Huang Niu (黄牛) or "yellow bull" is the local term for scalper. My Chinese teacher doesn't have an explanation for why this is and my research failed me; though one person wrote that probably somewhere there's an ancient Chinese idiom that explains it perfectly.
As you know, the season for mooncakes just finished up, though every household in China has an abundance of them left to snack on until Chinese New Year. But you may not realize that the mooncake season is also a boon for the huang niu. Scalpers for mooncakes? What, if you can't get that coveted box of Shangri La cakes you'll go to all lengths until you have them? There is probably a good business for huang niu getting the good stuff to re-sell at a profit later. But that's just too obvious.
No, I'm speaking about the can't-pick-up-your-mooncakes-in-time huang niu who is actually doing a service. I'm not sure it's a legal service, but everyone involved seems to be happy.
Take my friend. Let's call her Zelda. Zelda received a lovely gesture from another friend: a voucher for a box of delicious Häagen-Dazs mooncakes. But when Zelda went to pick them up, that particular Häagen-Dazs outlet wasn't distributing mooncakes. She was told she'd have to go to another branch. Zelda didn't have time for that and she was going out of town the following day and would miss the mooncake pickup deadline (the vouchers have strict expiry dates). She shrugged her shoulders and prepared to go mooncake-less on her way.
Up steps Mr. Huang Niu. A group of young men who'd been hanging out inside the Häagen-Dazs were mooncake voucher scalping. Much to Zelda's benefit, the huang niu offered her 200 rmb for the voucher. Zelda walked away a littler richer. The scalper may resell the ticket for 230 and let's say the original cost of the ticket is 250, so some lucky mooncake buyer will get a discount of 20rmb on a box of delectable ice cream cakes.
Sure, Zelda's friend may be the only unhappy person in this scenario since she paid the full price. But all things considered, everyone ends up with something. While scalpers can, of course, do some serious price gouging on people who are really in need of hard-to-get goods and services, I think this little fill-in-the-gap economy is great.
From Sara Naumann, About.com's Guide to China Travel, guest-blogger for Chinese Culture. You can also find me on twitter .
Comments