That's too much!

Temperature outside: who knows, it rained all day, or was humid
Words I know in Chinese: still 6
Times I’ve already felt completely lost in translation: too many, I should learn more Chinese Favorite meal so far: Peking Duck

Ever seen the Price Is Right and their game “That’s too much!”? You raise the price and raise the price until you think it is over the actual price, and then the contestant yells as enthusiastically as they can, THAT’S TOO MUCH! Well, that phrase took on a whole new meaning the last couple of days.

First, last night we had a very special dinner with the President of Renmin University and the newly-arrived students from U of North Carolina who will be joining us for the Olympics. They began the meal with speeches from each of the dignified guests, and then began to bring out the food. Now, the normal Chinese dinner is a family style, where you are at a round table with a huge lazy susan in the middle. All the bowls and plates are in the center, and then you take from each whatever you want. So they bring some cold zucchini sticks, and some gelatin sticks, and some kind of nuts, and beef braised in soy sauce, and chicken soup with cabbage (with bone still in it), and peanut chicken with legs and such included…Peking duck. Spicy chicken with thin green peppers that look like green beans (not good surprise). Stuffed green peppers on a bed of sunny-side eggs. Flat fish with veggies. Whole shrimp with the antennas still on. Some kind of corned-like beef with a lot of fat. Rice of course, though at the end of the meal. Fried bread knots with green onions and oil. Summer squash. Sprouts and greens. Ummm… like 5 other dishes, and finally for dessert, watermelons and grape tomatoes (how those work together I’m not sure). THAT’S TOO MUCH FOOD! One of our Chinese friends said that if we were 6-8 Chinese people, the food wouldn’t have piled up in the middle as it did (we only ate about half the food). Instead, it looked like this even after taking away some of the platters:

Then, today after classes and getting soaked in the rain, we had a free afternoon. What to do, what to do? So, we decided to brave the elements and Beijing traffic and went to the Hong Qiao Pearl Market. It sells a lot more than pearls, if you were wondering, those are a good two floors out of five. Many people have heard of the Silk Market of Beijing. This is smaller and a little less variety, but it’s also less tourist-y and pushy and you can usually talk them down a little more.

Haggling is very fun. Strategy going in:

Don’t show emotion, especially if you really want it

Don’t make it personal. They will act all sad or mad or say you’re stealing from them. It’s all an act

And three, when they give a price, you tell them THAT’S TOO MUCH, and give them back 10-20% of what they said. Yep, you heard me right. 10%. Why? Because they inflate it sooo much for tourists, and once you say a price, you can’t go under it. Plus, once you say a price, they take it as a huge insult if you walk away.

So, we go into a shop that sells traditional looking dresses, and each want to buy something. The original cost, 900 RMB each (about $140 US) for a dress and 600 RMB (about $90 give or take) for a shirt. Our starting price, 100 RMB. “Oh, no, that’s too little…. You buy so many [we had about 4 dresses and 4 shirts altogether], I say 650 yuan.” Back, forth, back forth. Luckily we had a girl on our side who would not budge too much on price. She knew what she wanted to pay. End results: 235 RMB for the dresses and 150 for the shirts. We probably still got stolen on them, but it was a decent result. You’ve just gotta learn, “THAT’S TOO MUCH!”