O.K. I think you need to hear about some of the cons of being here in China. Yes, there are many positive things that we have posted but it isn't always as exciting as it seems.
Last week I (this is Coree writing) actually had my first break down in China. Not really a break down but it does get frustrating here at times. We've adapted pretty well to the life of no car and the fact that we can't communicate very well yet but I just about had enough.
It started with Jonny coming home from school and saying that he needed some blue and green playdough for a project at school. I thought "O.K., how hard will that be to find?" So, Nicole and I went off on a journey to find "playdough". It was about 7:00 at night so we first walked down to Old Shekou which is about 4 or 5 blocks to a small stationary store. We had been there about 4 times already in the last week getting our school supplies, which is a whole other story in itself because we can't find the things that we are used. Anyway, we walked down there in the humidity and heat. I normally don't do well in those conditions but I am adapting. By the time we got down there I was drenched with sweat (frustration number 1) and just wanted to get what we needed and leave. I thought they would have playdough because they had markers, crayons, and other craft items but the problems is that you can't read the labels most of the time and unless it is packaged in a familiar way with pictures on it, you can't tell what it is.
So, we looked and looked but didn't see anything that looked familiar (frustration number 2).
Nicole and I finally gave up on Old Shekou and started walking home. I knew that Jonny needed this so I kept debating in my mind if I wanted to tackle the transportation issue and jump on a bus to Walmart, which is about a 15 minute bus ride. It was 8:00. I was hot and sweaty and really didn't want to but we jumped on a bus to go (frustration number 3). We sat down on the bus and they have these women who work on the bus that collect your money. She came back to where we were and I told her we were going to Wo Er Ma (Walmart). We have bus cards so I tried to hand her two bus cards, one for me and one for Nicole. She took my card but wouldn't take the one for Nicole and just stared at me. I said "Wo Er Ma" and pointed to Nicole while I tried to hand her the bus card. She wouldn't take it and just started rambling in Chinese. Of course I can't understand her but she just kept going on and on, getting louder and louder. Usually there is someone on the bus who can speak some English to help so I started looking around for help. The bus was full but nobody could help me understand what she was saying. I just kept trying to give her the card to pay for Nicole and she just kept yelling at me. At this point the other people were all staring at me and some started to even laugh. I was really frustrated at this point (number 4, 5, 6, and so on).
The women finally, after a few minutes of saying who knows what to me, grabbed the card out of my hand to pay for Nicole. As she handed it back to me she pointed to Nicole and gestured the number one with her finger. I finally figured out that she was trying to tell me that if I paid with the card it would charge us 2 RMB's for Nicole instead of the 1RMB that it should cost for her on this bus. If she had just done that in the first place instead of yelling at me I would have figured it out. I was so frustrated at that point I just wanted to jump on a plane and go home. The amount of frustration and humiliation that was caused by that ordeal was not worth the 1 RMB she was trying to save us (1 RMB is only about 15 cents in the states).
We finally made it to Walmart, which is a zoo. People complain about the Walmarts in America, they should see what it is like here. It is always packed. So the search is still on for playdough. I finally found small packages of it but you had to buy a package of six different colors. All I wanted was blue and green. I ended up having to buy 5 packages to get enough of those colors. After I found them I realized that they did have what I needed at Old Shekou but because it wasn't labeled I wasn't sure. So two hours later and many frustrations I finally found what we needed.
So do I miss some of the conveniences at home like a car I can jump into and make a quick trip to Target? YES!!!!!!!!! But I still wouldn't trade this experience. Just had to share some "cons" to living here.
No comments:
Post a Comment