Yesterday, I made my first trip back to my all-time favorite place, the Fake Market. We went to the ‘foreigners’ Fake market, not the ‘Chinese’ fake market. Boy, was I surprised.

First of all, the place was pretty much the same. The surrounding area was the same, the place had not really expanded or changed in any significant way in terms of structure. I even noticed the ATM machine which I had used several months before, just after someone left their ATM card in the machine, logged in. The machine was displaying ‘Would you like to make another transaction?’ on the previous customer’s card and I had to make the ultimate decision whether or not to return the card or do something bad. Of course I returned the card …

Ok so besides the Fake Market looking the same, there was a huge huge difference between now and before. Everyone spoke English! And not the crappy salesman English like before (’Looky looky’, ‘I give you good price’, ‘You are my friend’). But they actually spoke good English. I was with JJ and George and it was just really crazy to see the level of English improve so much since the last time I was at this place. The place literally improved the English level by 3 or 4 times.

In fact, there was a few situations where we were negotiating a price for a jacket I was to buy that were pretty funny. Before, I was able to speak very naturally to my friends in English with the incentive that the sellers could not understand most of what I was saying. Well now, I would talk to JJ or George, something about what I should offer in my bargain or what price is my lowest or something else like that, and the sellers would know completely what I had to say. It actually kind of took the fun out of it.

The prices had also skyrocketed. I did not really get it but the prices were at least twice as much as the last time I was at this place. I was in the market for a jacket. George and I were alone and we visited several stores to find this jacket. The first store, they gave us a price of 1600 RMB ($220) for the jacket, and then said they will give us a special price of 600 RMB ($80). Now this is the FAKE MARKET for christs sake, not a real store. I was looking on spending less than $30, nothing in this crazy price range. We were bargaining and bargaining and could not even get a price for less than $70. I could not understand it. even for the same jackets that I had bought for less than $20 last time I was at this place, the prices were almost around $50.

Finally we visited 3 different places. The first place gave us the first fake price of $220. The second gave us the fake price of $250. The last place gave us a fake price of $400!!!!!! It was just getting worse and worse. Anyway, we finally were at this place, bargaining and bargaining. So they first said 3000 RMB, which is more than $400. I wanted to pay less than 200 RMB. So we were bargaining and bargaining and leaving and leaving again. Finally I was about to go, and they yelled for me to return to the store, they would give me the 200 RMB price … Quite an amazing bargaining ratio, down from 3000 to 200. The jacket is London Fog, its pretty nice. (Fake of course).

A side car that you can hire for a ride! I will find this again …