Everyone I know knows that I hate shopping, unless it is for books or films! I despise shopping for shoes, especially with my mother, and well the whole idea of shopping just fills me with dread at times! Don't get me wrong I like wandering around shops, but if I actually have to get something then it's a different story. My hate of shopping has been increased since living in China, mainly because it is such hard work!
Yesterday Jordan and I went on a shopping mission to the Pearl Market to buy fifteen silk scarves for my mother...yes all shopping relates back to my mother! As always we prepared ourselves and had a walk around before we started to bargin. In August Martha and I bought scarves in the same market so I decided to go back to the same woman. Jordan and I both have enough Chinese to communicate without using
English so this occasionally works to our advantage. So the bargining process began....
We started by asking how much for one scarf, we went back and forward with 'real silk' vs 'shit silk' according the 'nice' woman trying to rip us off. She kept talking about factory prices and her voice was
getting louder and louder. We told her we wanted fifteen in total, of the 'real silk' scarves and asked how much for them all. This caused more confusion and lots of typing numbers into calculators and arguing about prices. She was extremely offened when we typed 500 and started getting angry and yelling in
both Chinese and English.
We began to walk away, she took my arm and pulled me back, still yelling at us. In the end we made it as far as the stairs when she finally agreed on 550yuan. At that point we decided to be done with it and just buy the scarves. So after twenty minutes of shouting, arguing, pulling, almost crying and debating we walked away with fifteen silk scarves and two sore heads!
Yesterday Jordan and I went on a shopping mission to the Pearl Market to buy fifteen silk scarves for my mother...yes all shopping relates back to my mother! As always we prepared ourselves and had a walk around before we started to bargin. In August Martha and I bought scarves in the same market so I decided to go back to the same woman. Jordan and I both have enough Chinese to communicate without using
English so this occasionally works to our advantage. So the bargining process began....
We started by asking how much for one scarf, we went back and forward with 'real silk' vs 'shit silk' according the 'nice' woman trying to rip us off. She kept talking about factory prices and her voice was
getting louder and louder. We told her we wanted fifteen in total, of the 'real silk' scarves and asked how much for them all. This caused more confusion and lots of typing numbers into calculators and arguing about prices. She was extremely offened when we typed 500 and started getting angry and yelling in
both Chinese and English.
We began to walk away, she took my arm and pulled me back, still yelling at us. In the end we made it as far as the stairs when she finally agreed on 550yuan. At that point we decided to be done with it and just buy the scarves. So after twenty minutes of shouting, arguing, pulling, almost crying and debating we walked away with fifteen silk scarves and two sore heads!