David: It’s not every day you go into a silk market, bargain to the fullest and narrowly escape violence.

Shopping in this incredible seven-story structure filled with every type of product from knockoff suitcases to pearl necklaces, I was taken down to a private room in the basement. After a while, I was led to another room with even more items. About 10 minutes into negotiating, a saleswoman got on the phone and told someone to come down and make us buy their stuff by roughing us up. Luckily, we had a Chinese speaker with us who heard all of this and we rushed out unscathed. Crazy experience. I urge everyone to stay away from private rooms in a silk market.

Tiffany: Dennis, Alex, David and I went to the silk market again to buy some last-minute things. Ushered to a back room to look at suitcases and bags, we were disappointed by how slow the service was and by how hard it was to bargain. The saleswoman seemed mad at us for not accepting a price, but it was so bad that I think we did the right thing by bolting.

As we walked to lunch, a lady approached us and asked if we wanted to buy DVDs. We said sure. She took us to this steak restaurant — that was closed during lunch — to check out bootlegged DVDs. Turns out she was also trying to rip us off by charging 50-60 RMB for titles that weren’t that new. The haggle market, as I like to call it, is getting smart during this Olympic week. They know they can get some foreigners to accept a higher price, making it hard for those with a number in mind to barter effectively.

– David Braun, Tiffany.