If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that the Chinese are pure. If there’s one thing we cannot all agree on, it’s what adjective to place after pure.

You may recall, about a year ago, I wrote a short entry about me and HJ buying peaches from two old women on the side of the road in a city about an hour away from Chengdu. The one lady, “so country”, I said, thought that I was from another province, not another country.

Well, it’s peach season again and the DJ was on the buy. Here is his story.

“4 RMB for half a kilo”, she said.

“That’s too expensive”, I (the DJ) said.

“But of course, you’re a foreigner”, she replied matter of factly.

I asked the DJ what he thought about it -

“I know that, but she’s not supposed to tell me that’s why I am being overcharged.”

“Were you mad?”, I asked him.

“Not mad, just astonished.”

“But not mad? Why not?”

“If you get mad, you play the game.”

“What game?”

“The China game.”

Spoken like a true Chinese veteran.

My thoughts -

If you can understand this story, you can basically understand the Chinese psyche. That woman was unquestionably pure in her beliefs and actions. She believed she possessed the right to overcharge him for the peaches and needn’t be discrete about it.

Where does this perceived right stem from? From the fact that he’s a foreigner? In part, but she also would have overcharged a Chinese with an accent from another region. So the perceived right stems from the fact that the party is different? That’s one way of looking at it, but it basically boils down to information asymmetry - she knows the buyer doesn’t know the local price. She overcharges not out of a personal dislike toward the buyer, but merely because she can get away with it.

Can you get with it?