Silk Market

Sunday, February 27, 2011

The last few days have once again been cold, and unfortunately it has also snowed here. The city of Beijing is actually unable to naturally produce snow, so they shoot something up into the sky that causes it to snow in the city. Occasionally, they do this with the rain as well so that the water washes away all of the dirt on the street. I do feel really bad for the workers who have to scrape the snow, because the only equipment they have here are shovels. With so many people here they find all sorts of ways to provide people with jobs, but this has to be so frustrating because the city is so large, and they cannot cover much ground that fast. I have also noticed that they do not use modern brooms here, the brooms they use look like they are ones from back in the stone age. I took a picture of a few ladies trying to clean the sidewalks with the water from the melting snow.

The markets here are insane, the sellers are extremely aggressive, and will literally pull you into their stores as you walk by. The most aggressive ones will pull you in, and then when you try to leave, block your path, so that you literally have to push them aside to get away. I spent some time at the enormous electronic market, often referred to as the Silicon Valley of China, which contained more electronics than I could have ever imagined. There are so many knockoffs you must be careful, and my friend bought speakers there that exploded and started smoking within the first hour of use. He was able to take them back and get new ones though. Software is extremely cheap here, as windows operating systems, Microsoft office, and Rosetta Stone sell for only a few dollars because they cost nothing for them to reproduce.

I spent a lot of time today at the Silk Market, one of the most famous shopping markets in China. Here is some more information about the market if you are interested: Silk Market

The market is a shopper’s paradise, with every item you could ever want there. I was able to purchase some beautiful ties, exactly like the ones I pay a lot for in the U.S., for just a few dollars. Tailored suits can also be purchased here, the quality is not like the U.S., but if bargain well and say the right things you can get a nice suit for a great price. The shop where we were today has sold suits to Charles Barkley, former President George Bush senior, the Chinese premier, and many NBA players who also visited the shop. I plan to spend time at this market for the next few days, because the quality of these items is quite good, and I will never be able to purchase anything for these prices outside of China.

After shopping we went to a restaurant where they serve the very famous Peking duck. After telling one of the waiters there that I was a meiguoren (American), he called a bunch of people over and soon almost every worker at the restaurant was standing in front of me. The chef was very curious, and I joked around with him about the food, to which he probably responded by spitting in it, but I will never know. One waiter just kept asking me questions in Chinese, one of which was if I like the Chinese women. I wanted to respond by saying, “Yes, they are very pretty,” but unfortunately that didn’t happen. The word for “pretty” in Chinese is “piaoliang” and the word for “cheap” is “pianyi.” I often confuse these two words and say one when I mean the other. When he asked me what I thought of the women I accidently said, “I like them, I think they are very cheap.” This is just one of the many embarrassing mistakes that I have made when speaking Chinese.