Winter is coming

Today, I went shopping with two of my fellow teachers, Aizhan and Alyssa. Both are super awesome teachers that are incredibly nice to me (and to their credit, are incredibly busy as well). Aizhan is 22, and Alyssa is 23 – both recent graduates of the university. In addition to teaching English, they both also teach second languages – Aizhan teaches Turkish, and Alyssa teaches French at a local college as well.

Today’s mission: Winter clothing.

Winter is coming, to be sure – it’s October, and temperatures as of late have been around 5-10 degrees Celsius (that’s 41-50 degrees Fahrenheit for you heathen Americans). Being that I left from California in the dead heat of the summer meant that winter clothes were extremely hard to come by, and I was woefully unprepared for what was in store for me here in Kazakhstan. I’ve yet to buy boots, but I’m told I’m going to have go with fur-lined boots regardless of whatever crunchy-hippy feelings I have about wearing fur if I want to survive with all of my toes intact when it drops 40 below.
Aizhan and the Alyssa are actually two of the first friends my age that I made here in this town, partially because they’re closer to my age and that I actually teach classes for them. Some of the older teachers seem to have an apprehension against speaking with the foreigner for fear of having their English flaws criticized or pointed out, but the younger teachers are often humble enough not to worry about such and thus, are easier to talk to.

They took to me Zangar, which is essentially a mall (with much smaller stores, granted) that was very close to the bazaar. We looked through a few stores before settling on a new thick winter jacket (purportedly feather lined, though I have my doubts) that cost about 11,000 tenge (about $81.50). Here, I made my first ugly foreigner mistake of the day.

Having been trained in the pits of bargaining desperation that is China, I was under the impression that you could bargain nearly anywhere were you go – which is untrue, apparently. The difference is if you go to the bazaar, then you can bargain – here at the store, I asked for the jacket for a price of 10,000 instead, only to be met with a blank stare and a strong sense of social awkwardness – I look to Alyssa for help, who promptly explained to me that stores are stores and bazaars are bazaars, and you don’t bargain at stores. So I’m partially embarrassed, but I quickly write it off to ignorance and buy the jacket.

We continue to the next store, where I buy a new beanie that’ incredibly thick for 2,000 tenge (14.80). In actuality, the choices I had were between the new beanie or a new chapka made out of something no less than SEA OTTER FUR, which would have cost 19,000 tenge – well over $140. The hat was warm enough, to be sure, but the images of seal clubbing kept coming up in my head – combined with the fact that it costs half my living allowance, I decided not to buy it. I’m still trying to figure out if I want to buy the Russian chapka – the big round circular fur hat that is stereotypically Russian – they’re certainly available, and people really do wear them here, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it yet for fear of looking like a tourist.

At the Bazaar, I bought long underwear, and here I made my second ugly American mistake of the day – I bargained, but started my price at 500 tenge for a 1000 tenge set of long underwear. As I looked at Aizhan and Alyssa giggling in shock, I realized I made another mistake. Again, had you been in China, 500 would be the normal price to open a bargain – apparently here, anything more than 50 tenge means you’re an ugly foreigner. So I ended up purchasing the thing for 950 tenge.

Later in the evening, we went to Red Dragon (Purportedly a Korean restaurant, though from the Chinese décor and Japanese-Korean-Chinese dishes available you’d never know) with the ambassador’s assistant, Peter, who was a nice guy and treated us out to dinner. In the evening, a group split off to go clubbing and I went off to the group that went to Heather’s house and introduced them to Settlers of Catan.