A place for Selkirk in a sea of retail bedlam

Country Living with Francis Farragher

At the best of times, I’m not exactly a lover of big shops, but nothing could have prepared me for the onslaught that awaited me on a daytime trip to a funky kind of department store in downtown Beijing known as ‘The Pearl Market’.

It was no safe place, and especially so, for an ageing, vulnerable male as young Chinese female shop assistants (for want of a better expression) smiled at me, winked at me and rubbed my arms with a touching fondness, at even the slightest inclination on my part to show even the remotest interest in a pair of binoculars or a pair of Adidas replica runners.

I really felt that these girls would do anything (well almost) to get me to part with a few Yuan (the Chinese unit of currency), as even a side-eye at a garment or pair of shoes was guaranteed to draw a swarm of them on you.

Initially, they quote the most outrageous asking price for goods but the rule of thumb – based on local knowledge – is to offer them approximately one tenth of what they ask for. Apparently, they’re thrilled when they see the American tourists appearing, as ‘The Yanks’ normally are delighted with a 50% cut in the asking price.

I entered this place of retail bedlam in a reasonably stable mindset but two hours later I felt that I was close to a mild breakdown, saved only by the consolation that this was a once-in-a-lifetime tourist experience.

Just at the point of most intense hustle, when about four types of goods were being hoisted in my midst, I spotted a vacant little shop unit with an empty stool, so right in the midst of the frenzy, I felt happy in this oasis of calm.

For some strange reason, a line from the Paddy Kavanagh poem, ‘Iniskeen Road: July Evening’ came floating into my head as I sat at peace in this weirdly deserted retail unit.

“Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight,

Of being king and government and nation,

A road, a mile of kingdom, I am king,

Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.”

Selkirk was the stowaway for over four years on a South Pacific island, a tale that apparently inspired Daniel Defoe’s tale on Robinson Crusoe, but at a time of the utmost chaos, there is a lot to be said for an unexpected zone of solitude.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune