How to buy a Chirstmas tree in China

There is no lack Christmas decorations in our local super-store, including fake plastic Christmas trees. But that is no fun. If you want to have an interesting day, here is how to buy a Christmas tree in China.

We were determined to find an evergreen bonsai-type plant as our tree this year, so we went for a bike ride on Saturday to the area where we had seen many farms and growers with bonsai and shrubs and trees.


But no one was there. We went to about three different farms where we could see potted evergreen bonsais. We were willing to pay good money to bring one into our home, but not a soul in sight to sell them to us. We knew these were not retail growers and knew they probably sell to big distributors. But we thought we could find someone to sell us just one tree.

Milan likes this one

How about we take this one and just leave the money under a rock?

We came close to buying one off the side of the road, but in just two minutes the price went up 300% (and we thought we were good at bargaining!?!?), so we packed it up and went home.

After Milan's nap, Tim went back out on the quest alone, hoping to find someone around at one of the places were we had trespassed earlier in the day. And here, making his blog debut, is Tim to tell his side of the story:

At about 4:30 that afternoon I rode back to one of the same farms we had been to earlier. Luckily, there were people there and it was no longer a ghost farm. I thought this was great! I would get home before dark! But everyone there was very busy loading a huge semi truck with trees. They all looked at me as if I were in the way and no one greeted me. They just walked around me and continued to load the truck. I took a deep breath and realized that I am going to have to wait until the truck is loaded. So I waited (very patiently too - a skill perfected in Africa). I watched the slightly stressed men put these huge 200+ pound trees in the back of the truck. There was also a women who was clearly the buyer of all of the trees. She held the flashlight because the sun had finally gone down. I am not sure how long I waited, but the truck was finally loaded up, the drivers and buyers got in the trucks and headed out. I was finally alone with the two tired and relieved farmers. However, they were not relieved to see me still standing there after almost an hour.

"Ni hao (hello)" I said, with a smile. They smiled back and lit their cigarettes. I told them I wanted to buy a tree. They had just sold 200 trees, and I wanted to buy one. They had to call their boss. I picked out a tree, but it was 250rmb and I only had 200rmb. (Sarah had spent the earmarked Christmas tree money a few hours earlier at the shopping mall). I picked a smaller tree that was 200rmb and paid the men. They balanced the 30 pound tree on my bike and waved goodbye. I finally had a tree!

The only problem: I was about 3 miles from home. It was going to be a long walk with a Christmas bonsai tree balanced on my bike. The first part of my walk was on a major two lane highway, with lots of cars, trucks, and mopeds. Unfortunately, there wasn't a
single unoccupied taxi.

I called Sarah. She told me to call the English speaking taxi guy that everyone in town uses. I was fairly confident I could explain to Mr. Wei where I was. I called, but he didn't pick up, so I continued walking. After about 5 more minutes, a bicycle taxi passed me. I yelled "wait, wait". He stopped. I told him where I wanted to go. He had never heard of it...never mind...follow me. I took the tree off my bike and put it in his taxi, and we were off.

He was a great cheerful old man that tried very hard to keep up with me, and I tried very hard to go slow for him. We spoke a little Chinese, but it wasn't long before I had to say, "I don't understand" twice in a row. We rode the remaining 15 minutes in silence. He worked up a serious sweat by the time we arrived. I had called ahead and told Sarah to meet us outside with some money to pay the guy (I had spent all of mine on the tree). I asked him how much. He said "how much do you want to pay?" I paid him enough to make him smile, and thanked him. Whether he knew it or not, he had helped saved our Christmas. What is Christmas without a tree?