When It Rains, It Pours

Yesterday a mighty rain came to wash the filth from the streets of Beijing (Taxi Driver anyone?) Unfortunately it washed the majority of that filth directly onto my socks. You see, Beijing has the worst drainage out of any city that I've ever seen. I contend that they must employ some sort of anti-drainage system that makes things worse than if there was nothing at all. If they're not pumping resevoirs into the streets as soon as the rain starts, then I don't know how else to explain the spontaneous formation of veritable lakes and rivers on what once were streets and sidewalks.

Anyways, as I said, my socks got very wet and very dirty, so what better place to go than the Silk Market. In spite of it's name, the silk market does not sell very much silk, but instead offers myriad ripoff goods, and things that are designed to break the second they leave the silk market. It's amazing that they were able to design this technology, and that it is actually cheaper than just selling stuff that works, but they've obviously done the math.

Although I only had 40 kuai I love the art of the Chinese bargain, so I decided to pretend like I was interested in just about everything the merchants were offering. In China the concept of a set price is non-existant, a typical exchange with a shopkeeper might go something like this:

"Excuse me sir, how much is this chess set?"
The guy will then size you up, apparently performing some very complex mental math.
"1ooo kuai"
"Hmm, that's a little too expensive. I think I'll pass."
Then your supposed to walk away, although the gesture is usually cut very short.
"Please, please. What is your price?"
"Hmm, well it's a little beat up isn't it. I'd say a fair price would be 10 kuai."
"Surely you gest! 500 kuai is my absolute final offer!"
"20 kuai"
"I begrudgingly accept."

When you actually wanna buy something this routine can get kind of old, but if you have no money, then it can be a lot of fun. I played a game of seeing how much below their original price I could get the shopkeepers to go down before I walked away. I thought 25% was good, until I got a 2000 kuai sweater down to 150 kuai. It almost made me wish I could buy it, but then I realized that the sweater was one off the crappiest looking garments that I'd ever seen.

One time we decided that we were going to play a little joke on a shopkeeper. We expressed some interest in a Mao watch, which is probably the most common piece of junk sold in China.

"How much?" We asked.
"How much you want to spend?"
"2000 kuai" which is about 300 dollars. Bear in mind that she was probably ready to sell this thing for about 10 kuai. She paused for a second, either out of surprise, or to try to make it look like we were getting a deal, and then said:
"Ok, I will give you two"

At the Silk Market I started buy some cheap stuff. At the video game store a hilarious misunderstanding got me a good deal on the soccer game, Winning Eleven 8.

"How much for this one?" I asked.
The guy showed me five fingers.
"Five kuai?" I asked.
"Fifty kuai!" He said but his girlfriend/business partner didn't hear him.
"Ten kuai, final offer" she said, and he gave her what I will call a dirty look. This could have all been an act to get me to feel like I was getting a deal, but the embarassed look on that girl's face was so palpable that I have a hard time believing that it was anything but sincere.

I also but a Mao pin for 1 dollar american, as well as some lovely yellow socks with pictures of lambs on them. You are probably wondering where I got all the money in order to afford these luxurious items, and so I will tell you. On Saturday morning, we had the option to go to a class to help them evaluate teachers for next year's Princeton in Beijing program. If we went they would give us 100 kuai (about 12 bucks American). Well, in spite of the fact that I had slept an average of 3 hours the previous two nights (though averaging seems somewhat inappropriate in that one night I got no sleep and the other 6 and why am I talking about this anyway, I can't stand people that talk about how much they slept: earth to them...I don't care!), I still cannot turn down a chance to make money that I can quickly waste.

The class started at 8 am, and I was appalled to see that I was assgined to the same classroom as an infamous Korean girl, who is widely believed to be the absolutely most annoying person in the history of planet earth. This girl seems to have no idea how loud she is speaking, because she literally shouts everything. I have never met anyone like this before. And if you hesitate for one second in your response she will cut you off and start answering your question. She made those four hours for me a complete hell on earth.

One of those questions that I had a hard time answering was when the teacher used a vocab word that I had forgotten. She said a sentence about "Baozi" and I panicked when I realized I had no idea what "Baozi" was, and apparently the annoying girl didn't either, because she made no effort to cut me off.

"Baozi?" I asked, and the lady that was trying to be a teacher here next year, formed her hands in a circle and said "Baozi". Now I'm sorry but if I have no idea what something is, showing me that it is about the size of a CD is not going to help me, unless that thing is actually a cd.
"Sorry," I said, watching the trainwreck unfold before my very eyes "I don't know what baozi is" at which point she repeated the gesture. This went on for about 30 seconds, and I fear that I might have severely hurt this poor woman's chance of ever teaching with PIB, which I have deduced is the absolute holy grail for Chinese teachers (by the way, baozi is stuffed bread. I feel so stupid for not knowing that, especially with the helpful hint!)

Another quagmire that I got myself involved in during this Saturday class was a teacher getting me to practice the pattern "As soon as I start doing something, I do it for this long" She asked me "As soon as you start reading, how long do you read for", to which I responded "As soon as I start reading,I can't help but read for 10 hours!" This hilarious exchange gave me an idea:

Hello, my name is John Turkington, and I have a problem. As soon as I start reading something I cannot help but read it for 10 hours. It is a serious flaw with my brain, that medical science has yet to explain. You may doubt the severity of such an affliction, but please imagine, even if the thing I am reading is but a single line, I will read it again and again for 10 hours. When it comes to cereal boxes and name placards, this can become most uncomfortable! I have been to numerous doctors, to no avail. At first, they gave me some pamphlets to read, although almost instantly they realized that this approach was ill-conceived.

Please tune in next time for the story of Shanghai, Chinese acrobactics, and to hear how my adventures with audioscrobbler are going.