Bartering--You name the price

---

Hello,

Another week has passed! I have a feeling that time
will really fly here. We had an ok week. We had
different schedules this week, which wasn't fun. Next
week, however, we have everything the exact same,
which is nice. HMMM.

Bartering.

In Suzhou (maybe all of China), the set price tag
means very little. I do know one thing. If you pay the
price on the tag, you are getting ripped off hard.
Some say that these prices are inflated several
hundred percent. Ely is not a very good barterer.
Neither am I. Many Westerners have let us know of the
scenario that is very common.

::You walk into a store. They notice you are not a
local. Some places don't have tags, so this makes it
easier for them to test how little you know about the
Economic culture here. First, I ask, "Doushou quian
(spelling???). This means, "how much money." Then they
throw out a number. We aren't very good at big
numbers, so many times they just type in the number on
a calculator. Then, we act distraught. "Tie Gway La,
Tie Gway La, Tie Gway La, Boo Yao, Boo Yao." This
means, "It's took expensive, too expensive, I don't
want, I don't want." Then, they are aware that we know
some Chinese, and are familiar with the common
practice of local proprietors ripping off tourists. We
then offer around 50% less, depending on the situation
and the product. They often refuse, acting equally
distraught, and put the item back in it's place.

At this point, we walk away and act like we aren't
interested. THE KEY IS TO WALK AWAY. Then, they say
something (in Chinese) like, "Ok, Ok, OK, wait, wait
wait. I can sell it for --. I guess usually if you can
get a purchase for 30% off the listed price, you are
getting an ok deal. In many circumstances, we get
things for much less. The bartening usually goes on
for several minutes, each person firing back a
different price. When the deal is done, of course, the
store owner acts like they are getting the worst deal,
and that deals like this will run them out of
business. They truly give Oscar worthy
performances--so I am told--because when they lock up
for the night, they often drive home in their BMW.

Basically every good is negotiable here. If you buy a
lot of something, you can ask for a discount. It is
pretty interesting. Also, rent is very negotiable. You
can negotiate the months of the lease, the deposit,
the actual rent, everything. Interesting.

Driving in general here.
Very crazy. There are stop lights, lane assignments,
blinkers on each corner of every car. In summation,
the drivers have enough rules and tools to be good.
This just isn't the case. The stop lights do some
good. However, the honor system isn't upheld here. If
no one is around (or if they think no one is around) a
red light means little. Also, lane lines are blatantly
avoided. I truly believe that many drivers think the
point of the lane line is to make sure the line
divides their car into symmetric halves. Blinkers.
Simply not used.

Reasons for honking your horn:

1. To say hello
2. To say goodbye
3. Anytime you cross an intersection
4. Anytime you change lanes
5. Anytime a biker is within 100 meters of your car
6. If someone pulls out in front of you
7. If you pull out in front of someone
8. Anytime a walker is near your car
9. If you are stopped at a red light with 10 cars in
front of you. You hold down your horn once the light
turns green. This supposably speeds things up.
10. To see if the music in the car is in tune with
your horn.

The list goes on. I think the horn is used to make up
for lack of using any other sort of precautionary
driving methods.

Also, we have empirical evidence suggesting that the
bigger of bike, car, truck, bus you have, the more
right you have to avoid the pedestrian all together.
Example: 90 year old grandmother with a walker crosses
the street. The bus driver turning into her honks,
honks, honks, to speed her up and out of his turning
lane. Luckily, 90 year old grandma speeds up to avoid
an incident. Bus driver refuses to slow down during
this time.

On a positive note, things are great. Ely and I have
to sometimes remind ourselves, "We are living in
China." It is just awesome. We have found an American
diner that we frequent often. It is a little pricey,
but worth every penny. We also have found several
fantastic Chinese restaurants. There are many
different styles of Chinese food. Taiwanese,
Cantonese, Sichuan, Northern Chinese. It is fun to see
the differences. Many different spices are used
depending on what style of food you order.

We had a fantastic Taiwanese desert last night for $2.
It was a finely shaved-ice mountain. Then, sweetened
condensed milk and tapioca was poured over top. The
tapioca balls are black here. Anyways, it was
delicious.

We are meeting with another realtor today to look at
more places to live. Hopefully we can find something
soon.

Another funny thing is that many contracts are
prepared as a courtesy in English. However, on top of
every page you read, it says, "This is a courtesy
English contract. The real contract is in Chinese, You
are responsible for the Chinese contract. So basically
the contract doesn't mean a whole lot. Depending on
the translator, there could be many errors.

Thats all for now. Have a good week. Congrats to the
Colts right? There were Super Bowl parties today
(Monday) to watch the game at many Western bars. The
parties started at 6:00 AM Monday morning (live).
However, drinking this early just doesn't feel the
same. No one was wearing red, there were no grills a
burning with the scrumptious scents of ribs, burgers,
dogs, and hashbrowns, no bands playing, and no "Spirit
of the Big Red."

GO HUSKERS!!!


Aaron and Ely

---