In the open-air spice markets of the Qinghai province, women hawking cordyceps will wear billowing sleeves into which buyers will reach to touch her hand, tapping and fidgeting with fingers in covert price negotiation, a private kinaesthetic bargaining language.

It works like this:

Hand motion Correlating amount
(ascends with repetition)
Pinch 1st finger1 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000
Pinch 1st and 2nd finger 2, 20, 200, 2,000, 20,000
Pinch 1st - 3rd fingers 2, 20, 200, 2,000, 20,000
Pinch 1st - 4th fingers 3, 30, 300, 3,000, and 30,000
Pinch all 5 fingers 5, 50, 500, 5,000 and 50,000
Pinch thumb and little finger 6, 60, 600, 6,000 and 60,000
Pinch thumb, index, and middle finger 7, 70, 700, 7,000 and 70,000
Extend thumb and index finger 8, 80, 800, 8,000 and 80,000
Pinch 1st finger in a circle2 9, 90, 900, 9,000 and 90,000


  1. 1st finger = index finger 

  2. I don’t know what is meant by ‘pinch in a circle’, but this was how it was described to me.