just look, no buy, pretty lady

there is so much to jamaica it's hard to pick one subject and stick to it, whenever i try to talk about one thing there're hundreds others so closely connected to it, that it's almost impossible to make it a somewhat coherent story, or any story at all

let me then start with something typical for all 'southern' or non-western cultures, i.e. haggling. i think i came to jamaica with wrong expectations, hoping i can get pretty much anything for a quarter of an asking price. well, it might be true for less touristy places like black river but hectic kingston or negril swarmed with american springbreakers - forget it. many people didn't even bother haggling after a minute or two when they didn't get a desired price. at first, i haggled restlessly just for the fun of it, not for those couple of american dollars i was keeping in my pocket. i though, ignorant me, that maybe all the tricks i learned in india i could i apply here, to no avail, calling them friends and portraying myself as a poor polish student simply didn't do the trick in jamaica, and one more thing - walking off from their stand, to my great surprise, simply made matters worse, they didn't run after you, like in india or arabic countries. we were wandering where it came from, this attitude and to be honest i dunno. sure thing they're spoiled by americans who are happy to get twenty per cent off (making the locals roar with laughter), either way, we could always get something off, unless we were asked a regular price, but even then we were so used to being tricked that we tried to haggle nevertheless,
some sellers were defiant, most very kind telling us to 'just look, you don't have to buy, pretty lady', agnieszka even heard 'you insult me by walking off', well, my friend, you insult me by giving me such price in the first place