Shopping in the Silk District

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Hangzhou is known for its fine quality silk, and used to be the summer palace of various Rulers and big honcho’s. So I decided to venture into the “Silk District” and buy something.
So I went shopping today with Judith and a woman named Grace, who was provided to us by Mr. Xu. He said that she would help us negotiate and bargain with the shop merchants.

The procedure was for me to pick out what I wanted and Grace would gently discuss price with the store owner.
Okay, Grace was her name, but her real name (at least in in the Silk District) is “Dragon Lady”.
At the first store I pointed to a few silk items that looked real nice. Through Judith, she told me to stand there and looked bored. Then she started small talk with the merchant,. I could tell she was just warming up to her, asking her the price. The merchant said something, and Grace’s tone of voice started getting shrill and loud. Before I knew it, we were on the verge of a major rumble between the two, complete with yelling, teeth bearing, and arm waving. This wasn’t discussion of price; this must be two people with a horrid and violent past, who were out for blood. When it reached the screaming level, I started to get nervous, but it was over before any blows were landed. I got it for half the posted price.
Later, we drove to the country, outside a city named Linan. We were invited to an Outdoors Club, where we donned full army uniforms, and we were equipped with Laser M-16’s. Kinda like paintball, but with a Laser rifle that can find it’s target up to 300 yards. It was a fun activity. The owner/inventor was there, and he wanted to know if the device was marketable in the US. I told him it wasn’t my business, and I didn’t know. But it was fun.
We stopped at a factory after that, one that makes water sports gear, including lifejackets. But the lifejackets were real nice, they were not certified by the USCG yet, so I couldn’t use them. They had a guard dog (all factories do) follow us around. Nice poochie, but maybe sniffing a little too close to my leg. I think he likes foreign food.
We went to dinner, and on the way out we stopped by the “noodle man”, Chinese original “fast food” joint. Here a guy showed me how they make the noodles and throw them in boiling water. Then they will add anything you want, meat, potato’s, veggies, seaweed, anything. Made to order. I think that’s where Burger King got the “have it your way” idea.

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