I was on a trip with my family to a certain part of Asia just last week. We’ve been told about a night market that sells “high-end” products at a very cheap price. Naturally, I was very excited and couldn’t wait for night to fall to begin my shopping spree. When dusk finally sets in, my hands began to itch to spend, spend, and spend. When we arrived at the entrance of the street, the sidewalks were filled with rows and rows of stalls. I could see many tourists window shopping and coupled with the stallholders advertising their goods, my anticipation for a really good buy escalates.

All of my senses were awakened from what the night market was offering and so, off I went with my fiancé (now my husband) in search of what we were looking for; shoes and t-shirts. Now, this market carries all the imitations goods anyone would never dream off, obviously, the prices would be reasonable as well. But weren’t we poorly and sorely mistaken.

The small paths were crowded with people. You could literally molest others without having any intention to do so. As we were nudging our way forward, we suddenly heard a ruckus. A stallholder was chasing away an Arab tourist who was merely standing in front of his stall taking refuge from the rain. Not to be out done, the tourist shouted back showing off his prowess. The atmosphere was intense as you could sense a fight was about to break out between the two men. What made the situation worse was the fact that the surrounding stallholders were edging the argument on. They were laughing and excited for a fight to begin. I was scared as I was right beside that particular stall when it all began. I didn’t want to be in the crossfire. Hey, I was there to shop, not to be caught in the middle of a fight. The Arab tourist’s wife sensing what I was sensing pulled him away from the mad man. But without leaving behind the most beautiful word in the English dictionary- the four-lettered “F” word. My spending spree was not turning out the way I planed.

As we kept trudging along, we finally come across a shoe stall which carried the design that my fiancé wanted. We asked of the price and it turned out be $180! I tried bargaining for $150 but he said No. my fiancé decided it was too expensive for a fake and walked off. But as we were walking off, he offered to sell it at $130! We were excited at the $50 off and decided to get it. I was afraid if we decided not to buy after the offer, he would call his buddies and beat us up. I didn’t want my fiancé to spend the night in jail for trying to protect me. After we bought the shoe, we feel proud of ourselves at the great bargain we got.