Life and such in China

So the other day, my fiance and I were wandering the Tibetan market in town, checking out the nomads and monks that were getting ready to head back out to the grasslands. Whilst wandering about, we ran into two monks from Sakya monastery (in the Shigatse region), said "Hello." We talked for minute, and then one went "We are from Sayka monastery, you give me money!" I said, no, you're a monk, you don't need money. He was okay with that and wandered off to ask someone else. (If you ever travel out here, you should NEVER give a monk money. They get all that they need from their monastery, and more from general poor people who wish to gain karma points. Besides-why give money to a guy that's wearing a nicer watch than most people in the U.S. wear? So the rule of thumb-just say, politely, no-you don't need it, and move on.) About ten minutes later, we encounter this Muslim (quasi) guy selling this stuff I call Weigar cake. It's a kosher cake-made with sugar, nuts, and dried fruits. Really quite good. We proceeded to have a serious miscommunication that resulted in a different price than what I thought we had originally agreed upon. Then we argued, and a crowd (a big one) gathered to watch the foreigner get cheated. We continued to talk, I called a friend in town for some help with language, the crowd grew larger. Finally, after some time, we got away from the whole affair-but still were rather soundly cheated. Bummer. But, that is how it goes here, being a foreigner. You can't speak well, especially the local dialect, and they know it, so they cheat you. Sometimes there's no way around it, like this time. At least the cake was good.