continued from part 1

Since we weren't seeing any pearls yet, I asked a young guy about 20 years old who was selling jade in a store if he spoke English. He said yes, and our conversation consisted of this:

"Can you tell me where I can find people who are selling pearls?"

"Yes, yes, pearl"

"Ummm...yes, pearls. Can you tell me where I can buy some pearls?"

"What is pearl? It is like jade?"

"No, pearls are white. They are not a stone like jade. They grow in oysters. You know, in the ocean....water. They take them out and make necklaces", all said while miming the entire thing.

"Ocean? Out of water?" Ocean, I do not know ocean. Pearl is like jade?"

Never mind that we were seeking freshwater pearls and I have led the young man astray. After a few more gestures including some from Taylor I could see that we were getting nowhere and thanked him as he pointed us to some other stores and said maybe they could help us.

Meanwhile, I was repeatedly checking my watch to see if we were going to get out of there on time and back to meet our driver at the hotel to go to the airport. We found a white older guy who said he spoke some English, but he didn't have the word "pearl" in his vocabulary either. Judging from his accent, I think he was from somewhere in Europe.

I was starting to feel a little more daring as the clock was ticking so I asked two younger girls standing outside their clothing shops if they spoke English. I asked them in Mandarin and they understood me!! My kids were sufficiently impressed although they just heard about 30% of my entire Chinese vocabulary. We had hoped the younger people would have more English but had no luck so far. We found another street where Shannon thought she spotted pearls, but they were fake and were in stores that had millions of glass beads for sale.

Continued...