Bargaining here is really an experience. Really. There is almost no such thing as a fixed price here, and when you run into one, it's a shocking experience. There's the invisible bargaining markup, which can be as much as 200%, and the "foreigner tax" which is usually the same amount as the bargaining markup but much, much harder to get rid of. All foreigners are rich, y'see....

Yesterday, Dan and I ventured out to the overpriced shopping street known fondly as Chun Qi Lu. Part of my plan was to get him in the reggae shop and buy him a shirt for his birthday -- a shirt that now resides happily in his closet. But I wanted to do some window shopping either way. My students warned me over and over again that it would be really crowded, but I was determined. I think, maybe, they've gotten the idea that I really don't like crowds. It's not an American thing, I told them, it's an Amanda thing. I've never liked to be in the middle of a large group of people. It makes me panic something awful. But I'm stubborn, too.

Another Amanda thing is that I build these crazy, detailed pictures in my head about places I've never been but am going to be going in the near future, and when these places inevitably are drastically different, I feel a pang of bitter disappointment. So, when we went to the bike market, I was expecting a huge parking lot of rows and rows of bikes, ready to check out. On the contrary, it was an alley of fifteen or so shops with 20-30 bikes each in it, and you had to navigate the various store owners without offending one or the other to be able to find a bike that a) works, and b) isn't incredibly expensive or that we could get the foreigner markup off of.

So yesterday, we ventured down to the clothing market. Dan's been planning on taking me for forever, and I was expecting something like a warehouse with high ceilings and few crowds, even though intellectually, I know no place like this exists in China. What I got was a five-floor warehouse with low ceilings and millions of people packed into it. We ended up navigating it by basically attaching ourselves to each other -- Dan's arms around my shoulders and steering me toward invisible holes in the crowd, so we wouldn't get lost. There were that many people in it.

Examples of the foreigner markup: on floor two, there's this cute orange skirt for 45 kuai. Flat rate, no bargaining allowed. We promised to think about it. Floor three, same skirt, 180 kuai. Bargaining led to a price of 110. We bought the one from floor 2.

Now occasionally you meet somebody here in China whose bargaining is truly amusing. In the tech towers, you're bombarded by people trying to sell you DVDs..they'll walk down the escalators the wrong way to get to you, run out in front of you while you're walking, block your way, and the whole time, they're shouting, "DVD, DVD!!" at you. You get really good at shouting back. Once, a woman started walking down the escalators with DVDs in her hand, obviously heading for the foreigners... We pre-empted her and told her that she'd better not be heading for us. She grinned at us and cheekily said that she didn't want to talk to us anyway. If I'd actually wanted DVDs that day, I totally woulda bought from her. I also have a student whose method of bargaining is to just shout the price she wants at the top of her lungs incessantly until the store owner gets bored and gives it to her. I love it -- it's hilarious to watch.

However, yesterday we were in a shop and found a skirt that Dan loved. It's this beautiful jewel blue, ankle length skirt from Indonesia with a cute print. I'm kinda meh about it, but whatever. I'm meh about most skirts, but Dan's talked me into buying a couple already and I wear them around the house constantly. He knows the correct methodology to get me to wear whatever he wants me to - wake up before I take a shower and have the clothes waiting. I hate putting outfits together. So if we buy a skirt I'm kinda torn on, it's not like he has to fight to get me to wear it. But the salesgirl...my lord. We walked into the shop, just wanting to look at this skirt. Remember, walking in is actually dodging fifty people rushing at you without a care in the world for their safety - or yours. She eyes us, grabs us up, and starts talking a mile a minute so that I'm only picking up one word in three. The skirt started at 230, which was enough to turn me the hell off and get me out of there as it was. But she's still talking, and talking fast. All I'm picking up is, "Because you're my friend, because you're my friend." And she and Dan are just going at it. Dan...apparently liked it. I was willing to pay 60 for it, and any more than that was just too much for a skirt. But this girl got him on her side, and they both suddenly go quiet and store at me intently. Fuck. Dan had just gotten the price down to 100, and I wasn't that hung up on it to be willing to pay that much, so I just said no. Dan bought it. Damnit.

Yes, I am now the proud owner of four skirts, two of which are a little too small for me to wear at this point in time because I need to lose some inches off my big butt. Those of you who know me may now die of shock. What a crazy day.