Kashgar
We have been in Kashgar a few days now and seen quite a bit of the town.
Tonight we had an interesting experience. We went to a local Uighur Restaurant and ordered some basic dishes. The custom here is to write the price on a bill and leave it at the table. We started getting a little suspicious when everything seemed to be rounded up to the nearest 10. Then we asked how much Sprite was from a waitress who said 3 and the one who had written 4 on our bill started to pull her away. So we asked another waitress what the menu said for each item. She was honest, because she didn't know that the other waiters were trying to rip us off. The other waitress started pulling her away again, but we had a lot better idea of what was going on. So we went up to the cashier and left the bill at the table. The waitress brought it up behind us and handed it to Eric who said "bu hao" and promptly threw it in the trash. After standing around and saying whatever we knew how to say in Chinese, they started to lower the price little by little. But we still weren't satisfied. I went over to another customer with the menu and asked him to show me how much a certain item was. The waiter tried to stop me, but I kept him back. Even after seeing the correct price shown on their menu, they still would not give the correct price. We started to add up everything individually, when the cashier said 10 kuai for two bowls of rice. At that, I got pretty upset, and started to ask the whole restaurant if 10 kuai was how much rice really cost. The look of the people in the restaurant was priceless as I asked them this question. The intended effect was achieved and the guy backed down some more on the price. I turned around gave him 40 kuai and we walked out.
That's the first time something like that has happened at a restaurant. Luckily we have lived in China long enough to know how things work, but its still frustrating. (Secretly it was fun too...:)
Tonight we had an interesting experience. We went to a local Uighur Restaurant and ordered some basic dishes. The custom here is to write the price on a bill and leave it at the table. We started getting a little suspicious when everything seemed to be rounded up to the nearest 10. Then we asked how much Sprite was from a waitress who said 3 and the one who had written 4 on our bill started to pull her away. So we asked another waitress what the menu said for each item. She was honest, because she didn't know that the other waiters were trying to rip us off. The other waitress started pulling her away again, but we had a lot better idea of what was going on. So we went up to the cashier and left the bill at the table. The waitress brought it up behind us and handed it to Eric who said "bu hao" and promptly threw it in the trash. After standing around and saying whatever we knew how to say in Chinese, they started to lower the price little by little. But we still weren't satisfied. I went over to another customer with the menu and asked him to show me how much a certain item was. The waiter tried to stop me, but I kept him back. Even after seeing the correct price shown on their menu, they still would not give the correct price. We started to add up everything individually, when the cashier said 10 kuai for two bowls of rice. At that, I got pretty upset, and started to ask the whole restaurant if 10 kuai was how much rice really cost. The look of the people in the restaurant was priceless as I asked them this question. The intended effect was achieved and the guy backed down some more on the price. I turned around gave him 40 kuai and we walked out.
That's the first time something like that has happened at a restaurant. Luckily we have lived in China long enough to know how things work, but its still frustrating. (Secretly it was fun too...:)
posted by Chris at
12:43 AM
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