Finally we had a chance to go shopping at Sanlitun shopping complex on our last day to buy souvenirs.
Not unlike Pertama Complex or Campbell Complex, this shopping areas has stalls side by side. The main difference is that in Sanlitun all the sales people were Chinese. However in KL, it is now quite normal to find foreigners manning the stalls!
Clothes being the main items on sale, we were able to buy an imitation Diesel jeans for RM45! We decided to buy from the young man manning the stall as his opening price was 100 yuan (about RM45) which we thought was quite decent for a starting quote.
Speaking to the young man who sold us the jeans, we found out that most of the sales people were from Anhui province in China. Coming from poor families and a province where they could not find jobs, they decided to move to Beijing to work.
Their working hours: 9.30 am to 8.30 pm, 7 days a week. Their only annual holiday is 2 weeks during CNY where they make the trip home to Anhui. Their children (one child only) will be looked after by family members in their province as it would be expensive to bring them over to Beijing.
"Only rich people can afford more than one child as a fine has to be paid" said the salesgirl who spoke to us about her life in China.
"No we do not earn commissions only a salary" was the reply when I asked them why they were so eager to make a sale. I was impressed with their English although they spoke it with an American slang.
"All of us here have to speak English" was one of the salesgirls reply when I commented on her English.
It was also at the jeans stall that I distributed some more tracts to the sales persons who took them gratefully and read them on the spot!
It was also here that I found the panda bedroom slippers that I had searched high and low for since coming to Beijing. God heard my prayers!
Amanda specifically wanted a pair of bedroom slippers from China. To find one with panda faces was a bonus! However the opening price was RM75 equivalent (Chinese yuan is twice that of our currency). We asked for RM20. The salesperson said No. We then upped our offer to RM25. Again the salesgirl said No. We were walking away when she said "Come back. Ok" It was a bargain as the bedroom slippers were of a good quality and beautiful to look at.
It was also here that we saw cute panda fridge magnets with 4 magnetic points. Now this was something I could buy for my Malay colleagues without them being afraid of my gifts being "non-halal"!
Again the opening price was RM175 per small panda fridge magnet. We asked for RM5. After buying 10 magnets we went to another stall selling the same magnets and asked for RM4. The salesgirl who also opened with RM175 per magnet finally agreed to sell us for RM4 per piece!
However I could not find any foodstuffs to buy in Sanlitun as this was basically a clothing and souvenir market spanning 5 floors.
In any event our Chinese tour leader gave us samplings of the Chinese tidbits for which he took orders from us for purchase: chilli nuts with a numbing after-taste like szechuan cuisine, steamed chestnuts, flour fried like nuts, dried apples, sweet nuts biscuits etc, thus further purchase of tidbits were not necessary.
The final dinner was a lavish Cantonese dinner at the Peninsular Restaurant. This restaurant had waitresses dressed up like the ladies of the palace court wearing ancient Chinese clogs. The entire ambiance of the place also looked like something from the Chinese era of emperors and empresses.
The dishes were typically Cantonese like fatty pork, steamed fish, sotong, snow fungus and vegetables, eggplants, plain tasteless soup, man tou, bamboo shoots, rooster (not chicken) with the rooster head served together and many other dishes. There was also starchy Chinese koay teow which was really unique in taste and texture.
Each meal had typically more than 10 dishes served with quality Chinese tea and Yanjing beer which has a mild taste.
My comments on Chinese meals in China: generally oily, lavished with sauces, tasteless soups, innards of fowls that can be deceptive, starchy, delicious steamed rice, delicious man tou, fatty pork (but delicious), ducks (and so many parts of it cooked up in different ways), some cuisine which were chilli-hot with a numbing after-taste.....you have to try it to experience it....
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