#Person1#: You have been here for how long? Four months now?
#Person2#: Yeah, about.
#Person1#: Do you know Chinese better now?
#Person2#: Oh, definitely. I remember, when I first arrived in Guangzhou, my girlfriend was haggling with a sales clerk over the price of a mobile phone.
#Person1#: Oh, yeah. Many Chinese like to bargain. It happens almost everywhere.
#Person2#: I mean, I understand that. But the speed of the conversation got faster and faster, until it seemed to me that they would fight. My perception of the tone was that it was a violent shouting match. The truth was that it was a perfectly normal conversation.
#Person1#: A shouting match? You're so funny. You must be exaggerating. I don't believe it.
#Person2#: I am not exaggerating at all. I'm telling you the truth. That was how I felt at that time.
#Person1#: Yes, perhaps. Chinese usually don't notice that sort of thing. Maybe it's quite natural to us.
#Person2#: Yes, absolutely true.
#Person2# felt that his girlfriend's bargaining with a sales cleck in Chinese sounded like a shouting match. #Person1# thinks he must be exaggerating.
dicuss Chinese haggling