A-bike.......

A-Bicycle..........

Did you think that I have made a spelling mistake?? Silly you, ofcourse not.......

A-Bike is not a common noun, but rather a proper noun......more correctly, it's the name of a brand of bikes "Made in China"....

Yeah, we still have that decade old image burned into our collective conscience of tens of thousands Chinese riding on their bicycles to move places, go to work, is still ingrained into our collective memory, but that is something of the past now...........while bicycles are still around, they have already been replaced by cars............in fact the screaming, yellow, horde of Chinese have surpassed the US of A last year, 2009, regarding the number of automobiles purchased.........15 million fourwheelers of them, big and small.....and with a 1.3 billion population coming to age and really entering into the 21st century as we know it, the car manufacturers are already positively wriggling their hands........

So is the bicycle a thing of the past then? Ofcourse not, a cycle still has its uses in today's society, either as convenient transportation to beat nasty traffic jams, zero-carbon exhuming which gets a big thumbs-up from green eco-warriors, or as a recreational tool, burning calories either in urban or outdoors dwellings.........

The A-bike then, whilst we (that is Jess, my bro and me) were window shopping for the latest fashion crazes, flashiest gadgets in a huge shopping mall in Shenzen, China......we spotted this particular bike......A-Bike that is.....

What attracted us to this particular bike is the fact that it is foldable, thus compact, barely 6kgs (approx.13 pounds) so easy to carry around and stow away in the boot of the car or even backpack..... the frame is made of non-corrosive aluminium, comes equipped with disc brakes back and front, .......we were totally smitten by it......

Asking price? 850 Renminbi/bicycle (85 euro's/125 USD/4 20 RM....take your pick:p).......sounds fair enough to us, but we have been forewarned that we needed to drive a hard bargain.....as it is the custom to do so here in the Land of Confucius.....

Our initial thinking was to buy 1 unit first, test it out ourselves, and if the bike was good enough we would purchase an additional unit, one for our family to bring back home and one for my bro to carry back to his household........

But after a quick internal meeting, we decided to drop our plan and purchase 2 units on the spot.......

And thus began our bargaining tale............

Renminbi 850........I let Jess do the bargaining as I admit, I'm a bit too soft regarding the art of bargaining........she managed to bargain a few hundred Renminbi of the price, down to RMB 650....which in my eyes was not a bad bargain, admittedly, it ain't 50% discount, but heck, people have to earn a buck and furthermore, the sales lady was seriously pregnant, she has a kid to feed in the upcoming future..................until my bro, MW, stepped in.........

The handyman that he is, he fully tested the unit, assembling and de-assembling it, asking technical questions and with that satisfied, took it for a short ride in the shopping mall, much to the bemusement of passers-by.......

My bro gave his stamp of approval and the vendors must have thought......."BINGO, dzing, dzing....." (hearing the cash register ringing).......

But bro being bro......(FYI : he is very, very straightforward and rather thinks in terms of black and white)..........pushed for a bottom price......RMB 1,000.........the vendors looked puzzled at him and they thought that my bro offered to give them RMB 1,000 per unit(100 euro/140 USD/490 RM.........which sounded crazy in our minds...........(didn't he hear my wife bargaining it down to RMB650/unit earlier on??)

My bro made himself more clear and then said..........."RMB 1,000 for 2 units!!!!!"

There was a dead silence for a moment or two between the 2 parties, and then reality set in.........

"Nonooo, we cannot do that, this is too cheap......!!" the husband/wife vendor party cried....

"RMB 1,000..........take it or leave it.......I don't want to discuss it anyfurther.....if you drag my time I just leave....."

"Sir, sir, listen to us first..." the vendors pleading with my bro

But like a whirlwind my bro went off........walking forcefully towards the exit of the mall.......

The pregnant sales lady scurried towards my bro, asking him to return and telling him that they were willing to give him a discount........(Jess and me were more like silent witnessess at this time)....

Bro stopped in his tracks and returned to the stall....

"We offer you RMB 1,200 for 2 units, that's our best price"........

"Are you playing with me or what?!? I said RMB 1,000 and that's final.........goodbye"....and off my bro went...........

Now the husband intervened, pleading him not to go, almost physically stopping him.....3rd round of negotiations then.........RMB 1,000 it is then, for 2 bicycles....colours to be chosen by us, packaging, either in original boxed or in a supplied backpack.....

Wow......Jess and me were still amazed for hours afterwards......and I thought that my wife always drives a hard bargain, but my bro proves to be much, much more better at it.....(have to keep that in the back of my mind then)

Folded and neatly stowed away in the luggage, the 2 bikes have finally made their way across to their respective destinations (Belgium & Malaysia) and we thoroughly enjoy riding on it in our neighbourhood, drawing many questions from curious passers-by.........

One drawback is that the wheels are solid, not air-filled, which can be dangerous when riding on rough ground as the wheels tend to stop turning abruptly.....we are already looking out for air-filled wheels to replace the current wheels, but other than that, we're quite satisfied with it.............end of story then?

Ermmmm, no......my bro diligently did some internet checking back home and he informed us that the bikes themselves were a copy-cat........A what? yups, Chineses entrepreneurs have reared their ugly heads again, without any morality stealing/copying other peeps hard labour at designing/creating it and putting a cheaper lookalike model on the market..............i

Don't wag your finger at us though, I still have to meet the first person who hasn't committed the sin of buying pirated goods yet, and anyway, we were not aware of this minor 'detail'...

We readily admit that it is quite a good copy though :p