I've been to Korea 13 times. In Seoul there's a huge International shopping district called Itawon (sp?). Very common to see people from many nations in one shop at the same time. I really enjoy watching people talk amongst themselves in their native tongue, German, French, whatever. Then the shop personnel talking in their native tongue, Korean. Then when it comes time to negotiate on a purchase both parties speak English.
When we were in China, we were buying some stuff for ourselves and gifts for family. We went into this underground "shopping center" that was nice but just a maze of stores. Figured if the place caught on fire we were dead since finding a way out would be difficult to say the least. :shocked: Did not mention that to the wife until we were back at the hotel. :laughing::laughing::laughing:
We are Gweilos and there are danged few westerners seen where we are so the shop keeper(s) see dollar signs when looking at us. Among other things.
We knew to go to a certain shop for some of the items, and like most of stores, it was very small about 10'x10'. We mentioned what we were looking to buy and they waved us through a hidden door behind the counter into another itty bitty room that was about 10'x10'. We start asking for the things we want and the store keepers English was good enough for us to broadly communicate. They don't have quite what we are looking for so the lady talks to her husband who is out front and he comes back and goes through yet another hidden door into what must have been another 10'x10' room! :laughing::laughing::laughing: The shop was like a Russian doll with room after hidden room. He returns with more stuff and we finally find what we are looking to buy so the dealing really starts. :laughing::laughing::laughing:
We simplified things and just put everything in one pile, even though there were two "groups" of us buying. We started negotiating for the price but since our Cantonese was non existent, and while their English was better than our Cantonese, speaking was going to slow things down so we used a calculator to "bid." They would put in a price we would shake our head and put in another number. They would say no and put in a number. Back and forth it went until we had a deal. :thumbsup::laughing::laughing::laughing:
I think many people could speak English but they did not want to loose face by not speaking it well. Given our skill with Cantonese was zero, they had nothing to be ashamed about but that is China. After shopping, we went and ate at a local Dim Sum restaurant where we were having trouble communicating with the older women at the counter. A young man, who seemed to be the delivery guy, helped out and he had pretty good English. :thumbsup:
Ironically, we ended up going to Walmart in China. :confused3::shocked:
It smelled like Walmart. It looked like Walmart. It has the usual Walmart stuff. But the difference was they had employees all over the place, it was clean and the shelves were all neat. :thumbsup: The funny thing is we popped out on one of the main aisles and saw another Western couple! :shocked: We were all shocked to see each other.
Turned out they were Americans teaching English to the locals. :laughing::laughing::laughing:
We found Americans in a Chinese Walmart AND the can of Turtle Wax we were looking to buy! :laughing::laughing::laughing:
Later,
Dan
. (Probably never even met Crocodile Dundee.)
