How much?

After an hour’s hard negotiation, Ellie saves 20 pence

If you go somewhere and something is to expensive, then  bargain  with the stallholder. I had to do that when I got my brush. The man said it would be 25 yaun for one brush !  So I said 10, he said 15 so I said 10 and he bought it down to 10. Perhaps I should have started lower but 10 yuan is only £1 so I think I got a bargain even if the stallholder also thinks he did.

My brush is for doing water painting and calligraphy and it is swishy at the end. I tried to get some paper for five but I couldn’t. It was even harder to bargain because I don’t know Chinese and so I had to take the Mandarin book with me and point at the sentence that said ‘how much?’.

Going from stall  to stall took ages because there were so many  things and the art stalls took even longer! We only left the market  when we went on the wall.

We don’t  bargain in Britain  so I’m not used to bringing the price lower. I find it rude! To bargain you have to know how and I didn’t know how so when we moved on I saw a brush for 3!