The Ice Cream Saga and the Silk Market

After class on Friday, Tala, Ariel, and I decided it was time for some hard core shopping. We headed out towards the metro station, but on the way, we were hit with another painful urge for ice cream. We stumbled into a standard looking westernized restaurant called Big Pizza and ordered three chocolate fudge sundaes. Now, keep in mind that sundaes in Beijing are nothing like chocolate fudge sundaes in the US, but they normally do the trick.

Well, our ice cream extravaganza was doomed. First, the vanilla ice cream was watery. Then, to my unpleasant surprise, a crunchy green leaf of spinach was burrowed somewhere in my sundae. I promptly removed it from my mouth and took a picture of it. Tala found celery in her ice cream, and Ariel was finally too frightened of finding something worse than a vegetable in her sundae that she stopped eating. As I ate my ice cream I noticed a pink tinge on my spoon. Upon further examination my sharp plastic spoon had cut my lip and I was bleeding all over myself.

With the ice cream drama over, we got on the metro and headed to the silk market. It is in a huge building with six floors, and on each floor there is something different to look at. On the first floor there are very real looking Spyder, Columbia and North Face ski jackets and snow pants, along with all the tee shirts you never wanted to buy, and some really pretty dresses and Chinese clothing.

The second floor has scarves. Everywhere. So many scarves that Rachel Welty would just be overwhelmed with opportunity. Some of them are silk, most of them are not, but all of them are cheap. I got a fake Burberry scarf, which makes me look very British, for about five dollars. On the next floor there are shoes and purses. The purses are all really nice, and fake. I bought a real leather, fake Salvatore Ferragauss purse for eight dollars. And then, from the third and fourth floors up, there is jewellery and pearls. The pearls were so beautiful and very cheap. I bought a black pearl necklace and matching earrings for 7 dollars.

In the Silk Market, which I'm sure you've gleaned has very little silk, the sellers are very aggressive. They are almost all young girls a little older than me, and they speak impeccable English. They will yell at you while you walk by their stall "Hey girl, hey sister, want to buy bags?" If you stop in they immediately ask you what you like and demand a starting price. They ask for about a hundred dollars for anything you are looking for at first and than bargain down to a price the two of you agree on. I happen to be quite frugal, and pretty determined, so the prices I got my purse, pearls, and scarf at are not the prices that most people pay. This place is like my mom's heaven.

If you go too low for them they say raise the price a little, and "come on, you're such a beautiful girl. You and I are sisters, why you try to cheat me like this?" If you try to walk away, they will block you in the store or grab your arm to keep you there. It would be scary if I wasn't at least seven inches taller than all of them. But I have to say, it is a little overwhelming to be constantly yelled at and bargained with. It's not something I could do everyday, even if I do like shopping.

Luckily, I had two really fun friends to shop with. Tala is Jordanian, and so she bargains at the markets in Jordan every day to get everything. She barely speaks any Chinese, but she would sidle up next to the stall seller and say, "of course I'm your sister, and I want those boots. Why don't you be my sister and give me a good price?" Her deals were as good as mine, and she didn't have to pretend to walk away to get them. Ariel on the other hand, is way too nice to walk away, and doesn't have Tala's bargaining skills, so she just got manhandled in every stall she went to by eager sellers.

But at the end of the day, we were very satisfied with our purchases, not so satisfied with our ice cream, and seriously thinking about going to bed early.