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An advert from the Beijinger magazine this week:

Weath of nations
Meet, mingle, make money

Beijing's most exclusively club and caviar cafe
-Beijing's 100 richest Chinese men
-the number one richest foreigner from every country who also reside in Beijing
-anyone named Adam Smith
Address: We'll tell you
Email: membership@weathofnations.com

I don't think I qualify but it made me laugh! I heard today that there are actually more multimillionaires in Beijing than there are foreigners. This city is crazy.

What have I done this week?
-Classical Chinese exams
-ThinkInChina, a group that I'm involved in ran an awesome talk by Prof Xie Tao on Sino-American relations
-ate a lot of Taiwanese pancakes...
-ran out of English teabags. This is the beginning of a serious problem
- discovered that only British people put 'x's at the end of texts and messages! We have been confusing Americans we know here for so long without even realising! I had no idea that it was a British quirk, it's blown my mind.

In other news...
The heating has just turned on! Heating is provided by the government in the northern part of china from November 15th to March 15th, individual buildings have no control over it. However this year because the 18th Party Congress is coming up so all the government officials will be in town, and because there was forecast a snowstorm soon, we have had the heating turned on ahead of schedule! The heating will be at 18 degrees or higher inside for the rest of winter, and I'm so glad! At the moment the temperature is still bearable but it is just about to plummet into the minus numbers and will become drastically cold very soon, too cold for snow even apparently. I'm bracing myself for that, jaded Beijingers have not spoken favourably of the winter here.
My Internet and particular access to the blocked websites has got so much slower because of the upcoming party congress, it's so annoying.


Shopping

Shopping etiquette in China is very different from in the UK and I feel obligated to attempt some kind of explanation. Here are some basics for your typical shopping experience in Golden Towers indoor market near where I live, which is where we buy almost everything now excluding food. It's four stories of little stalls, two floors are exclusively clothes and shoes and the upper two have stalls selling almost anything else you can think of.

If there isn't a price on it, you should never accept the price the shop owner asks for. Haggling is a must.
You can't try on clothes, which makes it an issue for things like jeans. Coats and jumpers are sometimes allowed to be tried but only if you ask nicely, and it depends on the stall. Luckily they are so cheap you can normally justify taking a chance on them.
If they tell you that the item is a genuine brand, pure wool, silk, leather, good quality, or original- these are all lies. Nothing is going to be real, and never pay for something based on that sort of justification.
None of the stalls have any names and are unlikely to be particularly identifiable. Most of the shop owners are playing music loudly on their laptop which means that the songs all combine with the next door stalls music and create an incoherent noise. If they aren't doing that they are sitting watching Chinese tv dramas on their smart phones.
Never appear to really like something, because then they know for sure they have a buyer. It's a bit like flirting with a shop owner and their product, you have to play hard to get! For example i say in a very uninterested tone to whoever I'm with that I have to have that hat no matter what, but examine the hat, find a loose thread, act shocked and disgusted at whatever price the stall person gives and appear to be on the point of leaving, citing the quality and extortionate price as my reason. Then I give an offer about thirty percent lower than I would be willing to pay, pitifully describe myself as a broke student and plead for a lower price, or accuse them of trying to rip me off because I'm a westerner and say I've already passed three other stalls with the same product who are willing to give me cheaper. At the end, put the item down and start to walk away slowly until they run after you agreeing. This charade has to be performed with every individual purchase, and I have to admit, it's really fun! Buying things like this is so addictive, and a lot more fun than when the price is set because it feels like you're earning your own deal in a way. It gets easier to gage what is a reasonable price to settle on when you start figuring out how much each item should cost, at first it was very hard to know if we were getting a good deal or not.