Go Tai He buy Miao Mi, no Xiao Mi.

After arriving in China, I had managed to buy a soldering iron in less than 72 hours. But I had no solder to use it with. I scoured the aisle in the store where I bought it, and I inspected almost every street on the block for some place that would sell it, but no one was selling solder. Then, one night when the teachers were out for drinks, in the dim, smoky light of the bar, Ross told me about Tai He; a multi story electronics market, where one could buy anything that was made with silicon, and one could buy it at Chinese prices. Since I also needed a phone, and some electronic components, this sounded like some El Dorado I didn't know I was looking for. I decided to make a quest of it: Acquire Solder of Fixing and Phone of Communication (+10 Repair Skill, +20 Chinese Skill, +50 exp.)

I planned and embarked on a trip to Tai He that weekend, for it is only a 30-40 minute bus ride away. After wandering into and around what I believe is Shijiazhuang's shopping district, and going up and down the wrong building, I finally found Tai He, and was immediately confused. Remember waterbottle street? Well, I found its electronic cousin. (And in the words of MMORPG fans, "it is time to raid the dungeon.")

Within 6 stories, there were hundreds of vendors, many selling the same products. I must have seen a dozen people selling the same electric razors, phone cords, chargers, flashlights, phones, radios, security cameras, ethernet cord and everything else. There was half a floor dedicated to karaoke equipment, and another floor dedicated to high-end PC hardware. And yet another floor focused on phones. There were thousands of phones, of every brand and model.

It was on this floor that I was trying to buy a phone, in broken Chinese, with a poor concept of what I needed and how much it should cost. I kind of felt like I was blindly wandering the map, in awe of the shopkeeper's wares, but acutely aware of how low my barter skill was.

The first shop I tried did not work out. I tried to tell them I wanted something cheap that didn't come with a plan, because I had no credit card to pay for such a plan. That confused them to no end, and I realized I they were probably getting more frustrated than I was. I abandoned that dialogue tree and looked for another stall.

Within seconds I was hailed by another salesman.

"Hello!" He said.

"说英语吗？" (Do you speak English?) I responded, hopefully.

Of course, he didn't. But his phone did, so we were in business. The man was no slick-suited, quick-talking stereotype that could sell you a phone that cost more than a car; he was actually a t-shirt wearing 20 something with a phone case that looked like a hundred Yuan note.

This image of sophistication was pleasant enough to work with, and put up with my poor ability to communicate what I wanted. Obviously, I needed a name brand phone, but I also wanted a cheap one. Then, seeing the products the salesman produced, I realized I also need a phone with an English operating system. (Quest requirements: Phone, price < 500 rmb, cannot have Phone Plan Curse, needs to be American Class compatible.)

He showed me a couple phones, and I remembered that Xiao Mi was a brand know for decent quality at reasonable prices, sort of like Samsung before they started edging into Apple's high-end market. I told the salesman I wanted to see a Xiao Mi, he said sure, and he showed me a pretty slick looking smartphone with an English operating system and two SIM card slots. Originally, I was planning on spending as little as possible on this phone, but after seeing the double SIM slots, I realized I could put a Chinese SIM and American SIM in it, and take it back tot the States with me. Since it had every feature I knew I needed, and one I didn't know I needed, I bought the phone, despite it going a bit above budget.

But, before I actually handed over the cash, I realized what a dunce I was! I was buying a phone from a nameless kiosk in China after all.

So, I had the salesman call his phone from the one I was about to buy, just to make sure it worked. Satisfied that it did, I picked up my new Xiao Mi, the SIM card I had bought to go with it, and got out of there for only 800rmb ($125). Obviously, I had been intelligent and careful, and definitely had not made any mistakes buying this Xiao Mi phone.

Next on my list was the elusive solder. On the floor where the man sold me the Xiao Mi, there were also tons of little shops were guys hunched over desks repairing phones with spare parts. Obviously, these guys would need solder, but most of them didn't seem to want to talk to me, perhaps they were non-interactive NPC's. Eventually though, I found a guy repairing radios, and asked him where I could buy some. The dialogue tree wasn't really working out, since I couldn't understand most of it, but he caught my drift and pulled his own roll of solder out of his inventory.

There was sort of an odd moment: I realized it would be a total pain trying to get this guy to tell me where I could buy my own roll, and his roll was basically full, and I actually knew a reasonable price for this stuff. So I said, "我会买这个焊锡." (I will buy this solder.) This prompted a look of confusion and surprise, but before the man could respond, his wife, who I had not seen, said it would cost 20 rmb, which was actually a good price. Quest completed, I made my way out of the dense, labyrinthine market.

On my way out I happened upon a green 100 mw laser that only cost 60 rmb. I had been questing for something like that since I was about 10, so I snatched up that great loot drop, content to buy it for half to a fifth the American price without even bartering.

And that would have marked the end of the quest, except that I stopped in McDonalds to get a better look at my new toys. And the man sitting across from me noticed the box that my phone had came in. And he told me, that my phone was a Miao Mi. And after a second, I realized that it was not, in fact, a Xiao Mi. I had bought one of the infamous Chinese Fake Products.

And that is, hopefully, the dumbest thing I do in China.

(Fortunately, the phone works, and is actually really nice to have. But, after thinking on it for a while, I realized it's kind of the penultimate Chinese phone: It's a knock off, the English is always a bit off, it came with WeChat already installed, and it has this kind of suspicious perpetual low memory error. Also, all the apps, including the app-market, are in Chinese, so I've started loading *.apk's onto it from my American phone so I can do more besides just talk and text.)