Such a Deal!

When buying furniture in a foreign land, it is clearly better to have someone who is a native speaker negotiate for you. A little more than a week ago, my Teaching Assistant, Mr. Mok, took me shopping at several used furniture stores. We were looking for some furnishings for my office. We found a couch.

I didn't get it at the time, though, since Younghoon advised that it is best to wait a few days and then telephoned the store back. He assured me that he could get the shopkeeper to knock a few won off the price. The store manager was asking 150,000 won, which is about $125. Not a bad price from my perspective, but Mr. Mok confidently convinced me that he could do better.

So this past Thursday, I told Mr. Mok to contact the used furniture shop again and see what kind of deal he could strike. Within the hour, he informed me that he had not only arranged for the purchase of the couch I wanted at the reduced price of 130,000 won (about $105 US), but it would also be delivered to my office later that evening. Great!

I returned to my office after class with two students who were posing a number of questions following-up on my afternoon's lecture. While we were in the midst of a conversation over issues of business law, the shopkeeper and his assistant knocked on my door and brought in -- not the couch -- but two matching chairs. And, as quickly as they had arrived, they were gone. Then, less than 10 minutes later, they returned carrying my couch.

Well, since I couldn't speak any Korean and Mr. Mok was not around, I thought I had better go ahead and accept the chairs along with the couch I had ordered. More than likely, I would have to pay the 130,000 for the couch and maybe another 100,000 or so for the two chairs -- still, all-in-all, not a bad outcome.


To my surprise, though, when I offered the shopkeeper more that the 130,000, he handed the difference back to me! Feeling like I had come out a good ways ahead of the game, I offered him a 10,000 won tip and he accepted with a big smile on his face, though not bigger than mine as I looked at my new office couch and chairs.



After a bit of re-arrangement, the office is shaping-up quite nicely with these new additions thanks to artful negotiation of Mr. Mok!