A Trip of bargaining in U.S.- Mexico Border

Original post on June 15, 2007 in Chinese.

First time I went to U.S.A. was at 17 years old. Me and my father were going to see my brother. He was there for Ph.D studied. We met together in California, he took plane from Iowa, but before we met, my dad and I planned to join a local tour that arranged by my cousin. We were heading to southern of C.A. and the last day of the trip, we were in U.S.- Mexico border.

To be honest, I don't like the place. Really a mess there. Many of strange stores each of them was all selling "Viagra". It was really confused me since Viagra is prescription drug if I wasn't wrong. Despite the drug stores, there were many shops selling stuff to the tourists like us-- foreigners. And the price of products were very unacceptable!! Since the temperatures were so hot, my dad needed a hat to block sun light so he went to one of those shops to buy a hat and wanted me asking the price of the hat for him.

I was asking the boss and the shop owner told me the hat was 10 USD. I counted it and thought: "Gee, It's 340 TWD of that stupid hat?!" I said: "it is too expensive! How about 3 USD?" The boss didn't accept the price later he said an idiom in Chinese: "馬馬虎虎 (Ma Ma Hu Hu)." I think he probably misunderstood the meaning of this Chinese idiom. Because he acted was like he tried to tell me the hat is good. And I replied: "Okay, ma ma hu hu......so you don't take 3 USD? Then how about 5 USD?" (I thought it was about 150 TWD) The boss: "Okay." When he took the money, I asked him if he knew the meaning of the idiom he just used? He told me he didn't. I said: "Well, that means your goods was not good quality." The Mexican just smiled and said: " I see. But my stuff is good."

Back to the bus my dad asked me the whole things. I told him all about the story and he was very happy, because he got the hat with only half price. Now he still uses the hat when he went to the farmer market in Taiwan.