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| A Revealing Walk Through Guangzhou's Qingping Market | ||||||
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Walk into the heart of Guangzhou from the market, visitors can hardly tell where the market ends and the city streets begin. Almost everybody seems to have some sort of side business. Hustling to make money is the name of the game By Hugh Filman t doesn't take long to realize that the local people of Guangzhou grasped market economics fast - or that maybe the entrepreneurial spirit never left the city still known to many in the west as Canton. About 30 seconds into the Guangzhou's Qingping Market, even the casual observer can see that China's future entrepreneurs know how to hustle to make sales.
Once the gateway to southern China, Guangzhou - like Shanghai in the north - languished as an international business backwater in the first four decades of the Communist era while Hong Kong grew into an economic powerhouse and a funnel for trade and investment. But unlike Shanghai, Guangzhou doesn't have the veneer of a state-backed corporate hub. Doing business in Guangzhou is about learning to survive on the streets - literally. Just walk a few paces into the Qingping Market and the sales pitches begin. Hawkers hold up live rabbits, handfuls of crawling crabs, slithering eels and strings of frogs, barking out prices to see who is ready to deal. In nearby stalls, local buyers take up the challenge, enthusiastically haggling with the vendors. Smiling and laughing, both sides clearly love the give and take of bargaining.
"Qing dynasty. Just 80 yuan," one dealer says, holding out an ornately carved wooden box. "For eye glasses. Special price: 60 yuan." All the vendors offer an assortment of boxes, ivory knives, metal-rimmed eye glasses, silver chop sticks, tea pots, vases, religious artifacts and figurines. "Qing Dynasty. Ming Dynasty. What dynasty you want?" another dealer asks. Walking through Guangzhou today, one sees the new China envisioned by the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping emerging at street level. It has been two decades since Deng declared that the open market could exist within the communist framework, but it has taken nearly that long for the Chinese to shake off the restraints of their state-run economy. Even now, only about 30% of the Chinese economy is classified as private. While Shanghai and other northern industrial cities have seen former state-run enterprises slowly learn to deal with market forces, Guangzhou has witnessed the re-emergence of the self-made entrepreneur. Walking into the heart of Guangzhou from the market, visitors can hardly tell where the market ends and the city streets begin. Almost everybody seems to have some sort of side business whether it's selling green beans and screwdrivers together on a rubber mat or stereo systems and televisions from a roadside stall. Hustling to make money is the name of the game. Clearly, while many mainland Chinese are still learning how to function in a market economy, the Cantonese of Guangzhou are eager to catch up with their cousins in Hong Kong. What's more, they've never really forgotten the art of wheeling and dealing. How to find Qingping Market (Qingping Shichang) The market is just north of Shamian Island, the former British colonial concession in Guangzhou. Just walk up from the island's central bridge, which becomes Qingping Lu. Foreign visitors should ask their hotel concierge to write the name down in Chinese for the driver if taking a taxi. | ||||||
