Immodium, Pollution and the Silk Market in Beijing

So i'm now in my second week of learning Mandarin in Beijing. It's coming along well, by no means will I be anywhere near fluent by the end of this 3 week shindig, but I should finally be capable of asking for Immodium without resorting to visual depictions. This is especially handy when the only English label of any container in the pharmacy read "Lamb Placenta".

The food here is becoming a problem, it's too cheap, nice and greasy. A most lethal combination. I'm bulking up quite nicely. Exercise of any sort is difficult too, Beijing is usually covered in a thick smog which keeps the heat in and makes it hard to breathe. It was not until today that we finally saw the sun through the smog for the first time. The shockingly visual level of pollution has surprised me most. You can see it nearly all the time. Sometimes the smog is so thick that it's impossible to see buildings just 100m down the road.

Yesterday a few of us went into the infamous 'silk market' as tepid negotiating amateurs, and emerged hard-nose vultures. Truthfully, the naivety of some of the students here amazes me. I hear frequent comments like "I negotiated these [fake] Nike Trainers from over 1000 Yuan down to 100!". No-one seems overly concerned they're still only worth 20 so long as they negotiated a great deal.

I think it's arrogant to feel smarter than those selling in the silk market. I assume that anyone that spends nearly every waking hour of nearly every day negotiating with westerners looking for good deals on fake clothes is going to sell at whatever they price they like. Generally, if you want to pay 50 Yuan for trainers you will only pay 50 Yuan for trainers, but you'll have to stand there and banter for about fifteen minutes as the seller very gradually reduces the price. This is the concept that they all get, they bargain their prices against the resource Westerners care about a lot.

Of course to get that price you'll have to endure flirtation, insults, and perhaps begging. It can be tricky to pursue lower prices when you're told "but I have to eat tonight".

It was tricky getting back from the silk market last night. Our return coincided with the biggest storm Beijing has seen in a few months. When we tried to get a taxi back to the hotel we were told by shrewd economist taxi drivers "No meter! 200 Yuan". The same taxi back usually costs 15 Yuan (roughly 1 pound). So we decided to sit down under some shelter and get a coffee...

Sitting Down: 100 Yuan.

I can only speculate how much prices will rise during next year's Olympic games.