Bicycle Bargaining!

Evelyn wanted to get a bicycle. And I decided, what the heck... I'm gonna go with her and we can practice our Chinese together. It was a pretty fun experience... with me pretending to be all 中国人 native Chinese... and bargaining for a bicycle.

It actually kinda worked.. until Evelyn realized that the brakes to the bicycle that she wanted to get were not working, and I had to tell the bike guy in Chinese that the brakes needed to be fixed. Yeah... I didn't know the Chinese word for brakes. And then I had to tell them too that the alignment of the handlebars and the front tire was not proper... I can't even say that in English.. Definitely could not say it in Chinese either..! So I just said 老板，这个自行车有点问题。这个， 这个（while squeezing the brakes) 坏了！这个。。 这个。。 (Evelyn holding handlebars and making perpendicular motions with her hands) 有点。。 不一样。At times like these, hand motions and pointing while saying "zhe ge (this) is not working" in Chinese of course.. is mighty helpful. That's when they realized that I was a fake 中国人 native Chinese, and they proceeded to ask "你是华人吗？” if I was a Chinese from abroad. Obviously had to say yes, and I popped Malaysian! in there too. Especially since after that, I did not know the word for 'bicycle lock' and 'bicycle basket'. Had to again result to using hand motions. It was pretty funny.
Well.. our bargaining was not very productive at all. The bike was 380 kuai, we got it for 360 kuai. Not that much of a difference. Oh well. I was like, "我们留学生，没有钱。便宜一点吧！可以吗？三百吧！ 三百可以吧！- We're international students, we don't have money. 300 kuai please, please?!" I love bargaining. Can you already tell?
Nope, he sold it to us for 360 kuai. But what we managed to do was to get free fixing service 维修是免费的 for Evelyn's bike if it ever got spoilt within the next 3 months.

So yeah.. Evelyn has a pink bike now. It's pretty awesome. I'll take pictures of it. And put it up next time.