved through a crazy intersection, and then went the long way home (so as not to have to carry the bike across the train tracks which are used to carry coal to the local power plant). We passed some of his fellow primitive cart pedalers along the way, and they shouted something to him in heavily accented Chinese that I couldn’t understand. We went through an area of newly demolished old buildings, and a group of about 20 people clustered around a Chinese chess game turned and stared for a long time as we passed.
Eventually we arrived at the destination. I dismounted and gave the pedaler a 20 RMB bill. He balked because the bill had a little tear in it. I guess he wanted a bill that was in better shape than his jacket. I scoured my wallet and found 18 RMB in other bills, and told him that he could either take the 18 or keep the 20, as that was all I had. He pocketed the 20, brightened up, and left after helping me to load the boxes on my head. I carried the boxes the equivalent of a little over a block into my building and brought them home.
