After two weeks away, I'm back from my travels to Thailand and Hong Kong. Mimi was unashamedly happy to see me return.
Since I've been back, I've been going through an extended time of third-world weirdness. This post runs kind of long, but if you want to hear what life is like in the Middle Kingdom, this post pretty much catches you up.
Varmint #1
Last Saturday I rode my e-bike down a dark alleyway and parked it, going in to eat at a restaurant by myself. I thought about how in America I wouldn't even go out alone at night, much less go down a dark alleyway on a motorbike by myself, but here there is nothing much to fear. In fact, the scariest thing in the alley was likely me. Chinese people tend to freeze in their tracks when they see a foreigner during the daytime, so naturally it is alarming when they see a blonde middle-age woman on an e-bike in a dark alley at night. Yeah, I'm scary like that.
I also thought about how in my 20s I use to be mortified about the thought of eating in a restaurant alone, but now I quite like it. Anyway, I sat in a corner of the hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant, sat my bag down in the empty chair beside me, and had dinner in the small, nearly-empty restaurant. I made friends with the servers, paid, grabbed my bag, returned home, and threw my bag on the bed.
A couple of hours later it was bedtime. I was getting ready for bed when I saw something I had never seen in 19 years in China -- a cockroach! I have NEVER seen one here, much less one in my bedroom. I might expect to see this type of varmint in a Texas kitchen or near dog food sitting out, but in my Chinese bedroom that has no food in it?! Of course I screamed, loudly enough the neighbors might have heard me. I remember hearing how if you see one roach, there are dozens of others you don't see. I was in panic mode. The roach met its death at the the heel of a shoe wielded by my cockroach-hating hand. I hoped it hadn't had a litter of baby roaches in my house. I finally reasoned that the roach had traveled home with me in my bag from the restaurant. I haven't seen any other roaches since then.
I have not even seen roaches at restaurants before, but now I know they are truly there. Big ones. Yuck.
Varmint #2 and 3
The next morning, I took Mimi out for a stroll before I headed off to church. She charged at something in the bushes, an action that I am used to since there are so many wild cats in the neighborhood. I almost didn't even look, but then I did. Mimi had locked eyes with a SQUIRREL. We don't have squirrels here. I mean, we didn't before. I don't recall ever seeing one in China before, but in case my memory was failing me, I asked my friends at church and they were just as shocked as I was that I had seen a squirrel. Where in the WORLD did that squirrel come from?
During the Great Leap Forward (late 1950s, early 1960s), a famine occurred in China. Millions died. Very few wild animals survived that famine because they became the food of necessity; once the famine ended, they didn't repopulate very well. Add to that the massive human population of this country, crowded cities, etc. and you'll see that there is no place for wildlife here. Not in the eastern portion of the country anyway. We have lots of wild (but nice) cats, but that's it.
No one believes me, but I saw a porcupine on the loose one night, at my apartment complex, a year or so ago. I live smack dab in the middle of a major big city with millions of people in it. How, I want to know, did a porcupine find its way here?
Sneezing and expired food
Monday I had planned to work all day, but I woke up with a severe sneezing fit. I sneezed all day long, hundreds of times. My eyes were watering, my nose was watering, and I was miserable. It felt like the devil was camping inside my nasal cavities. Medication didn't help. I couldn't do my work. But I hated to waste the day, so I decided to be productive and cull expired food out of my pantry.
Having canned food in one's pantry is a China expat thing. You hoard the stuff because it's hard to find it in the first place, you never know when you might need it, and you don't know if or when you'll ever have a chance to replace it.
I kind of live in a civilized place now, so perhaps I can shed this survival habit I acquired from living in Bedrock for 12 years (no grocery stores when I moved there, remember?).
Monday, during my sneezing/food culling fit, I threw away 3 large garbage bags of expired food.
Whew. I feel better now.
You had to see it to believe it
Then came Tuesday. My sneezing fit had calmed down, and I was ready to make up for all the work I missed on Monday. However, I spent about five hours searching for three missing things: an envelope of money, an important receipt, and a work paper. It is so annoying to lose stuff. I looked through every piece of paper, drawer, etc. in the house several times. I finally found all three things, but lost another day's work in doing so. More on the lost stuff later.
Air-conditioner repairmen came on Tuesday morning too. I paid $15 extra for them to send an extra person; this is so that the man who crawled outside my 8th floor window to fix the a/c would have someone to anchor the rope tied around his waist during his death-defying skywalk. I do not ever again want to experience the trauma of holding a man's life in the balance by holding a rope while he's dancing on the side of my building; been there, done that, don't plan to ever do it again. These guys were told that if they showed up without safety gear, they would not be allowed in the door of my apartment.
They brought a big thick rope. One guy tied it around his waist and crawled out the window, and the other guy tied it around his waist and waited inside. Fortunately they are related (cousins maybe) and care about each other living to see another day. I held the rope lightly in the middle, just in case extra weight was needed on our end of the rope. But I couldn't look; I quite seriously turned my head the other direction and prayed without ceasing. I honestly have no idea how he did his work outside, because there is no ledge for him to stand on, and he had a metal canister of freon and a big briefcase-style bag of tools out the window with him. I told them to add so much freon that I would never have to call an a/c repairman for the rest of the time I live here. I can't bear this type of risk they take.
Now, back to the receipt. The reason that finding the receipt was so important is because I had purchased a standing electric fan last week, and you have one week to return it if anything is wrong with it. On day one of the purchase, I discovered it didn't work, but due to days on end of pouring rain, I couldn't take it back. Then when the rain stopped over the weekend, I was (a) busy and (b) I couldn't find the receipt. So when I found the receipt at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, I had to rush out immediately to the store to get it exchanged or repaired. I disassembled the fan and carried it in its box to the store, on my e-bike.
The guy was able to fix the fan, but to do so he had to assemble the fan in the store, and asked me to carry it home that way. The base of the fan was too big for the space on my e-bike, so it tilted at an awkward angle. And, oh! It was POURING rain on the way home. So I put the standing electric fan on the e-bike between my legs, with the round fan portion near my face, and my bright pink rain poncho went over all this as I rode a couple of miles home in a torrential downpour. Please just take a moment and picture what that looked like. Thank you.
I got home in time to make an evening appointment at my apartment. Not to worry. Wednesday will be a better day, and I will be able to catch up on all my work. Right?
Wednesday
I had forgotten, but apparently I live in a third-world country. They like to say "it's a developing country." Well, you know, it's the same thing.
I sat down at my computer with a cup of strong coffee, ready to do three days' worth of computer work in one. I'd done that before, I could do it again. :-)
Mimi and I both jumped when we heard the loud popping sound. Something had gone kaput, and that something was all the lighting in my house. It was daytime, but it was raining heavily outside and dark clouds filled the sky. I couldn't see to do my work without the lights.
Thankfully, the coffee maker, microwave, refrigerator and air-conditioners all still worked. I could eat, drink and not sweat profusely until such unknown time that this event was declared over and done with.
(Yes, I flipped all the breaker switches -- twice. Nothing helped.)
I imagined them drilling holes all through my cement ceiling, throughout the entire house, to replace burnt wires. I wondered where I could move while this went on … hotels won't accept dogs in this country. A headache ensued, prompting an extended midday nap in my dark bedroom.
Then the repairman showed up after lunch and replaced the broken breaker switches. It took him 5 minutes. If this happened 15 years ago, they would have sent a carpenter to fix my electricity and it would have taken him 3-4 days to even get there to look at it (they used to send the carpenter to fix my plumbing too; he wasn't very good at it). And they probably would have drilled holes in my cement ceiling to replace the wires, or else draped ugly, thick, new black electrical wires on the walls themselves. 'Cause that has really happened before. To me.
But not today.
Progress.
Since I've been back, I've been going through an extended time of third-world weirdness. This post runs kind of long, but if you want to hear what life is like in the Middle Kingdom, this post pretty much catches you up.
Varmint #1
Last Saturday I rode my e-bike down a dark alleyway and parked it, going in to eat at a restaurant by myself. I thought about how in America I wouldn't even go out alone at night, much less go down a dark alleyway on a motorbike by myself, but here there is nothing much to fear. In fact, the scariest thing in the alley was likely me. Chinese people tend to freeze in their tracks when they see a foreigner during the daytime, so naturally it is alarming when they see a blonde middle-age woman on an e-bike in a dark alley at night. Yeah, I'm scary like that.
I also thought about how in my 20s I use to be mortified about the thought of eating in a restaurant alone, but now I quite like it. Anyway, I sat in a corner of the hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant, sat my bag down in the empty chair beside me, and had dinner in the small, nearly-empty restaurant. I made friends with the servers, paid, grabbed my bag, returned home, and threw my bag on the bed.
A couple of hours later it was bedtime. I was getting ready for bed when I saw something I had never seen in 19 years in China -- a cockroach! I have NEVER seen one here, much less one in my bedroom. I might expect to see this type of varmint in a Texas kitchen or near dog food sitting out, but in my Chinese bedroom that has no food in it?! Of course I screamed, loudly enough the neighbors might have heard me. I remember hearing how if you see one roach, there are dozens of others you don't see. I was in panic mode. The roach met its death at the the heel of a shoe wielded by my cockroach-hating hand. I hoped it hadn't had a litter of baby roaches in my house. I finally reasoned that the roach had traveled home with me in my bag from the restaurant. I haven't seen any other roaches since then.
I have not even seen roaches at restaurants before, but now I know they are truly there. Big ones. Yuck.
Varmint #2 and 3
The next morning, I took Mimi out for a stroll before I headed off to church. She charged at something in the bushes, an action that I am used to since there are so many wild cats in the neighborhood. I almost didn't even look, but then I did. Mimi had locked eyes with a SQUIRREL. We don't have squirrels here. I mean, we didn't before. I don't recall ever seeing one in China before, but in case my memory was failing me, I asked my friends at church and they were just as shocked as I was that I had seen a squirrel. Where in the WORLD did that squirrel come from?
During the Great Leap Forward (late 1950s, early 1960s), a famine occurred in China. Millions died. Very few wild animals survived that famine because they became the food of necessity; once the famine ended, they didn't repopulate very well. Add to that the massive human population of this country, crowded cities, etc. and you'll see that there is no place for wildlife here. Not in the eastern portion of the country anyway. We have lots of wild (but nice) cats, but that's it.
No one believes me, but I saw a porcupine on the loose one night, at my apartment complex, a year or so ago. I live smack dab in the middle of a major big city with millions of people in it. How, I want to know, did a porcupine find its way here?
Sneezing and expired food
Monday I had planned to work all day, but I woke up with a severe sneezing fit. I sneezed all day long, hundreds of times. My eyes were watering, my nose was watering, and I was miserable. It felt like the devil was camping inside my nasal cavities. Medication didn't help. I couldn't do my work. But I hated to waste the day, so I decided to be productive and cull expired food out of my pantry.
Having canned food in one's pantry is a China expat thing. You hoard the stuff because it's hard to find it in the first place, you never know when you might need it, and you don't know if or when you'll ever have a chance to replace it.
I kind of live in a civilized place now, so perhaps I can shed this survival habit I acquired from living in Bedrock for 12 years (no grocery stores when I moved there, remember?).
Monday, during my sneezing/food culling fit, I threw away 3 large garbage bags of expired food.
Whew. I feel better now.
You had to see it to believe it
Then came Tuesday. My sneezing fit had calmed down, and I was ready to make up for all the work I missed on Monday. However, I spent about five hours searching for three missing things: an envelope of money, an important receipt, and a work paper. It is so annoying to lose stuff. I looked through every piece of paper, drawer, etc. in the house several times. I finally found all three things, but lost another day's work in doing so. More on the lost stuff later.
Air-conditioner repairmen came on Tuesday morning too. I paid $15 extra for them to send an extra person; this is so that the man who crawled outside my 8th floor window to fix the a/c would have someone to anchor the rope tied around his waist during his death-defying skywalk. I do not ever again want to experience the trauma of holding a man's life in the balance by holding a rope while he's dancing on the side of my building; been there, done that, don't plan to ever do it again. These guys were told that if they showed up without safety gear, they would not be allowed in the door of my apartment.
They brought a big thick rope. One guy tied it around his waist and crawled out the window, and the other guy tied it around his waist and waited inside. Fortunately they are related (cousins maybe) and care about each other living to see another day. I held the rope lightly in the middle, just in case extra weight was needed on our end of the rope. But I couldn't look; I quite seriously turned my head the other direction and prayed without ceasing. I honestly have no idea how he did his work outside, because there is no ledge for him to stand on, and he had a metal canister of freon and a big briefcase-style bag of tools out the window with him. I told them to add so much freon that I would never have to call an a/c repairman for the rest of the time I live here. I can't bear this type of risk they take.
Now, back to the receipt. The reason that finding the receipt was so important is because I had purchased a standing electric fan last week, and you have one week to return it if anything is wrong with it. On day one of the purchase, I discovered it didn't work, but due to days on end of pouring rain, I couldn't take it back. Then when the rain stopped over the weekend, I was (a) busy and (b) I couldn't find the receipt. So when I found the receipt at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, I had to rush out immediately to the store to get it exchanged or repaired. I disassembled the fan and carried it in its box to the store, on my e-bike.
The guy was able to fix the fan, but to do so he had to assemble the fan in the store, and asked me to carry it home that way. The base of the fan was too big for the space on my e-bike, so it tilted at an awkward angle. And, oh! It was POURING rain on the way home. So I put the standing electric fan on the e-bike between my legs, with the round fan portion near my face, and my bright pink rain poncho went over all this as I rode a couple of miles home in a torrential downpour. Please just take a moment and picture what that looked like. Thank you.
I got home in time to make an evening appointment at my apartment. Not to worry. Wednesday will be a better day, and I will be able to catch up on all my work. Right?
Wednesday
I had forgotten, but apparently I live in a third-world country. They like to say "it's a developing country." Well, you know, it's the same thing.
I sat down at my computer with a cup of strong coffee, ready to do three days' worth of computer work in one. I'd done that before, I could do it again. :-)
Mimi and I both jumped when we heard the loud popping sound. Something had gone kaput, and that something was all the lighting in my house. It was daytime, but it was raining heavily outside and dark clouds filled the sky. I couldn't see to do my work without the lights.
Thankfully, the coffee maker, microwave, refrigerator and air-conditioners all still worked. I could eat, drink and not sweat profusely until such unknown time that this event was declared over and done with.(Yes, I flipped all the breaker switches -- twice. Nothing helped.)
I imagined them drilling holes all through my cement ceiling, throughout the entire house, to replace burnt wires. I wondered where I could move while this went on … hotels won't accept dogs in this country. A headache ensued, prompting an extended midday nap in my dark bedroom.
Then the repairman showed up after lunch and replaced the broken breaker switches. It took him 5 minutes. If this happened 15 years ago, they would have sent a carpenter to fix my electricity and it would have taken him 3-4 days to even get there to look at it (they used to send the carpenter to fix my plumbing too; he wasn't very good at it). And they probably would have drilled holes in my cement ceiling to replace the wires, or else draped ugly, thick, new black electrical wires on the walls themselves. 'Cause that has really happened before. To me.
But not today.
Progress.
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