Up ahead on the right is the Pearl Market, four stories of people trying to screw foreigners. I paid 300 kuai (about $37 US) for a 2 GB Kingston SD memory card. It was the lowest I could get any number of vendors to go. I wanted to pay 200, it seemed like the fair price, but I couldn't get anyone a penny below 300. A friend of mine was trying to buy the same card when her watch went off, so she said she was on a tour that was leaving and would never come back (she's also Vietnamese)...she got it for 200. Though I feel a bit cheated (and by the way, we were told by Catherine and Bonnie that it's also a haven for pickpockets and you need to keep everything by your side), I really needed the memory card and it wasn't a horrific price (people started at 500). On the upswing though, I got to talk a little French with some visiting flight attendants, which was pretty sweet. Incidentally, the reason it's called the "Pearl Market" is because on the fourth floor there's a huge selection of all-real pearls, if that's your thing. Since it isn't and my girlfriend isn't in town, I decided to put it off browsing that for another time, with 100% knowledge of what I should pay. Be careful when you come to China, I overpaid about 6 times for the first thing I bought here (a pair of shoes), but the experience was invaluable. Thank god I didn't try to buy a memory card (in fact, I actually paid about the same price...)
EAP China! Robert Klein