The Upsell

Elementary: The Upsell

Developed over 5000 years of history, the traditional Chinese approach to sales involves deploying armies of salespeople to flank the merchandise, and opening a single cashier three floors away to ring up sales. Stamped receipts issued by this critical employee can hypothetically be exchanged for the actual product, although we've never heard of anyone successfully completing the transaction.

Perhaps times are changing though. Along with efforts to lure the few remaining foreign factories into central Hunan, the Chinese Government has recently begun a program to encourage the import of advanced western sales techniques. Key among these is the classic upsell, whose sudden emergence this summer has turned it into the latest marketing craze to hit the streets of Beijing. Join us in this podcast and we'll introduce it to you.

jim.veseley

said on

August 24, 2009

very nice podcast. I am accustomed to simply asking for 橙汁 and taking whatever is thrust my way. The clear tang is slightly better than the tang with pulverized orange flotsam.

orbital

said on

August 25, 2009

When I get the upsell, it's usually an upsell in price. The worst offenders seem genuinely surprised when I pass on it too. I haven't figured out if they just don't get it, or if it's part of the act.

mat

said on

August 25, 2009

I'm familiar with the Beijing 儿izing, but I don't think I've heard it quite like the way you treat 瓶 in this. It actually sounds like piar to me. Which I guess makes sense, I'm used to saying 点儿 as diar. Would you say it's consistent like this?

Brendon frightens me with tales of hideous beverages. Can you buy anything from a shop that has no or a small amount of sugar? I tend to buy Japanese tea in bottles here because it's about the only thing that you can buy in a shop fridge which genuinely has no sugar or sweeteners in it other than bottled water...

Although the other green teas from Asia have a pretty low level of sugar compared to most 汽水.

My lack of a sweet tooth sounds like a handicap in China. Is there such a phrase as sweet tooth in Chinese? All I can find is stuff like 爱吃甜食 or 爱吃甜品.

mat

said on

August 25, 2009

Oh another thing. Thanks for the book recommendations of late. Toneandcolor recommended "Modern Chinese Grammar" and it's an excellent book. Echo mentioned "The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary", which cost a fortune from Amazon but I stumbled across www.chinabooks.com.au which are based right here in Melbourne and they have this book for a very reasonable price (and a veritable cornucopia of others...)

I tell you what though, if there's a resource lacking on the Internet it's any sort of reviews around Chinese books. Almost no reviews on Amazon, lots of the books these guys sell you barely get web hits for. I'm looking for an entry level book on idioms, not an idiom dictionary but something with 100-200 most common ones, background stories and so on just to ease me in. In the end I gave up and just ordered a couple of cheaper ones...

toneandcolor

said on

August 25, 2009

This lesson reveals two of the most fearsome weapons in any Chinese clerk's arsenal:

1) a withering appeal to how rich you are and how you deserve the finest money can buy and

2) the classic dismissive click of the tongue combined with a sharp intake of air sucked through the teeth

I have a question about the 呗 [bei] particle in the second line of the dialogue:

你挣那么多钱，来瓶脉动呗。

I know this to be kind of the more exasperated cousin of 吧 [ba], in that it often carries a tone of resignation or defeat:

她一定要唱就让她唱呗。 If she must sing then just let her sing.

你不同意，那就算了呗。If you don't agree, then just forget it.

The 呗 in this dialogue seems to fall into a second category of usage that I'm less familiar with. My Chinese dictionary says that it can be used to express something along the lines of a "moral certainty that things will improve".

Can a native speaker chime in on how the sentence in question would be different with just a 吧 or is it basically the same?

你挣那么多钱，来瓶脉动吧。

Gail天堂的声音

said on

August 25, 2009

@mat,

sorry to tell you that :-( we dont have a set phrase for sweet tooth, we will just say 爱吃甜食。

or 我爱吃甜的，我不爱吃甜的。

paglino9

said on

August 25, 2009

My drink of choice, coming in at a whopping 4元一瓶 is 营养快线 "Nutri-Express". Only tasty when cold, this little bottle of flavored sports milk may be solely responsible for combating Calcium deficiency amongst the young male basketball playing population here in China.

Good for hangovers too.

Also, why is the yogurt here so viscous here? I drink my yogurt through a straw, or just chug it from the packet.

Brendan

said on

August 25, 2009

@mat,

It used to be pretty common to find 低糖 ("low-sugar") green tea here, especially from Japanese brands, but I haven't seen any in a while. Some of the brands of bottled green tea here are lower-sugar than others, but there's nothing like, e.g., Honest Tea in the States. Unfortunately. Lately I've taken to drinking tonic water, which if nothing else will supposedly be good if I ever contract malaria.

@toneandcolor,

Wait for a native speaker to chime in, but I've definitely heard 呗 used just about interchangeably with 吧, at least in some cases; it can connote exasperation, but I've also heard it in similar-but-not-quite-the-same situations where a suggestion is being offered, the idea I guess being to emphasize that this is not a big deal -- not quite exasperation; maybe a bit more like lightening what comes before it. At least that's my understanding.

trevelyan

said on

August 25, 2009

@brendan and mat, I swear that they used to have a drink here that was liquid nugget. It was marketed as "peanut juice" but I don't think that fooled anyone, since (1) there is clearly no juice to be found in a peanut, (2) the drink tasted exactly like a watered-down chocolate bar. Sadly, it disappeared after a few months....

@toneandcolor - lol @ "the classic dismissive click of the tongue combined with a sharp intake of air sucked through the teeth". I hadn't made the connection myself but you're totally right!

Echo

said on

August 26, 2009

I don't like sweet food or drinks, but I hate 低糖 drinks too. I think they taste weird. 真奇怪！

@toneandcolor,

There are two usages of 呗. 1) used to show that sth. is self-evident. 不会，就学呗。 2) used to express reluctant agreement or concession. 他不来就不来呗。

吧 is simply used to suggest most of the time.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

luolin

said on

August 27, 2009

This shows you how old am I. In 1991, Tang was the thing to drink. What I did was boil some nice Beijing water, set the jar (an old Tang jar) outside my dorm window to cool off the water, then by the morning I had cold water and a spoonful of powered Tang. Now, that is orange juice. You are right, Tang was closer to an orange when it went to the moon.

Those were the days...

Also, in 1991, we drank yogurt through a straw. Now that I think about it, it really makes sense.

barrister

said on

August 27, 2009

that's not old luolin, although I'll admit to being skeptical about your choice of phrasing on the term "nice Beijing water".... : )

I've always considered 酸奶 it's own product that falls somewhere between proper milk and yoghurt. In the interests of internationalization, I did notice that the supermarkets were starting to stock skim milk the last time I was over. Perhaps we are on the cusp of a great revolution in breakfast.

paglino9

said on

August 27, 2009

I won't hold my breath for the arrival of bagels.

Beijing does however have a very robust Sunday Brunch Industry, and OMG! they even have mimosas.

Brendan

said on

August 27, 2009

@paglino9,

Regarding bagels: I draw your attention to "Mrs. Shanen's Bagels," based in Shunyi and frequently available in expat grocery stores (and the Friendship Store supermarket, if it's open again). They're the real thing.

mat

said on

August 27, 2009

This might be a bit out there but hey it's worth a shot... I'm looking for a fridge magnet set of Chinese characters. Something like this: http://www.fridgelingo.com/

(These guys are incompetent and can't sell to anyone outside of Shanghai - I'm not making this up)

Don't care about english or pinyin. I just thought this sort of thing would be awesome to mess around with sentences.

I suppose I could always figure out how to make some but just in case you've seen/heard of a good set let me know!

Gail天堂的声音

said on

August 28, 2009

i just cannot foget the 抠门儿 at the end of the dialogue.

Echo

said on

August 29, 2009

@luolin,

I am think whether the 酸奶 you mentioned in your comment is those kind of 北京 tradition 酸奶. Like this http://image.baidu.com/i?ct=503316480&z=0&tn=baiduimagedetail&word=%B1%B1%BE%A9%B4%AB%CD%B3%CB%E1%C4%CC&in=2940&cl=2&cm=1&sc=0&lm=-1&pn=13&rn=1&di=604879269&ln=1696&fr=

They are not very easy found in Beijing now, but you can still see them in some 小卖部 in hutongs.

Btw, 我很喜欢 :)

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

m.e

said on

September 19, 2009

mat, get a sheet of magnetic plastic and cut out your own chinese characters? You could print them out using your favourite font and size.

MAC.JAMIE

said on

October 20, 2013

I drank tang once, I got an instant headache.

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