While we were selecting our hotel back in San Francisco, I felt somewhat encouraged finding a small “place to see” icon on the map not too far from it, concluding that the neighbourhood probably isn’t all that bad. Reading our two guidebooks again on the plane I discovered that one of them considered that site one of a small number of “must see” places in Shanghai. On our first day we thus went looking for “Yofuo Si / the Jade Buddha Temple.” Since we got up much too early, the temple was still closed and we decided to move on. After coming back from Suzhou (and being on a somewhat more normal schedule), we headed for the temple again. The temple is famous for two jade Buddha statues, which were brought for Burma and were supposed to go to a monastery on the nearby Putoushan island, but were left in Shanghai for one reason or another. Of course, we weren’t allowed to take photos of the Buddhas.

After the temple, we headed to do some shopping at the Xiangyang market. We were ready for some heavy barganing, but were still quite surprised. In Peru, it seemed that asking for about 1/3 of the asked price and settling for about 1/5 was the way to go. At Xiangyang, asking 1/7 and setting for 1/5 was more like it. The sellers typically asked for prices bordering on ridiculous (e.g. $50 for a jacket). Bargaining the price down to about ½ took no effort at all, but getting from 1/3 to 1/5 took some work. Being able to haggle in Mandarin turned out quite helpful. While almost all sellers spoke good English, prices just seemed to be taken a lot more seriously when said in Mandarin. The sellers often replied in a mixture of English and Mandarin, throwing in just enough Mandarin to test me, it seemed.

 – How much is this jacket?

 – Y$350 (about US$45).

 – No, no.

 – Ok, special price for you – Y$250.

 – No, way.

 – What’s your price?

 – Si-shi-quai. (Y$40.)

 – Oh, you speak Chinese?

 – A little.

 – Ok, ibai-qi-shi-quai (Y$170), do you understand? That’s only because you are pangyou (friend).

 – Wo ming bai, keshu si-shi-quai. (I understand, but Y$40.)

 – No, no, for Y$100 I can sell you the model from a few years ago, here do you like it?

 – No. This one, for si-shi-wu-quai (45). THAT would be pangyou price. Or we'll just leave.

It goes on like this, we try walking off a few times, the guy acts as if he is really desperate, finally we agree on Y$70 (US$7.50), he says he is making no profit on it. I tell him that he can sell another one to the next gringo for Y$350, and hopefully make up for it. He laughs. I tap him on the shoulder say “pangyou” and go. Some other sellers, however, act pissed even after they get the money. Not sure whether this means we really squeezed them too far into their profit margin or it is all part of the act. (More likely the latter.) I find myself bargaining harder when the original price is hard. If it seems fair to begin with, I just offer 70% of what the ask for and take it. When they quote me a “gringo price,” however, the gloves are off and it becomes a game of how little I can get the item for.

After some heavy shopping, we wondered around, visiting a monument to a famous Russian poet which came out as “Puxijin” in Pinyin and encountering a condom vending machine.

After that we headed back to our hotel to drop off all the stuff we bought and to take a break before “part two” of the day.