Robot strikes a bargain in Hangzhou night market, becomes social media's latest hit

BEIJING - Imagine walking down a popular Chinese night market and finding a favored item. You try your best to bargain with a resistant vendor, only for a robot to take over the negotiation.

Such visions are no longer the stuff of fiction, as a "bargaining robot" has become the latest celebrity in China, with video footage surfacing of the street-savvy machine haggling with customers in a night market in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province.

"How much is this toy?" a woman asks, in the video posted on microblog Sina Weibo on Sept 27.