Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Church at Beijing - China Tour XIV

Jai Gurudev !!



There are not much Churches that we can spot in Beijing. My colleage , in fact had to seek the help of the internet to locate a church in Beijing and gathered  the necessary details like place & route to visit the Church . He was very eager to visit the Church and offer his prayers there.

Hence one Sunday , we went to the Lama Temple and from there , we planned to go to the Church.
Since , my other friend was not feeling well, we had to pause in the midway and took rest in a Mobile shop , when my colleague visited the Church and returned. Hence , we diid not get the opportunity to go to the Church there.
But from his words, we could make out that , that's a wonderful place.And not much of the Chinese were seen around . Once again , only foreigners could be spotted there in the Church. And the time, he went , there was a wedding ceremony going on in the Church , he said.
He prayed and captured a lovely photograph of the Church and returned with a filled heart of having visited the Jesus in Beijing too...
As far as the Chinese marriage is concerned, it will  not take place in a religious hall  , but in hotels or some halls. Secondly , the Chinese follow the strict practise of "One Man- One Woman policy " , after marriage .
As long as the discipline is maintained, is there a need for a religion ?!

Love & smiles...

 

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Xiu-Tsui Market - China Tour XIII

Jai Gurudev !!

Going all the way to China , our mind naturally thinks of doing shopping of the world famous , " Cheap & Best " China articles - especially electronic gadgets , though we were aware that we would be landing up buying fake items .
We started enquiring about the famous shopping place in Beijing and identified that " Xiu Tshui" market is one such place.
After gathering information about the way to Xiu Tshui market , we took the subway train and reached there , after visiting the Lama temple , only to find that that is something similar to Burma Bazaar of our place .

Xiu Tsui Market st Beijing



HandBags Shop at Xiu Tsui

Xiu Tshui market , as the name implictaes is not a market sort of place, but resembles the mall culture. It is a 9 floor building. Each floor equips many shops of items of one particular sorts , say 4 th floor is exculsively for electronic items like Mobiles, Laptops etc. Another foor  is for leather articles, handbags & suitcases. In the nineth floor, there is a hotel . All the shops look alike and we miss out the way quite often due to this .

The shops look as glossy as the glittering items present in it. Decorative and bright lightings illuminate the whole place inside the building co. Added to this is the fascinating looks of the chinese sales girls , who dress themselves up so attractively and stand at the entrance of each shop and welcome the customers by calling out to them  . They speak good English compartively to the other chinese . I remember one most commonly word used by all of them , that is,  " Friend-a " in their conversation . Their complexion and the shiny and  polished looks is something to be really admired at.

Xiu Tshui market is exclusively for all the foreign consumers , I think , because , hardly any chinese customers were seen there. Those young sales girls easily recognise us Indians and do not entertain us as much as the other foreigners. Their general opinion is that , we , Indians bargain to the lowest price. 
In general , we could see 90 percent of the shop keepers were only ladies , some were found pregnant , some with kids , yet they do the business with so much zeal and interest .




In the beginning of our shopping , we were shocked to hear the price of the items , marketed there. Later , we realised , the price tag shows about 10 times the actual price of the item. And one needs to do extensive bargaining with those girls, to shop effectively  . I feel it was something like a game sort , very funny.

Much of the shopping time gets wasted due to this bargaining game.And we get exhausted totally due to this bargaining . All the electronic gadgets sold were fake ones. People from Hyderabad had come in huge numbers to buy these items exclusively in lots. The handbags were very pretty and the prices were even prettierI mean costlier .
The toy items and gift articles were so tempting to buy , even we managed to bargain and picked few.We also purchased few fake mobiles like Samsung Galaxy II , watches , handbags etc..
And when we left the Xiu Tshui market , we felt that the shopping experience was not regular and common  , but a different  one altogether ... 



Love & smiles...



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