It’s always small things but some days seem to be over powering! Ross and I decided to have a panda day as explained in my Chengdu blog! So the plan was to meet in a western area to splurge on our favorite junk foods and hibernate in her apartment for a batman movie marathon. On the metro getting out to Ross I had my first china moment of the day. As I was sliding my card to exit the metro, some young punk kid steps on my foot slipping through the 2 inches between me and the gate. He sneaked through the exit on my 2kuai! I was so shocked the gate almost pinched me when I hurried through after him. In my best dirty Chinese I have learned I yelled “bia chi!” which means “idiot.” He turned in shock momentarily before returning laughing with his friends! I see people try to cheat the metro fee all the time, which is silly. One - bc it cost 2 kuai which is maybe 30 cents and two - there is a metro guard watching. This further confirms that Shenzhen police are worthless.
We learned from a Chinese friend that all city police are off on Sundays. This was his justification for literally pulling into the median on the highway and asking if we wanted to play cards in the grass! People here are hardcore and do whatever they want, like no where else I’ve ever seen.
Once I met up with Ross we went to Starbucks to start our day of bad decisions. As we are waiting at the registrar, 2 Chinese women literally come straight up to the counter and slam into us while yelling out their orders to the employees working on another order. We ignore this until it happens again with 2 men, who do the same thing. While the 3 employees are all rushing to complete the Chinese people’s orders one asks the other in Chinese, “has anyone helped the foreigners?” “no!” Ross answers in Chinese. Then they take our order but take the payment for orders of several others before completing ours. We stand at the pickup area waiting for our drinks and see all the people who order after us leave with their drinks. Once the place starts to clear out some, we ask where our drinks are and they take the receipt and start the order! My only explanation is that Chinese people are extremely impatient and would never put up with waiting. They must figure the foreigners either won’t care, or won’t know enough Chinese to say anything. We were definitely the latter!
Next, the foreign grocery store has new things every week and you have to buy them as soon as you see it or they will never have it again! There are a few staples that they always have, so the plan was get taco ingredients and whatever new things they have! Many of the teachers have lamented that as soon as they find something they like to eat and can cook, China somehow “knows” and magically stops carrying it as a personal attack. Today was no exception. All of the staples, seemed to be sold out or missing all-together. After pacing every inch of the store for suitable substitutes we looked at our cart, containing one can of Dr Pepper and an overpriced Coke, and decided it was not worth going through the line. Our silent revenge was to give the cart one last push and turn to walk away.
We try to remember the nearest foreign store and head back to the metro. As with most directions in China, we remember seeing one and could picture the area but couldn't recall the street names. We blindly take an exit assuring ourselves we will recognize it when we look around. As soon as we get to the street we see the store name at the top of a large building. However, there is no obvious entrance to said location! We wander around aimlessly, as the crowd seems to become more and more dense. There is no social norm of, walk to the right side of the street, so we somehow always seem to be going upstream. The Chinese also somehow never learned the obligatory shoulder lean, when you squeeze by someone. You know, where both people twist one shoulder back so they do not slam into each other. No. Here I do the shoulder lean and leave my chest exposed for people to slam their arms or purse into while their heads are turned, deep in conversation!
By this time we have run around long enough, it is lunch time and we agree to forget the tacos and get some food before we eat the next person that runs into us. Thank God for McDonald! Best part of China... lunch special! From 11 to 2pm McDonald combos are half price! Once we get to the secret shop entrance, we realize it is not a western store, finally I go up to an associate and ask in my best Chinese, “do you or do you not have foreigner...?” and then I did the sign language for section. Ross laughed but the shocking part was the woman understood perfectly! Chinese people are shocking good at the charades!
The next night, I am walking down the street with two friends after dinner and out of nowhere this little 4 year old boy gets a 2 block running start and slaps my butt! I turn around to see him waddle away. It hurt! He hits hard! Why me? Where are his parents? And why were the millions of bystanders not at all shocked by this? They looked at me like I was the weird one for standing there with my jaw dropped! I had flash backs to the midget on Christmas eve... he was much scarier.
Speaking of worthless parents, I was sitting outside a restaurant with Heidi one day when this boy, maybe 7 years old, is walking around us playing with a lighter! I don’t think anything of it until I smell something burning and look over to see that he has set a napkin on fire and is watching as the wind blows it along the sidewalk. I gave him my best teacher look, but he was oblivious. A few minutes later he walks by with a whole hand-full of napkins and does it again! I looked around for a parent to give my teacher look to, but no one else seemed to be bothered by this little pyro. The next time he walks by carrying more napkins, I put my hand out to stop him and said “no!” in English but also with my charades and he scrunched up his little face and went back into the restaurant pouting. I felt very powerful for a moment until he comes out later with his father who stares at me for a moment, but doesn’t try to say anything to me for scolding his son. He instead stands there handing the boy napkins to add to his new fire, a little farther away. Heidi and I can't help but laugh until the mom comes in a few minutes later and stomps the fire out and drags the boy away with the dad following a few paces behind. Worthless father of the year award... that guy!
We learned from a Chinese friend that all city police are off on Sundays. This was his justification for literally pulling into the median on the highway and asking if we wanted to play cards in the grass! People here are hardcore and do whatever they want, like no where else I’ve ever seen.
Once I met up with Ross we went to Starbucks to start our day of bad decisions. As we are waiting at the registrar, 2 Chinese women literally come straight up to the counter and slam into us while yelling out their orders to the employees working on another order. We ignore this until it happens again with 2 men, who do the same thing. While the 3 employees are all rushing to complete the Chinese people’s orders one asks the other in Chinese, “has anyone helped the foreigners?” “no!” Ross answers in Chinese. Then they take our order but take the payment for orders of several others before completing ours. We stand at the pickup area waiting for our drinks and see all the people who order after us leave with their drinks. Once the place starts to clear out some, we ask where our drinks are and they take the receipt and start the order! My only explanation is that Chinese people are extremely impatient and would never put up with waiting. They must figure the foreigners either won’t care, or won’t know enough Chinese to say anything. We were definitely the latter!
Next, the foreign grocery store has new things every week and you have to buy them as soon as you see it or they will never have it again! There are a few staples that they always have, so the plan was get taco ingredients and whatever new things they have! Many of the teachers have lamented that as soon as they find something they like to eat and can cook, China somehow “knows” and magically stops carrying it as a personal attack. Today was no exception. All of the staples, seemed to be sold out or missing all-together. After pacing every inch of the store for suitable substitutes we looked at our cart, containing one can of Dr Pepper and an overpriced Coke, and decided it was not worth going through the line. Our silent revenge was to give the cart one last push and turn to walk away.
We try to remember the nearest foreign store and head back to the metro. As with most directions in China, we remember seeing one and could picture the area but couldn't recall the street names. We blindly take an exit assuring ourselves we will recognize it when we look around. As soon as we get to the street we see the store name at the top of a large building. However, there is no obvious entrance to said location! We wander around aimlessly, as the crowd seems to become more and more dense. There is no social norm of, walk to the right side of the street, so we somehow always seem to be going upstream. The Chinese also somehow never learned the obligatory shoulder lean, when you squeeze by someone. You know, where both people twist one shoulder back so they do not slam into each other. No. Here I do the shoulder lean and leave my chest exposed for people to slam their arms or purse into while their heads are turned, deep in conversation!
By this time we have run around long enough, it is lunch time and we agree to forget the tacos and get some food before we eat the next person that runs into us. Thank God for McDonald! Best part of China... lunch special! From 11 to 2pm McDonald combos are half price! Once we get to the secret shop entrance, we realize it is not a western store, finally I go up to an associate and ask in my best Chinese, “do you or do you not have foreigner...?” and then I did the sign language for section. Ross laughed but the shocking part was the woman understood perfectly! Chinese people are shocking good at the charades!
The next night, I am walking down the street with two friends after dinner and out of nowhere this little 4 year old boy gets a 2 block running start and slaps my butt! I turn around to see him waddle away. It hurt! He hits hard! Why me? Where are his parents? And why were the millions of bystanders not at all shocked by this? They looked at me like I was the weird one for standing there with my jaw dropped! I had flash backs to the midget on Christmas eve... he was much scarier.
Speaking of worthless parents, I was sitting outside a restaurant with Heidi one day when this boy, maybe 7 years old, is walking around us playing with a lighter! I don’t think anything of it until I smell something burning and look over to see that he has set a napkin on fire and is watching as the wind blows it along the sidewalk. I gave him my best teacher look, but he was oblivious. A few minutes later he walks by with a whole hand-full of napkins and does it again! I looked around for a parent to give my teacher look to, but no one else seemed to be bothered by this little pyro. The next time he walks by carrying more napkins, I put my hand out to stop him and said “no!” in English but also with my charades and he scrunched up his little face and went back into the restaurant pouting. I felt very powerful for a moment until he comes out later with his father who stares at me for a moment, but doesn’t try to say anything to me for scolding his son. He instead stands there handing the boy napkins to add to his new fire, a little farther away. Heidi and I can't help but laugh until the mom comes in a few minutes later and stomps the fire out and drags the boy away with the dad following a few paces behind. Worthless father of the year award... that guy!
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