Finnish booth

At a party in China, I heard that there is an Iltatori every Wednesday in the summer in the neighboring city of Uusikaupukki. My friend suggested that I set up a stall to sell my handmade works. I, a craftsman, agreed excitedly.

Uusikaupunkki is a small city with a population of only 30,000, which can literally be translated as "new town". It is the automobile production base in Finland, which is 0/9 kilometers away from my town/Kloc. There used to be a big supplier of Mercedes-Benz in Xincheng, but now there is a big shareholder. China Geely has entered the automobile industry in Xincheng. In the overall depressed Finnish economy, the new city stands out, which can be regarded as going against the trend. What will the small town night market look like to welcome me as an unexpected guest?

I am so timid, I have to find out who is the "urban management" first. There are endless stories about urban management in China, and I don't want to make trouble for myself. I looked up relevant information on the internet and contacted the market administrator, a clerk in a coffee shop. The sweet voice told me that although she came, her business hours were from 4 pm to 8 pm, and she came to collect a market management fee of 5 euros. As for where to put it, just look. When I put down the phone, I was relieved that there would be no "urban management" to make trouble. I just looked through the local newspaper when a headline suddenly caught my eye: "Tory? Copkin Sydney? N (market, the heart of the city) "

I am the kind of unqualified driver who will get lost even with navigation. With the help of friends in Xincheng, I found the seaside road where the night market is located, pakka huone. The night market backed by the pier is very small. At half past three in the afternoon, twenty vendors have lined up along the coast. Many tourists who travel by boat in summer account for half of the popularity here, and the popularity comes from the short parents brought by the locals.

When I saw the pakkahuone building, I remembered that I had been here before.

-After the Mid-Summer Festival the year before last, my husband and old man went from Pyh? My mother took our family here from the sea by motorboat. As soon as we landed, this was the coffee shop. The ice cream here has a special taste and a strong vanilla flavor, which left a deep impression on us. Looking at the buildings in these years, a sense of familiarity slowly spread.

After finding a parking space nearby, my friend helped me set up the booth.

The main seat is our plastic picnic table, which is a box when folded and a table with four stools when opened. When the white tablecloth is spread, it looks like a booth. Hand-made indoor shoes samples are placed on the table one by one, but I am very nervous, afraid that people will look down on my handiwork. Just thinking, the sea breeze blew, and three or four indoor shoes floated down with the wind. I quickly pressed the pearl necklace as a "weight" to prevent my manual efforts from drifting into the sea with the wind. Why are there so many pearl necklaces? If you are also a handicraft lover, you naturally know the answer.

The auxiliary position is a foldable flower stand with two layers. Handmade shoes are placed on the upper floor, and hand-made ornaments are placed on the lower floor. Ornaments can't be placed one by one, just in a small basket. Turn them around when someone comes. The prices of everything in it are marked separately, which is very convenient. This practice is a bit like the "heap" of domestic supermarkets.

I have been a stall owner in Finland for ten years, and I know the cold temperament of Finns. I prepared a mat for myself in advance, spread it by the water two meters later, and read a book quickly and happily. In order to pass away loneliness, I took a copy of Wolf Totem as a pastime.

In other words, there should be a safe distance between people. Generally speaking, the distance of one arm or 75 cm is considered as a psychological safety distance. If a stranger is outside this safe distance, normal people will not feel violated and alert, but if a stranger is within a psychological safe distance, people will feel uncomfortable and even instinctively feel that danger is approaching. I think the psychological safety distance of Finns is at least one and a half meters (personal observation, no statistical data support). The phenomenon I have observed in recent years is that when the distance between buyers and customers is less than one meter, customers will obviously shrink back, and even when customers see the professional smile of sellers, they will bypass booths or counters and stay away from them. In view of this observation, I simply avoid customers and let them enjoy "watching and studying" my handmade works. When they are interested, they will naturally call me to ask.

On this day, * * * sold three pairs of children's indoor shoes, all of which were chosen by customers themselves. Call me directly to pay. One of the customers from Tampere wanted a pair of customized adult indoor shoes and asked me for a business card, but I was embarrassed to explain that I had a name but no film. I handwritten my email address on a piece of waste paper and gave this "business card" to this customer with great devotion. There seems to be a lot of noisy voices laughing at me: why did you come without your business card? What? You study trade? Deceive ghosts! You can't even practice a stall? Who can you blame for the customer who delivered the door running away like this? . .

During the practice booth, I only read forty pages of novels, because my eyes hidden behind sunglasses spent more time observing people coming and going:

Look at that fat boy about two years old. The ice cream fell off the cone-shaped waffle cone. He looked at a booth on the ground with a cone in his hand. His mouth gradually flattened because of injustice, then the muscles of his chin were pulled together, and then the crying started from the melody, went through the wailing, and finally developed into deafening. I saw the child's father pick him up and throw him on his shoulder, and the deafening cry stopped abruptly.

And the well-proportioned young lady tanned by the sun. She took a fancy to a pair of second-hand beach shoes in the neighbor's booth on the right, told her companion that she wanted to buy such beautiful shoes and began to make an inquiry eagerly. The stall owner is a mixed-race middle school student and timidly answers 15 Euro. The lady asked why second-hand shoes are still so expensive. At this time, the Thai mother of the stall owner suddenly appeared, saying that this is a brand of beach shoes brought from Thailand. Because it is more expensive to buy, I don't want to be too cheap even if I sell it second-hand. The symmetrical lady began to mumble: Tyrande, Tyrande, Tanrand. . . A word changed several tones, and finally the corners of the mouth rose slightly, put the shoes on the ground and walked away.

Further away, the slightly fat Finnish stall owner narrowed his eyes into a crack in the scorching sun and enthusiastically communicated with customers: Hey, girl, look, these wooden earrings really match your green skirt, and there is almost no color difference. . . Why don't you look at the money? It also goes well with the color of your coat. . . Handmade clay, is it special? . . This kind of enthusiasm completely doesn't conform to the stereotype that people are indifferent to Finns. The customer smiled politely, thanked him and walked away. Xiao Pang squinted at the customer's back. Xiao Pang put his hand on his waist and sighed slowly. If it weren't for this authentic Finnish, I doubt if it is Finnish.

In front of the coffee shop, the jazz band played a charming tune, and the two little girls couldn't help but spin with the music. The younger one seems to have just learned to walk, and the posture of falling down at any time makes people laugh. She hobbled and spun stubbornly, and after a few minutes, she finally had a butt on the ground. Three-or four-year-old girls, look at the little people on the ground and keep turning! It seems that she really wants her hair to float. Every time she faced the angle of the band, she shook her head hard and her sparse hair suddenly flew. At the same time, the skirt is raised high and the underwear is unobstructed. Infected by her sister's enthusiasm, her little sister stood up and continued to stumble and spin. . . The saxophone is more provocative.

The world is not too big, let alone such a small town.

Some faces can be familiar after seeing them several times, but they don't necessarily remember when they were seen. Neighbor stall owner "jewelry mother-in-law" is such a person.

I set up a stall in a second-hand shop all the year round, selling my spare items. The stall owner of the neighboring stall once rented a stall in the same second-hand shop to sell her handmade ornaments. We met in a second-hand shop, and we both have impressions. She can remember me because of my oriental face, and I can remember her because I heard her "not bad" criticism of China people and China ornaments. The main content is that she emphasized to the customers that the ornaments she used were made of high-grade raw materials, which did not contain nickel and chromium, unlike the cheap China ornaments sold by others. . . I know in my heart that she regards me as an imaginary enemy.

This time, we met again in the night market. Jewellery mother-in-law continues to read her Classic of Environmental Jewellery to customers. I said hello to her and went to read a book-she stressed that she only spoke Finnish, but I was too lazy to communicate with someone who was arrogant and prejudiced about China products.

The icebreaker is the talkative husband of the "jewelry mother-in-law". He introduced himself to me in English: a retired business owner, whose company once set up an office in Shanghai and frequently traveled between China and Finland. That office was cancelled ten years ago. Now his biggest task is to meet the needs of his wife's handmade hobbies, including: finding suitable handmade jewelry accessories from Southeast Asia, Japan and China; Design and manufacture a jewelry display stand for his wife to facilitate her to set up a stall; The driver who is responsible for being a wife-although the booth is small, the display rack needs a trailer, and the wife can't drive a trailer; Stevedores-men are needed to disassemble the display table and the sales tent; Responsible for the wife's diet when she goes out to the stall. . . My mother-in-law smiled shyly at me when he talked about accessories from China.

I didn't have the courage to ask them if they made money, so I secretly observed their sales performance. Excluding the cost of materials and production time, I earned less than 20 euros in an afternoon, and the resources used were two people's working hours *** 12 hours plus gasoline. The minimum wage in Finland is 7.5 euros per hour, so it is extremely uneconomical in terms of income, but two retired people enjoy it. This is what my mother-in-law likes to do. She likes to wear a white dress, stand up straight and explain her "high-end" jewelry concept to customers, so as to brush out the sense of existence. The Finnish husband can't speak sweet words, but only accompany him silently, design drawings, be a carpenter, be a driver, and be a "former business owner" behind the female stall owner.

After breaking the ice, my jewelry mother-in-law made a special trip to my booth to have a look. When she found that my "main product" did not conflict with her, she opened her mouth. She began to teach me how to do business, when to open the market, where customers like to buy, and where customers just don't buy. Finally, she told me how to save time by packaging, where to buy cheap and easy-to-use booth tables, where to buy windproof clips and when to discount them. . . After eliminating hostility, the jewelry mother-in-law is not so annoying.

The last pair of shoes was sold around 7: 30.

A lady in a black shirt enthusiastically praised my handmade indoor shoes, saying that she would buy them later and asked me when I would leave. I said the official announcement closed at eight o'clock. I can wait until eight o'clock. She turned and followed her family to the coffee shop.

Less than seven o'clock, the stall owners are packing up and going home for dinner, including my neighbor's stall owner's jewelry mother-in-law My mother-in-law asked me why I didn't leave. I promised my client to wait until eight o'clock, and she said she would come back. Jewellery mother-in-law said that there are almost no people now, so don't wait. Maybe the customer means to buy it later, because this takaisin not only means to come back, but also means to go back. It should be right to listen to the old man. I started packing. . .

At 7: 30, I packed. "Fortunately, you haven't left yet!" The crisp voice reached my ears. I looked up and saw the lady in a black shirt standing in front of me with five or six people. "Still sell? I want to buy a pair of indoor shoes, your little girl's crown hair accessories, and, by the way, a ringtone. . . "Looking at Ms. Montenegro's sparkling eyes, she opened the bag and let it choose. Ms. Black Shirt encouraged her colleagues to buy some of my handmade ornaments, and told them: This is the only booth in the whole market that deserves a closer look.

At that moment, I was elated.