Shopping and Sightseeing

After two weeks of a regimented training schedule, the other facilitators and I finally had a weekend off. I spent some of my free time on Saturday going to the Silk market which is similar to the Pearl Market where you can buy almost anything from actual silk to electronics to tapestries to shoes. Most of it is obviously fake, but if you enjoy haggling, it is a great place to practice your skills. While it took about 45 minutes to get to the market including a bus ride and 3 subways, it literally cost 45 cents to get there! The transportation here is awesome. Seattle should take lessons.

So anyways, I personally had a lot of fun at the market because I have learned how to barter in Chinese and enjoy joking around with the vendors who tend to be small 5 foot 2, 100 pound Chinese women. In one encounter, the girl said "Do you need a belt? Very cheap price for you!" and I said, "mian fei?" which in Chinese means "free?," and in English she said, "I kill you!" Needless to say we scurried away from that stand pretty quickly. In the end I bought a pair of knock off Oakley's for myself for about $7.50 and then bartered for my Chinese friends (the Chinese staff) who were baffled by my ability to stand firm on the price they wanted. They were happy because I probably saved them $20-30 in all.

Apart from going to the market, we also checked out the Beijing International church this morning. It was in the lower level of a very fancy shopping mall, and has been sanctioned so that only International passport holders can attend. The sermon was pretty good, and was a little more "meaty" then the English service at the Chinese church, but my friend Dan and I have decided that our best option may be to videocast, Driscoll, Piper, etc. on the 10 foot projector in our lounge. This will provide deeper, more challenging sermons for us, and save us about 2 hours of our limited time off.

Finally, I think I will start to post my favorite "Chinglish" quotes of the week. The top two this week were.

Chinese Staff Connie: I want to be able to speak English better than Americans
Facilitator Geoffry: Not going to happen. (jokingly)
Chinese Staff Connie: It is happens!
(She meant to say "It is going to happen")

When walking through Yuan Ming Yuan park and looking at an old Chinese monument, my friend Dan had the following interaction:
Dan: What is this monument?
Student: Oh, uh, its a "China something."

The students are always so eloquent in their descriptions. :)

Alright, thats all I got.

Kyle