Welcome to China

Friday, January 22, 2010

Goa Fei, the property agent and friend of Shannon and Damon, has brought us to the police station to register. We are handed forms to fill out. Goa Fei takes them and we have a seat while she remains at the counter to fill them out for us.

However, once she’s completed them we discover that I’ve left my photographs at the apartment, we taxi back (just a five-minute ride) and I scramble upstairs to get them. They somehow got separated from my passport copy.

It takes only five more minutes once we’re back at the police station. As the official loudly stamps the documents we become, for a moment, a picture of 1950s Chinese Communism’s official bureaucracy, at least in our minds.

Back at the apartment we discover that the electricity is off. We check the breakers and nothing’s tripped. We decide to wait before calling Shannon. Also, we’re expecting the housekeeper at any moment and she may know what’s going on.
Aiye arrives, and though she speaks no English, by flipping the light switches and pointing, as if it were necessary, to the lights that don’t come on, we explain the situation. She calls someone on her cell phone, then leaves, indicating she will be right back.

Soon she is and indicates by hand motions that the problem isn’t here, it’s at another level. She cleans as much as possible without electricity. Just as the door closes behind her, we hear the humming and clicking that tells us the power is on.

When Shannon comes home in the afternoon, we learn that, although they pay the utilities for a year in advance, the landlord sometimes wait until the last minute to pay the bill. Except this time he misses the last minute. He’s done this before. It happens with the water, too.

I have a new phrase in my vocabulary: we’ve been China’d.

We accompany Shannon to the car to meet Autumn when she comes to take Shannon to the airport. We will need to use Autumn’s services while we’re in Dalian. Her phone number is programmed into Shannon’s cell.

Bernie wants Subway in the shopping center, but I’m too tired and it’s too cold. There’s spaghetti and sauce here.

Then, as soon as possible, to bed.