On Friday, January 11, we busted out of school. We were ready...Our teachers took us to the Beijing Electronics Market. John and I need some tiny mp3 players for our Mandarin pronunciation tapes.
When we get home from class, John and I try to practice...but quickly realized that instead of speaking Mandarin or English, we were developing our OWN language -- Mandr-ish. So we needed to get back to basics.
Speaking of pronunciation, thanks to our Berlitz teachers, we learned that our driver's name isn't Yang Shufu, it's Yan Shufu... We've spent these past two weeks exuberantly calling him by the wrong name -- the equivalent of calling someone named Brown -- Kapinski!
Friday was terrific because we also got to learn more about him...his wife and daughter (her name is Yan Yan...) both live in Beijing, too. He even came to lunch with us!As a going away gift, somehow my friends in Kansas City got some Chinese Yuan in the US... We used this lovely gift to buy our players.
A much needed investment...
Shopping in Beijing can be overwhelming...even in the electronics market, salespeople swarmed over us... look, look, look... The other thing that's tough is negotiating...many things are already so inexpensive (but other things are as -- if not more -- expensive than in the US) it's not worth the trouble.
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