"Hullloooo, you buy?" he bleated.
"NO." was my initial and well-practised reponse. But then...I realised I did want to buy one of his books.
"I need that guide book! The one for Laos! For my upcoming great expedition to Laos!" was my thought. I pointed at the book.
"Ahh, you buy! 300,000!" the wily saleman cheered.
"Cái này 300,000? Nhiều quá!! Em không muốn!" I retorted. He may be wily, but I also possess a small quantity of wile, buried deep beneath my blonde hair. 300,000 is how much you'd pay for this book in England, and then it wouldn't be photocopied and shit.
"Ha! Haha! Hahaha!"
The man laughed.
"Oh, you live in Vietnam?! I'm sorry, I thought you were a tourist. Ok, 180,000."
This book had become $6 cheaper in a matter of seconds, just because I'm not a tourist. We bartered for a bit longer, the wily saleman pointing out how essential the book was for any upcoming trip to Laos, and the not-very-wily-but-at-least-not-a-tourist girl pointing out how poor the photocopying was, and look, these pages don't even open. Eventually I paid 150,000, remarking to my companion James that if it's half the price if I'm not a tourist, it'd be half the price again if I wasn't a Westener. Anyway, I was happy with the book.
A bit later, Dung came and joined us, full of all his fucking street-sense and mother-tongue Vietnamese. I showed him my new purchase excitedly.
"How much did you pay for this? 150,000?! That's so expensive! I wouldn't pay more than 60,000 for this. Look, the photocopying's so bad!"
I console myself that the black hair dye, slitty-eye-surgery and anorexia necessary for me to be sold the book at a fair price would cost more than the $4.50 I lost out on.
