WangFuJing

So, I was originally just accompanying Jamie to an international bookstore on WangFuJing (王府井） Street, but we found another large bookstore first. In there, I got to looking at the classical Chinese literature section. I was already interested in reading Legend of the Condor Heroes (射雕英雄传), a famous martial arts novel writer by a Hong Kong guy in the 1950s, but now I am thinking about looking into seriously old school stuff, like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (红楼梦), and Outlaws of the Marsh (also called Water Margin, 水浒全传). These are all super intense though, as in, they kind of put the Lord of the Rings trilogy (魔戒, in case you are interested)to shame for being too puny to count as classic literature. However, that was not our only stop. After this we kept walking down WangFuJing street, heading toward the International Bookstore. As we walked, the dark clouds in the distance grew closer, and people started to run. It felt like I was in a disaster movie, or maybe the Chinese version of Godzilla. But soon enough it started raining. Jamie and I sought shelter in a nearby grocery store, but as I should know by now, very little in China is what it seems. It was actually some kind of super shopping center, with different stores on each level, and sometimes two or three on the same level, integrated enough so that it looked like it was one store with different sections. I ended up looking at digital cameras there, but it was a bit expensive, so I told the lady that I wanted to look at other stores. Then she said I could have it for cheaper, and I was really confused, 'cause the price tag said 1,280 RMB, but she just said I could have it (and a memory card) for 1000 RMB. I didn't understand, and tried to clarify. Then Jamie put his arm over my shoulder and lifted the veil from my eyes. She was bartering to get me to buy it. She has already dropped the price that much, so she was willing to drop it more. In the end, I got the camera and a 2Gig memory card for 800 RMB. And I used by brand new debit card (in Chinese they call it a dragon card, 龙卡) to buy it. I had just cashed all my travelers checks and opened a bank account that afternoon. Jamie and I wandered around the store some more, and he eventually got to looking for an umbrella. The store workers were so surprised that we (meaning he, I had trouble even following the conversations) had such good Chinese, that we started chatting. Tired of being labeled a 美国人 (American), I told them that I was from France. We talked for about 15 or 20 minutes, and some guy from the other side of the store who was selling sodas even brought us two free cups of coke. Sweet!

By the time we got outside the rain had mostly stopped, and we found the international bookstore quickly. Jaime wanted to buy some English language children's books for a kid that he was tutoring, and I looking for bilingual versions of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but to no avail. I want something with English on one page, and Chines on the other, so that I can both read the novel, and improve my language (although, to be honest, I would probably mostly just read the English. But still...). As we left this bookstore, we walked around a corner, and saw the most wonderful thing: food. 30 or 40 stalls set up, with workers yelling the names of food in English and Chinese, shouting out prices... the WangFuJing night food market that I had been looking for. After walking the length and having many people shout out thickly accented "hello"s, and the names of various meats, Jaime and I shared some shark on a stick, I ate a snake, and he got some lamb's kidney. I was thinking about starfish and scorpion, but they were both a bit expensive. Still, I think it was a good first venture. I will have to go back there to try more wild food. They have squid, various testicles, goat penis, sea urchin, fried banana pudding, fruit with a sugary syrup over it... the list goes on. Some of these workers were really energetic! They would start to prepare the food before you even settled on a price, and some even grabbed an arm and pulled you close to shout their foods to you. Jaime played along with one guy, bartered a bit, and then bought some meat after agreeing on price of 5 kuai. I handed the guy s 10 kuai bill, then he started to try and sell us three for 10 kuai instead of one for five. We shouted back and forth, and when I finally got my 5 kuai of change back, he slapped my arm for being so stingy. He could never get away with that in the states. Somebody would sue his ass so fast! But a lot more stuff flies in China. This evening really showed me how much my listening needs to improve. I couldn't understand most of what people said to me, even though I could speak fine. Something that will just take time. My old camera was broken, and I didn't have batteries for my new one yet, so no pictures, but next time I go to WangFuJing I will definitely snap a couple shots.