SOPHISTICATED ROGUE’S TRAVEL TIP #5©

THE ART OF NEGOTIATION, PART ONE

I had been warned that in southeast Asia, I would be expected to negotiate. “A warning,” the man in a Sydney pub had warned me, “Everything in southeast Asia is a negotiation.” Within a week in the region, this drunkard had been proven correct. Every time I was quoted a price and I merely said, “Okay,” I could see the look in the merchant’s eyes, a look of disappointment, of the epithtets “Tourist. American,” before a look of acceptance, one that said, “Well, sure, I’ll take this idiot’s excess money.”

As the days passed, I wanted to get more comfortable at negotiating, but I was fighting my personal nature and, truth be told, my laziness. These may be the same things. I don’t care for negotiating. I find it demeaning, but more importantly, I find it a waste of time. Tell me what it costs, really costs, and I’ll decide whether or not I want to pay. Usually, I’ll pay it. We’ve all got lives to lead, don't we? This is fun for anyone?

And that’s how my first week in Bali, Singapore, and Malaysia went. I was content to just accept the first price given me. I struggled with explaining what I wanted, struggled to understand what they were telling me, struggled to overcome the language barrier. It seemed hopeless, and I seemed destined to overpay for everything.

Until it rained.

As I walked back to my hostel from the Petronas Towers in KL this afternoon, it started to pour down rain, dump the sort of rain you find in southeast Asia or coming out of some gigantic spigot, just teem in my face with water. My first concern, naturally, was not for my personal safety or comfort, but for my laptop. This concern was expressed, "Shit, if my laptop gets wet, I'm boned." Though I was certain it was stowed well enough to remain dry, I wanted to take no chances, so I tip-toed across the street where an open shop was fronted by a stoical Malaysian man. “Umbrella?” he asked.

“Yes, please!” I shouted over the raindrops and a sudden burst of thunder.

He picked one out and extended it towards me. I grabbed it. “How much?” I asked.

“Thirty.”

“Thirty ringgit?”

“Yes,” he said, annoyed. “Thirty.”

I can claim no planning for what happened next. I can take no credit for intellectualizing a new strategy, for deciding a new leaf must be turned. It was simple instinct. I didn’t even have time to stop my mouth.

“Nah, fuck that,” I said. No doubt the scowl on my face matched my words.

I started to walk away. Then I heard something. “Twenty-five.”

I turned. This was one of those moments. You know what I’m talking about, Dear Readers. I felt the hugeness of it on my shoulders (though it might have been my hulking backpack) and I epiphanied that shit:

“Nah, fuck that,” transcends language as a negotiating technique.

 “Five,” I said.

“Twenty.”

“Five.”

“Fifteen.”

“Five.”

“Fifteen.”

“Okay.”

The man handed me my prize, nah, fuck that, not a prize, but what I had earned. My eyes never leaving his, I handed him two bills. I didn’t have to look, I knew they added up to fifteen ringgit. He nodded, and I nodded. And then I walked away, taller than before if no more dry.

And it didn’t matter that, twenty yards later, I realized the umbrella wasn’t a push-button. Or that it was yellow. I was taller than before, if no more dry.

*SOPHISTICATED ROGUE’S TRAVEL TIPS© are meant to be for entertainment purposes only. The title of the tips, the tips themselves, and in fact the sobriquet “Sophisticated Rogue” itself are meant to be ironic, wry, and in no way literal, and if you don’t know that by now, well, (sigh), Jesus, c’mon, dude…