chapter 7 - tourists are not all the same

We had a wild bus trip crushed between locals and several boxes of squawking chickens. Those startling hills in the distance gradually surrounded us and I began to feel I was part of an old painting, becoming a watercolour version of myself blending with this romantic landscape. We like Yangshuo, a small town with a big market, overlooking the wide green Li Jiang river. The place attracts two disparate types of tourists, a few bedraggled Western backpackers and swarms of Chinese daytrippers. The backpackers we’ve met are holdovers from another era, hippies, hanging out in bohemian coffee bars and cafes that serve pizza. They don’t travel at all really – many have been here for years, just hanging out in a town that now caters to their American tastes in food. Even their language is unlikely, American surfer dudes stranded in inland China telling each other old stories. “So then they told me, no way!” “And they’re all, y’know, negative and stuff.” “So then I go, no way dude.” “They go, wow man that’s a drag.” “Gnarley.” “So then I go, like, bummer, man.” They remind me of Niki, like she used to talk and still does when she's excited about something.

The Chinese tourists, on the other hand, arrive on buses bursting at the seams, shop, eat and disappear within three hours. The market is flooded with them, everyone bargains and buys and then whooshes out, draining the market of life as it lethargically packs itself up within half an hour of the tour bus departures. That half hour is our favourite time. We are getting the hang of this bargaining thing and have developed a routine.

First, we spend a lot of time in front of something we like, looking at everything else but always coming back to the one thing that attracts us. We ask the price. The seller tells us something exorbitant. We sigh and shake our heads. They shrug. We walk on. In awhile we come back. The seller suggests another price. We say still too high, but make eye contact. He shrugs and looks away. We converse between ourselves in low voices, then suggest a price, quite a bit lower than his previous offer. He laughs and shakes his head, we go up a bit in price, he comes down a bit. Ready to close, we give a price, he looks tempted but shakes his head. Then we mention the magic letters “F.E.C.”. He repeats “F.E.C.”? The tourist currency is more valuable and less available to locals. We nod. Ok it’s a deal. We smile, he smiles, everyone is best friends.

I’m not as good at it as Hamish. I cave in too soon, and feel I’ve paid too much while the seller is just as unsatisfied because I didn’t play the game right. Hamish knows just the right amount of charm to use, just the right amount of time to pause in between musings. He loves it, too, you can tell. It’s like he’s just discovering some new talent. Mind you, he’s much better with money than I am in general. I have never really understood the concept of money. It flows through my fingers like quicksilver. To me it’s something to spend and forget, not something to value. Hamish bought me a triple strand of fresh water pearls and I bought him a very old chop he can use to seal his letters. We both know we still paid too much, but it’s a poor country. Besides, the bargaining is the best bit.