March 21: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, and Silk Market

We left at 9:00 for our daily tour. Today we saw Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (called this because during the time of the Emperors, regular people were forbidden from entering this area). I think today was the first day that I really felt like I’d like to go home. It was interesting seeing the sights, but I wasn’t as into it as the previous days. It was a lot of courtyards and palaces. At one point, the father (Charlie) of one of the parents (Elizabeth) got lost from the group. We sent out a posse to find him and gave them 15 minute to come back. Charlie came back within about 5 minutes and we had to wait for the posse to return (after rejecting the idea of sending a new posse for the old posse). This gave us plenty of time to hang out and have people admire our babies. Our guide, Mary, told us that one of the reasons local people make such a fuss over our babies is that we dress them so nicely in bright colours. She said that the babies here don’t tend to be dressed so well.

The highlight was the four-star bathroom in the Forbidden City. I was a little dismayed that someone had already thought of my idea of rating the various bathrooms in China. However, I was eager to see what made this one so good. Although it was rather clean compared to most, I think what gave it the edge was the automatic flusher – not something you see on most toilets in the ground. I must say that between the Great Wall and the toilets in China, my quads are getting quite shapely!

In the afternoon we went to the Silk Market. The salespeople are extremely aggressive here. You don’t even make eye contact and they are yelling at you, touching you, and sometimes grabbing you. They say, “Hey lady, you wanna buy nice purse (coat, shoes, etc.)? Looka looka.” Then, if you make eye contact they say things like, “I gave you special price because you have a beautiful Chinese baby.” We didn’t buy much because the salespeople were so whiney – when you talked them down in price they would get very upset with you and tell you that they’d make no money from you or that you were a bad person. I looked at tea sets in one stall and didn’t buy anything. Unfortunately, I did slightly chip a teacup when pulling out another one (it was in too tightly). The woman didn’t care until I didn’t buy from her. Then, when I left, she chased me across the market, grabbing onto my arm really tightly. I finally gave her $10 in Chinese currency for chipping the teacup. It was a little scary actually – she just kept pulling at me and whining. I did manage to haggle pretty well on an outfit for Norah and some shoes. Doug and I used the Good Cop, Bad Cop routine. I acted like the helpless little wife with the big, mean husband. I gave them a price well below what they asked for (like 30% of asking price), told them that he had the money and that was all he would let me spend (see picture above). After they chastised us for being so cruel to them to force them to sell at such a low price, we paid what we offered them. We’re much better at this than we would have imagined. I think it’s because they’re so aggressive – it’s just a game and you know they won’t sell it if they don’t make money on it (one women let me walk away when I severely lowballed her).

In the evening Sara and Norah had a little impromptu play date in the hallway. I’m worried that Norah is a little aggressive. Frankly, all the girls are aggressive in their play. Many of us caved and ordered pizza to our rooms – Mr. Pizza – the finest pizza in China. It wasn’t bad, but it was a pretty small pizza and was probably the most expensive meal we’ve had here. It was nice to have something hot and not have to go out and find something though.