China Trip

The trip was fun, enjoyable and eye-opening. My parents and I bought approximately one thousand dollars worth of trinkets, clothes, and jewelry in China. Almost all of it was done through haggling. The goal was to try to drive the price down, while the salespeople would try to keep the price up.

We went to two different pearl stores that were government-owned, and to two different jade stores also government-owned.

My mom once asked about shopping for cheaper pearls and jades at a department store that was privately owned. One of the tour guides said, "No, don't buy it. They all are fake."

We suspected that the government had a hand in convincing the tour guides to make sure that all the tourists go only to stores that send all the money to the government. It probably also made sure that the tour guides would never take us to any place that might inform us of the working conditions of the laborers.

In Wu Xi, we went to a tea shop, and my mom caught sight of a street sign about a suit-making factory. She pointed it out to me and my step-dad. "You see the suits? They must make clothes there," she half-heartedly joked.

"That's the workshop? Where workers make one dollar a day?" I asked. "Where they put the tag 'Made in China'?"