Today was fairly uneventful. We had a language/culture lesson in the morning during the first hour of class where we learned to count to 100 in Mandarin. We then had a great discussion about the Panopticon which we related to what we’ve observed in Beijing so far, and what we have observed about America in many different ways. The discussion was quite interesting. We did not get to finish everything we would have liked, so we are going to continue the discussion on Monday morning during class.
After class some folks ventured out to the famous Silk Market to go shopping. Many folks came back with stories about how they began to learn to haggle with the local shop owners. As is true to form, the group jumped right in with both feet. They immediately started haggling with shop owners to get the best price possible. Some folks learned that the ‘lowest price’, doesn’t really mean ‘lowest price’. But they are getting better at their haggling skills. For some, it seems like haggling for items is going to become a favorite pastime. Folks have purchased many items for both personal use and for gifts at the Silk Market. However, we’ve been told by Ian (an amazing volunteer – a post to come about him later) that there is another market we should be going to that is quite a bit cheaper than the famous Silk Market. On Sunday we’ll likely take a trip to that market to see what prices we can negotiate.
Until tomorrow……
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