One of the things I really like to do in China (if I have a few minutes) is to explore the ’local, local’ shopping areas. What I mean here is that the “living areas” in my city are actually a bevy of small alleyways, porticos and overhanging lean-to constructions that house small family businesses. You can quite easily travel along the main streets thinking the whole place is devoid of life, but ducking into a “housing” hole-in-the-wall gives you a chance to find local foods, fruits and candies; a hairdresser or 20; the ’assorted duck bits’ seller; my favourite Chou Dofu (stinky tofu) sellers and a plethora of other people just sitting around doing not much, trying to sell a few trinkets and treasures to the residents passing by!

As you may know from a few previous blogs, I have a bit of a passion for hardware shops, they are full of piled stuff you can't buy anywhere else in the city (and maybe, even the world)...I have had a problem with a pesky mouse in my home, so I was looking for a mouse trap...so I went searching!

The little store I found was dark and cavernous - the family seemed to live between the piles of plastic pipes and other warehouse items. A sallow man, with a pointed chin and a downturned mouth sat on a small stool, his hands resting on his knees! 

He looked up at me, half smiled and asked what I was doing there! I told him I was after a “mouse kill machine", to which he raise an eyebrow and scratched his hair and repeated my words about 10 times with a questioning tone - I was just about to turn and leave when he finally corrected me “arrest rat machine”!

“Sorry, I don't speak so well, do you have one of those?"

“No have”, he replied lazily, pointing to a large rodent that had conveniently jumped into view in front of the rubbish hut across the street.

The next thing that happened was a woman bustled out of the shop and started berating the man, about being lazy and never doing anything! She just yelled at him for a good minute.

He looked up at her and said “I have a customer"

She yelled at him again - that's not how you serve a customer, sitting down all day, enjoying the sunshine... stand up, get in the shop, do something, show the customer something to buy! Every few moments the man would meekly look up at me - as if this was some major cross he had to bear for some past misdeed!

At this point, I jumped in. “Excuse me, wait a minute, I'm looking for a Kill mouse machine”.

“Arrest rodent machine”, he quietly corrected.

“Yes”, she said,”I have one of those”, and she bustled to the back of the shop.

She came back momentarily with an armful of stuff and lay them out on the floor - sticky mouse paper (a heavy-duty version of flypaper), a 3-4 box of poison, a toilet plunger, a small plastic box and bottle of some poisonous liquid (soak rice in stuff to poison the mice).

I quickly decided that I didn’t want poison - I had visions of a mouse perishing behind my refrigerator and not being able to remove it... the plastic box I had no idea about... so it was the mouse paper!

“Very good”, the guy motioned, miming how to open the package and lay it io the floor, with a big “thumbs up”!

The lady waved the plunger - “you also need this in your home”, she asked hopefully. Obviously she’d been to McDonalds Hamburger Restaurant and seen “up-selling” in action. “Ok”, I said, “I might come in handy one day”

“plastic bag?” she suggested

“ok”

I paid for my plunger, mega-flypaper and the plastic bag and the man stood up and vigorously shook my hand! “Thank you, please come again!” he chortled.

As I walked away from the shop with an item I didnt even need, just to appease the angry lady shop owner, I realised that I'd just 'been had' by the Chinese equivalent of Good Cop, Bad Cop!

This is a very common ’negotiation tactic’ in China - to 'shame' a seemingly innocent individual to make the guilty partners “change their mind” to appease the complainer and return ’face’ to the shamed one - the Chinese even have a phrase for this - “kill a chicken to scare the monkeys’!

For example, in sales, the salesman will argue and cajole - he cannot return to his “office” without an order lest he lose face with his unseen boss!

Interestingly, unlike the Western ’good cop, bad cop’ scenario where the implied threat (bad cop) is on the accused - and they seek a friend (good cop) to ease their pain, the Chinese scene usually happens within a family, in a sort of “look at the pain you are putting your father through” type of outcome.

Applying Western logic of justice and fair play do not work well here - there is a pattern of atonement and it must be followed to restore ’harmony’.

It is interesting because it does allow some ’compromise’ (depending on the status of the parties) but also a chance to continue a lifelong ’partial blame game’ or the tactic can last a long period of time until the necessary appeasement cost is paid - this is sometimes why these things can drag on for years, and suddenly be settled overnight.

So be aware of the tactic in your liaisons with Chinese ladies, and their families!

About the object of my quest...well, i Didn’t find a mechanical mousetrap, but I was sold an A4 size cardboard book with a sticky glue on it...apparently when the mouse runs across the paper it is neatly stuck!

After 2 nights, no mouse...but about 1000 cockroaches - so although the paper has not achieved as advertised, it is doing something good ... Wow, what a great analogy for the rest of the stuff you buy in China!