I had the coolest experience today.

I had the coolest experience today. I went down to old Shekou to get a few things for my class today and I was looking for a fly swatter. How would you ask a Chinese person for a fly swatter? I went to this store and asked a lady if she had a fly swatter, but she had no idea what I was talking about, so I started using sounds and drawing pictures and using examples to communicate "fly swatter". She had no idea what I was talking about. So she went and got a guy in the next shop who spoke a tiny bit of English and I went through the same explanation using sounds and pictures and he thought I wanted a badmitton racket. He had no idea what I was talking about, so he went on his computer and went on a Google translation website and they figured out what I was talking about. A fly is called a "chwongying" and a fly swatter is called simply a "Pi". So, he calls another shop and tells me that he was going to go get it for me and he wanted to know how many I needed. He came back about ten minutes later with battery powered fly swatters. You put batteries in them and they electrocute the flies. So I had to tell him that I was sorry, but that I just needed fly swatters without batteries, so the guy gets back on his bike and gets four regular fly swatters. He came back asked for 20 rmbs ($2.90), so I said that was ridiculous; that he deserved much more, so I gave him 20 rmbs for the fly swatters and an extra 50 rmbs for helping me out. (Gavin)