It's been some time since my last post and I apologize for that. It seems like I'm finally getting settled into the apartment. You might think this would be easy, having little more than a suitcase and a backpack, however when you toss in the China factor into it all, everything changes.
The China factor is the floors that are dusty and dirtied regardless of however many attempts at cleaning. It's the heater never being on no matter how cold your restaurant is. It's the grime you find on your fingertips if you touch the leaves of a tree or bush. If you come to China and find that a certain smell seems to permeate the air no matter where you are, my roommate will eloquently point out to you as he does to me, "It's China." Those few syllables are the cure-all for any symptom that ails us, any question that comes to mind. So when I tell you that I've been a little busy with carving out my home, I mean it.
My first interaction with the China factor came in the form of a city block-wide power outage. This came upon us at around 8 or 9pm immediately upon my plugging in a desk lamp. My light shined for but a second before my window instantly lost its light pollution glow. I looked out and could see nothing but the lights of cars - their horns had grown louder with the darkness. I admit I felt quite guilty until our fuse box blew out three times on separate instances.
Some rewiring later and we haven't had any power troubles since. (Neither has our city block - just sayin'.) The bathroom on the other hand, had meanwhile maintained a steady downpour from the elevated platform where the shower resides to the step down where the second of two drains work whenever I showered. One might think that the first drain, placed directly under the shower head would have a slight advantage in its draining capabilities. But this is not so. Two visits from the plumber later and we no longer have a lukewarm kiddie pool, but a fully-functioning drainage system (never mind water temperature and pressure).
The most recent home-repair related endeavor stemmed from a misplaced key. Due to some error in communication, we arrived at our apartment for the first time with 2 keys between the 3 of us, roommates. After jumping through hoops and tracking some people down, we finally located the last key in the set. This key however, apparently had a knack for the disappearing act and quickly it was lost to us. Ultimately we resorted to a locksmith. The locksmith forged a copy from my key for my buddy Spencer and from there he insisted that he come to the apartment to test it - something about fitting the right end cap on it. Despite my suspicion of his trying to find our home so he could later rob us, we showed him. After he did in fact confirm the right end cap, we were to taxi back to his shop by the school. Spencer, for whatever reason decided he needed to change and caused us to wait before taking the taxi. So there I stood, with my limited knowledge of Chinese, entertaining a Chinese locksmith in the living room of our apartment. He told me my apartment was big and I attempted to explain we were fortunate to have such a nice place to live. I didn't know how to say that so I settled for, "Thank you."
But as the seconds turned into minutes and Spencer took his own sweet time with changing, the pressure mounted. My thoughts raced, "How do you host someone in a different culture when you don't speak their language?" I looked around, grasping for anything to make an easy topic of conversation. I had nothing. Finally, I saw one of our third roommate's beer. It was a long shot but I offered him a beer and more surprisingly, he took it. Later, after my friend, my locksmith, and I taxied back to his shop, I wondered about the cultural implications of my actions - if it had any alternative meanings about me or what it meant about me as a host. But in the end, I shrugged my shoulders and thought, "eh, that's China."
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