China's street vendor's are famous. Everyone knows about the aggressive touts and salespeople, yelling about DVD's and watches and bags, anywhere a large crowd gathers. They're also one of the reasons I'm so happy I look Chinese, so I can pass by them, mostly unhassled. I've seen an overly aggressive salesperson follow a laowai (老外) down a full city block, trying to move merchandise. And besides, the sales pitches are much less annoying sounding in Chinese than in English.
Well, yesterday, I was walking along Shanxi Nan Lu (陕西南路), going to get some dinner. there's a really nice place there to get shengjian (生煎) there that Like a Local tipped me off to. A whole gaggle of street vendors had set up with their merchandise in those hinged wooden boxes and plastic bags. The whole shebang was there, watches, DVD's, fake Louis Vuitton purses, clothing, everything. (It always struck me as being really weird buying clothing off a tarp laid on the sidewalk... what if they don't have your size?) And just as we passed them a huge bang came from behind us, as we realized that all of a sudden, every single vendor had snapped shut their wooden case. All at the same time. It was really quite impressive.
A few would be customers were left their, just standing, looking kind of dazed. Then everyone started crossing the street all at once. In the space of ten seconds, a busy little marketplace turned into a convoy of people with boxes. "What me? Selling pirated goods? No way."
They all just ended up chilling on the other side of the street. Were still there when I got done with dinner and was walking back the other way.
No police ever did show up though. I wonder what they panicked about.
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