Day 42 The Fabric Market

Work today, if you could even call it that, was pretty great. I learned lots of great facts like the specifics of the endangerment of the blue fin tuna and all of the jeopardy questions from the past year as well as got through the majority of “And Then There Were None,” which is what I am currently reading. As you might be able to guess, work has dwindled a little bit. Our company professes to love us but we’re not so convinced after examining the work load they have given us. It’s getting a little ridiculous but we’re doing our best.

We got permission to leave work early, though, because we went with Zach’s mom (who is Taiwanese and one of those scary Chinese ladies who will make you do what she wants) to the fabric market. This was an interesting experience for me, probably pretty unique from other tourists’ experiences, kind of like the rest of my experiences here. For example, a tourist might work out getting a suit for 300-600 RMB out of fairly nice material with ok tailoring. Honestly, I would probably have been happy with this and would have patted myself on the back for getting a really good deal. Mrs. Williams had no such intentions- it’s all about quality and it’s worth paying more for it. Honestly, it was pretty hectic. This lady is really nice and very helpful with the non-English speaking tailor, but was convinced she knew what I wanted (she didn’t) and I might end up spending a fortune on this suit, it’s yet to be determined. As it turned out, I am having a pretty generic light colored brown suit being made (if you think this will look bad or unstylish, don’t tell me, even though I think you might be right) and then I’ll try it on, tell them what I don’t like, and then they’ll fix it. Honestly, the whole experience was sort of a mess but I think it will probably turn out in the end. (And this was just my suit- we had to deal with Evan, James, and Zach, too. Those boys were pretty picky but what was really funny was Mrs. Williams constant comments on how fit Evan and James were--haha).

After the fabric market, Evan, James and I went with the Williams' (Mrs., Mr., and Zach) to dinner. Over the course of the meal, Mrs. Williams tried to convince us to forsake the Motel 168 for a nicer apartment in Puxi, tried to get us to go get foot massages after dinner, tried to get James to go by Chinese herbal medicine at the mall with her after dinner, and tried to get James to go back with Zach to his apartment to take a bath instead of a shower. Like I said, really nice lady, but super passive aggressive and pretty set in her ways. And let’s just say James wasn’t at his best at the end of the night.