Photo: Bananas, spikes, and unsuspecting strollers

Bananas, spikes, and unsuspecting strollers

Cairene Street Negotiations for a Hair Trimmer

So, I've been thinking about buying one of these trimmers for a while now; I feel like I've been spending too much money on going to the barber. Solution: a 30 LE ($5 USD) trimmer. I saw a street vendor selling some on a sidewalk in Dokki Square, and I was in a good mood, so I thought I'd begin negotiations... 

He starts at 55 LE. 

I look at it, inspect it. "Naw, that's too much, give me a better price!" (without naming a price (important)).

"Okay, 50."

I inspect it some more. Ask a few questions, and ask him to come down more. 

"Okay, 45. But in a store, you would pay 80 for the same thing" (I think to myself: "sure, but in a store, I wouldn't be paying rent, electricity, or any other expenditure... you're working on the sidewalk dude...).

I look at it some more, and tell him: "Okay, I'm going to go sit at a coffee shop and think about it a little bit more, and maybe I'll come back later. But before I go, is 45 your best price?"

"Okay, 40, but that's it."

So, I go hang out at the coffee shop a bit, and ask Amr –my main coffee shop man– what I should pay. I tell him about the negotiations that had gone down thus far. 

He tells me to go back and ask for 25 LE. I was a little surprised by this because that seemed quite low and a friend of mine had paid 55 for a similar trimmer a few weeks before, but he told me to go for it, and that's how Egyptians would negotiate. He also told me the word "حور" (hawar) which means "just talking a lot without worrying about pronunciation or tashkeel and basically just talking to people a lot to develop a good 'current' or 'contact' or 'relationship' with them." that always works (and reminds me of a different post I'll write about later related to the lack of social awkwardness in Egyptian society).

Anyway, I went back to the vendor, and offered him 25. (notice, how I only started naming a price far into the negotiation process). And it worked! I ended up getting it for 30 LE! (I would have been content paying 35). 

Gotta love getting a price down by almost half! Thanks Amr. 

And shout out to China for making such cheap shit (I don't expect it to last more than one year).

Trimmer. Notice the photo of the car

Street Ad Commentary, Giza, Egypt

This advertisement struck me as interesting because of it's combination of both English and Arabic. The words "buy and sell" are written in "Arabic" and "in your city" is in English. I think that words relating to buying and selling are almost always thought of in Arabic (even after I left in 2009, I continued involuntarily speaking Arabic in the streets of Buenos Aires when I wanted to buy things). The fact that the rest of the sentence is in English says "we're a classy, respectable, hip company". There have been some other ads embracing this form of public persuasion, such as the Pespi ones (e.g. يلا, now, pepsi ) which are quite good in my opinion. 

No comment on www.dubizzle.com except that it seems like a bad name for what the service they claim to provide. and then, there's craigslist, anyone?

Then, you have your regular Giza crowd. Notice the man in the foreground is holding a child's hand. The "renaissance" statue is in the background. I like the general movement captured.

My Acting Career

Me in a super short role in an Egyptian TV series about Napoleon in Egypt. ridiculous, and that's the end of my acting career

Me divorcing Pauline

hallelujah

did you know? hallelujah means الحمدالله [al hamdulilah] in Arabic!

قد النملة ويعمل عملة

قد النملة ويعمل عملة


"the same size as the ant and does trouble"  which means that although he is tiny at the ant but he is troublemaker

miskuu fi amlitu مسكه في عملته they caught him in the act, they caught him redhanded.

thank you to the friends who helped make this happen. it was amazing. :-P (just fuckign around)

نكران الذات

Shout out to Naser, the taxi driver last night who was trying to explain to me what the term "self-denial" (نكران الذات) means, in Arabic. Thanks dude.