Every Saturday morning we walk the one hundred yards from our apartment to the best-known street market in Beijing and spend an hour or so haggling.
It is here in Xiushui market, known to tourists as "Silk Alley", that we have been introduced to the cut and thrust of driving a hard bargain, Chinese-style.
The T-shaped market has dozens of stalls and most of the coats, sweaters, shirts, scarves, shoes and runners on sale have expensive designer labels such as Ralph Lauren, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger and Polo, to name just a few. Some items are the real thing. The rest are very good imitations.
Before you even get to the stalls, young men and women pounce to sell counterfeit CDs, CD-ROMs and DVDs. The going rate is $1 for a CD, and $1.50 for a DVD. And the quality is not half bad.
All human life can be found at Xiushui, from the elderly traders who sit on their fold-up chairs to the younger, pushy stallholders who will do anything to get their hands on hard cash. By the time we hit the alley at about 11.30 a.m. it is lunchtime for the traders, most of whom are crouched on their hunkers eating their noodles and bean soup.
It seems a lifetime ago, but it is only four weeks since our first encounter with these battle-hardened Chinese sales warriors. The first thing you must remember is if you are a Westerner and don't speak Chinese, you have "sucker" written all over your face. If you don't know the rules, you will be fleeced.
Only 24 hours in the country and in desperate need of warm clothing, we were about to hand over the 600 yuan ($65) opening price asked by a trader for a coat when I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. A Swiss woman looking on whispered: "You never pay the asking price. You never pay more than a third."
This, she explained, was how the system worked. Whatever the trader demanded, you knock a zero off the price, and work your way up from there.
Fifteen minutes and some serious haggling later we walked away with the coat for 200 yuan. The trader seemed satisfied, and we felt we had clinched the deal of the century. It was all a game, and it was fun.
Last week we went to a local fruit market where few Westerners go. One trader, who thought all his Christmases had come together, asked for the equivalent of $24 for some apples, bananas, grapes and oranges. We left the fruit behind and took our business elsewhere.
Unfortunately, markets like Xuishui are under threat, and with that an important part of Beijing life and tradition. China's imminent entry to the World Trade Organisation will require it to pull its socks up when it comes to the rules and regulations of global trade. That could be bad news for the imitators and counterfeiters.
Apart from WTO accession, the sheer pace of development in Beijng has already resulted in the closure of another famous market, Sanlitun. Based in the city's bar district, it was shut down with little warning in December to make way for an office development.
Silk Alley trader Tian Wenjun fears the worst. "It would be a shame if this market closed but I think it is inevitable this will happen in the next few years." But in the meantime, the haggling goes on. "It is all part of the sales procedure. Some tourists are very innocent, but others are wiser. However we all learn from it. The foreigner and the traders," he says.
Mr Tian has no English, but like most of the other traders here he does his negotiations using a calculator. He punches in a price, the tourist puts in the price he thinks is fair, and so on until agreement is reached. That can often take up to half an hour.
Haggling is by no means confined to the street markets of Beijing. After three days of haggling last week, I finally agreed on what I thought was a fair rent for an office. When our apartment rent is up for renewal in March, there will lengthy haggling to get the price down. It is a buyers' market for citycentre accommodation, with an over-supply due to the exodus to new developments in the suburbs.
Some sound advice to those doing business in China, whether you are a tourist shopping in Xiushui or a company chief executive trying to clinch an important deal, comes from Chris Patten in his excellent book East and West.
"It is a grave error to allow yourself to be under time pressure when negotiating. The Chinese will use this against you. If the length of the negotiation was out of all proportion to the benefits of an agreement, or if you feel obliged to settle by a given date, forget about it.
"The Chinese will do a deal if they feel strongly enough about it. Have the gumption to pack your bags if necessary and go home. But if you have time on your hands, and if it is all worth it, then be very patient and let the game come to you."
Couldn't have put it better myself. You have been forewarned!