Bargaining in Busan

Wherein I fail massively, completely piss of a merchant and am thrown out of her stall.

Busanjin is a gargantuan textile-focused market in the heart of Busan. Much of it is inside, and despite our Namdaemun market experience in Seoul, we ventured to Busanjin in search of basic pre-made  textiles such as table clothes.

The scale of the market is hard to comprehend. Multiple floors of tightly packed stalls, some well organized, others less so. Everything from fabric, zippers, undergarments, bags, shoes to clothes, clothes, clothes.

While we had no luck locating what we had been searching for, we did identify two items of interest at one stall, so I summoned my haggle-mojo and went to work. No luck. The shop keeper wouldn’t budge. The strategy that has worked so well for me met the immovable object of “I don’t think so, weirdo” (or it’s rough translation in Korean). The more I pushed, the more agitated she got, making it clear there was no room to bargain. But isn’t that a bargaining strategy of its own? “No, that’s as low as I can go.” Bargaining is de rigueur at the market, so what was happening? It all ended with her forcefully knocking her wrists together in an x shape, putting the items away, and shooing me out of her space.

I’m not sure what I learned, but there was a lesson in there somewhere. Maybe it’s just that what works in Seoul won’t necessarily work in Busan.