The Pearl Market

 I know nothing about jewelry.  Absolutely nothing.   And so for our entire marriage I've not given Theresa any gifts of jewelry...partly out of fear of showing my ignorance and partly out of fear that one gift would lead to the expectation of a second and a third.  I swear the stress would compound to the point of killing me.  So for 29 years I've successfully avoided the subject.

Unfortunately, the Suzhou area is big on jewelry.  Or at least big on pearls.

 There are two basic types of pearls.  Saltwater pearls and freshwater pearls.  Naturally occuring pearls are a rarity in the scheme of things.  Most of the pearls in the world are cultured.  And most of the pearls in the world are freshwater pearls.  And most of the freshwater pearls in the world come from the areas around Suzhou.  Of course, I'm relying on the internet for my figures, but when I say "most pearls in the world", it does not mean 25% or 33% or 51%.   By some accounts it's in the neighborhood of 90% of the world's freshwater pearls come from this area of China.

 On the fringes of Suzhou, near Taihu Lake, there is the pearl market.  The market is actually a collection of several building and within each building are many, many booths operated by individual entrepreneurs.  You want to buy raw pearls?  They will sell you raw pearls.  You want them to string a necklace or a bracelet or whatever?  They will string it for you while you wait.  The price?  Well, that depends upon how well you can negotiate. 

It's capitalism in all it's naked beauty.

We've become acquaintances with a couple that lives a few floors above us in the apartment block.  He is originally from England and she from Ireland.  They were telling us stories about how they've lived in various places in Asia (including China) over the past 10 years.   When I asked if they spoke Chinese, Ed...the husband...answered; "No, but my wife speaks fluent calculator".  

You see, that is how you dicker for prices in China.  The Chinese person trying to make the sale enters the starting price on a calculator and hands it to you.  Then it's up to you to enter your counter-offer.  (As a rule of thumb, you can take the starting price and divide by 5.  After that, the calculator gets passed back and forth however many times are necessary to arrive at an agreed price.  There's usually a lot of yelling and waiving of hands and walking away involved as well.  But in the end, all that matters is the number that is on the calculator at the time of the hand-shake.

For what it's worth, Theresa is getting to be pretty good at speaking calculator.