Experimenting the city

Negotiations

A few minutes later Feng Bou arrives. He’s rather tall, and as he comes towards us, he excuses himself for being late. The young man, Feng Bou, takes out of his bag a book about all the town and places to visit in China. With Dad we decide to skip North East and South East and try to find out if we can go to Tibet, passing through Yunnan, one of the most beautiful provinces of China. On the edge of the table, I notice our assistant’s iPhone; I eagerly ask if I can have a look at it. I try it out and am amazed by all the options and modes the cell phone has, it is really great! On the map, we marked out the places where we wanted to go. We thank Feng Bou, who had by now officially become our interpreter. We gave him some tasks for the day, such as, trying to get the specific pass to go to Tibet, and getting my phone repaired. Once he left, we went back to our room to prepare to go to the Silk Market, a big clothes shop. Finally ready to go we march down to the main road by the hotel and try to get one of those yellow taxis…We raise our arm up high, as if asking for help, and then it’s as if a cab hears us and drives up to us; it’s amazing. I climb in and it’s a radical change of air, from the smothering heat of Beijing, to air conditioned coolness. I show the driver the places we need to go and he knows the way. Dad gets in and we are ready to hit the market. As we drive past the crowds, I watch the pedestrians on the pavement, they are all so different. There are fat people, skinny ones, small and big; I love the diversity of city life. To get to this market we had to wait at a red light for nearly ten minutes, it seemed like forever. Finally, Dad pays and we get out in front of a building so impressively crowded at the entrance to the market. We go in, and right in front of us we find exactly what we were looking for; a rainproof poncho for me. Now came the endless game of bartering, where both sides defend their profit price. Dad’s main defence was saying that he knew the true prices of things around there. We continue through the market, filled with people everywhere, talk of money all around, I loved it. Dad continues the price negotiations and we end of getting everything we needed.