A day of rather average weather put paid to my original plans to head over to the Forbidden City as planned. So instead I thought I would check out the local (indoor) shopping. As expected, a roaring trade in fake clothing (abercrobie and fitch seemed to be the most common) is going on in the peripheral shopping malls. What is more surprising is that the more central shopping streets (and there are a few) are doing an equally roaring trade in legitimate equivalents.

Anyway, despite the weather, I did manage to accumulate a couple of anecdotes:

Little emperors and their split pants: Needing my first tea of the day, I ventured into a branch of Macdonald's (Are you proud of me Pete?) and attempted (surprisingly successfully considering my accent) to purchase a 'yua cha'. However, whilst doing this I observed what appeared to be mum and grandma 'excitedly discussing' the exchange of various previously ordered food items at the behest of a fat 5yr old boy who was climbing freely on the counter and almost over the other side. What made this most interesting was his short pants had a deliberate split from front to back, such that his dignity was quite visible to all and sundry in the queue. This I took in my stride would have erased from my mind had I not seen another child with the same 'ventilated' trousers on later in the day. This time a rather well dressed mummy was holding him up in the air - legs up, flap open - about a foot above a street waste bin in the middle of a particularly busy pedestrian shopping area. I should have been quicker in reaching for my camera, as then I would have been able to post an image of the little guy in mid crap! A little googling shows these are known as kaidangku and an established part of Chinese child rearing!

Struggling Artist Scam: Highlight of the day had to be my first encounter with 2 rather innocuos scam artists. Whilst sitting on a wall outside the silk market (centre of the cheesy Chinese antique/painting/pearls/mahjong set industry) I was approached by a girl and her 'cousin' (both students and about 19/20) who after making small talk for a while were desperate for my critical opinion of their work in painting 'exhibition' nearby. Needless to say alarm bells rang, but they were endearing and it was the middle of the day so I indulged them for about 30 minutes of chatting and eventually followed them round the corner to the 'art gallery' (ie small room at back of courtyard with handwritten english sign saying 'gallery'). After being shown innumerate pictures (all identical to ones I had seen piled to the ceiling in the market only hours before) that they claimed to have either painted themselves or their tutor (who was both a man and a woman depending on which one I asked) whist they dutifully solicited my artistic opinion (and keanly wrote down in big 'visitors book') I eventually tried to make my exit... This is where the totally unexpected mention of a 'donation' came out - supposedly to help them go to Copenhagen (apparently last year the school went to Barcelona but it wasn't very 'good'). As you can expect, knowing me, I was having none of it. But as a final attempt to beat me into submission, the guy insisted on demonstrating his caligraphy by painting a personalised scroll with Petra and I's name in Chinese (he was a hopeless romantic you see). When I actually saw how cack-handed his writing was (especially compared to the work he had claimed to have done only 5 minutes before), I had to hold in my laughter and in the end took pity on him and gave them 50Yuan (8 bucks). This was obviously far too much, as it made their day but was pretty much the going rate I had seen earlier and seemed perfect value to me for over an hours entertainment...(Petra: clear some space on the wall for one more piece of clutter).

Anyway, I have been typing for over an hour now (see below) and have to go and shower in preparation for my first encounter with the local nightlife...

PS: The other great Chinese (Fire)Wall is definitely in action...Despite a verifiable ADSL2 network level connection speed (yes, the hostel's router still has the default admin password) surfing in China is almost dial up slow!