Pictionary – play it at least three times a week – that’s what you need to do if you want to hone your shopping skills for China.
Walking around one of the markets yesterday, I went into a shoe shop.
I only went in because a couple of the shop assistants were standing outside singing something or other, so I thought it might be a bit more interesting than the others.
An assistant immediately came to help me as I perused the wares, and alighted on a particular pair.
Having tried them on and agreed a price, I decided to check whether they were leather.
I said leather – blank response. My phrase book didn’t have it in, so I said leather in English to no avail.
Thinking laterally I said plastic? No. So I ran through everything I could think of.
It was a bit like the board game Cranium.
Cow? No.
Moo moo? No.
Milk? No.
So I ended up drawing a stick cow and the woman laughed and nodded furiously. She also did a slightly better drawing than my effort and all her friends laughed too.
But walking around the shops is a great experience. You have to bargain hard – they tap out a figure on a calculator, you shake your head.
It is like having a duel with calculators at dawn until you get to a mutually acceptable figure.
One trader said I was a good bargainer (I think) after I got her down to about a quarter of the asking price.
Which probably meant she was far, far better than me and she was trying to be nice.
But around the Confucious Temple in Nanjing there is also an air of calm – maybe out of respect for the philosopher.
Elsewhere the activity was a bit more hectic, with people shouting hello as I passed.
I think the top tip from all this is, don’t bring too much stuff to China apart from a very big suitcase - you will easily fill it.
Still, you could always buy one over here.....