The Violin

I made the mistake of picking up a violin from one of the street vendors in the old antique market. It was clearly out of tune, so I began to tune it by ear. By the time I was done there was a group of about 8 old Chinese male street vendors surrounding me. The shop owner motioned for me to come around to the back of his stall, where he immediately pulled out another violin from inside. It was obviously much nicer than those on the street, and as I played on it for a minute he pulled out the ubiquitous calculator which was really our only mode of communication. 1500 RMB, which I clearly could have brought down to 1000 RMB ($125 US). Probably a great deal for the instrument at this price, I just had no way of carrying it around with me. When I told him no (which you don’t really ever say directly in Chinese culture anyways) he began talking very fast, appeared to be more than a little agitated, and I had to push my way through the group of old men just to get him to back off. I felt a little better about ditching the guy when I saw Caro and the other couple we were with in similar heated debates at their respective stalls 30 seconds later.