More Happenings From Chinaland

The Chinese reaction to Swine Flu (sorry, Type A H1N1 Influenza) is to aggressively quarantine anyone suspected of having it, or of having been in contact with someone who may have had it. Also, to lock up all of Shanghai's Mexicans, regardless of whether or not they have even BEEN TO MEXICO in the past so many weeks ... So basically, having failed miserably to warn the world about Bird Flu and SARS, neither of which thankfully got off the ground in a big way, the Chinese pendulum now swings to the opposite side. I'm willing to bet that, like the word for "logic", traditional Chinese has no word for "middle ground".

In other news, I went to the post office to send a parcel to my girlfriend and the following conversation took place:

[In the room where you have to buy the boxes, opposite the International Counter itself]

Worker: Go to the counter to check you can send all that in one box. ("All that" is a DVD, an item of clothing, and a letter)

[At the counter]

Worker: You can't send this all together.

Me: Why not?

Worker: This is written stuff, and these are articles. You can send the letter on its own and the items in a box.

Me: Why? I've done it before! Look, I'm not blaming YOU, but every time I come here there is some problem and the workers here all say "Oh it's just the regulations", so today, right now, I would like to see these regulations please.

Worker: (perplexed) I'll just go ask my supervisor. Wait a moment.

[She comes back after a minute or two]

Worker: Just a moment I have to make a phone call.

[Another minute passes]

Worker: Okay you can send them all together.


What the hell was that all about? I'm going back with a Chinese friend and I'm demanding a copy of their regulations now, this is ridiculous, I'm willing to bet half the stuff they've told me is just made up by someone who simply didn't like the aesthetics of whatever it was I was doing (writing addresses in red ink for instance) ... In future I'm just going to hide letters with my articles and sod them, I can even declare a letter's presence on the customs form, since I'm almost certain they don't speak / read English at the International Counter.

What a barmy country. Im home in 71 days.

Supplies

No, not that old joke about the guys who organise an army camp and leave it to the Chinese guy to do the food (email me if you need your racist curiosity satisfied).

Instead, here's a collection of things I have courtesy of my Mum. Over the last few weeks I've received about a dozen parcels, and credit is due. This is a brief list of the stuff I have left (some things have been eaten of course, or used as small presents to friends).

* 9 cuppa-soup sachets, three different flavours
* 5 and a half white chocolate slabs, various brands
* 2 packs of Rolos (I ate the other one in just one sitting I was that greedy)
* 6 packs of Polo mints
* 1 pack of Fruit Polos
* 14 sachets of hot chocolate / coffee drinks
* 7 sachets of Fybogel for my poor insides (let's hope it works)
* 2 packs of stock cubes (and then some)
* TOO MUCH CINNAMON, STOP SENDING IT! (I mean that in a good way, but really, three or four boxes is enough for now!)
* Multiple packs of chewing gum
* 24 Werther's Originals (plus a couple in my jacket pocket for use in exams today)
* A couple of ready-made reheat-style meals.

So, other Year Abroad students, as they say in cards, I see your parents and I raise you my Mum.

Have I Made A Mistake?

101 days into a 333(ish) day project is probably not the time to be having second thoughts. Or maybe it's just normal, I dont know. I had thoughts like this earlier on (anyone reading my blog must have been blind not to notice), maybe I reckoned they would subside by now. But no, it STILL riles me when something ridiculously "normal" and "simple" by any other country's standards can be messed around horribly in China. Today features that bastion of Chinese idiocy, the Post Office. Again. Yes, it's not enough that I had troubles with them in the past (and the last time I was in China as well, both the PO and Banks seem absurdly run) - it seems they are destined to cause trouble.

I want to send my friend something very simple. She like brown pens (and has probably twigged I am talking about her just now), and I managed to find some brown felt-tip-style drawing pens in Urumqi. Dead cheap, so I got her two. I myself have identical pens in purple and green, and my housemate has one in red and one in purple too - they're nice to use, if anyone wants them ... well I'd offer to send them to you, but as you'll see, that might be harder than I first thought. I decided to take a risk. I put them in an envelope, just a normal brown envelope. So there's a sheet of paper and two slimline brown pens in an envelope, which has been sellotaped shut because otherwise it just wont close (and also because the system here is not to use lick-and-stick envelopes. Peel and stick is probably a development reserved for next century) ... "Two to England" (yes, Great Aunt Judith, I have finally sent my reply to your letter! Mum please pass that along. And yes, Marilyn, your mail is also on its way!) and "one to America" ... Oh what's that? You can't send it? Well why not? Oh because it's not a letter? Yeah well that's none of your damn business, if I want to send 2 pens in an envelope, what's it to you? Yeah you have your regulations but they are ridiculous. Why is it that I have been to about 12 other countries and NEVER had a problem with their postal service? Just CHINA.

She got her boss. Who was equally useless, just repeated the situation. The solution is to buy a box. Yeah, a BOX to send 2 pens. I asked her, "What? So if I want to send my friend a small present, it has to be in a box?" and the answer was a resolute "yes" which means two things:

1) China Post has a racket on boxes and is using them to keep profits up (heaven forfend you should use another box, also things have to be packed in front of them, yet another bane of my existence)

2) The system is (as I have stated before) seriously retarded.

I left, livid, and am still ragey. Also, I still have an envelope with two brown pens in it :( Sorry Lari.





The actual point of this was - every time something like this happens, I question my decision to learn Chinese (even more so than normal, my original reasons for choosing it no longer existing), and I am seriously put off the idea of having ANYTHING to do with China. Ever. So I lose even more motivation for yet another day, and all I can think is, "This is a poor excuse for a country and I want nothing more than to come home". Yes it's needlessly complainy and I can think of a lot worse places to be, but sadly, I can also think of a lot BETTER places to be.

Christmas Come Early

Well, not quite! But almost ... just a very brief entry to say that I am still okay and I will update more next week (when I have the whole week off for a holiday), and a special thank you to people whose mail has got through to me so far, most recently to Mariamelia. We had to find the postal depot because we were at class when it arrived, that in itself was a bit of an adventure, more on it when I write again, but it came through intact and now both you and I and everyone else knows that the addresses on my entry titled "CONTACT DETAILS" actually work when printed off and stuck to envelopes / packages / etc.

My unsubtle hinting here is that I could really do with some mail, just because I like it, and also because I want to decorate my walls a bit - so if anyone fancies sending me a postcard or a letter and some pictures or anything really, please just go ahead and do it :D I will love it (whatever it is) and you may even be able to poach my free time to receive a reply of sorts! :)

CONTACT DETAILS

I hope by now everyone has recovered from the mammoth amount of updating I did in the last couple of days ... I'm sorry for the verbal diarrhoea, and it will probably stop now I have a regular net connection. Today was my first day at uni here, and I'm sure there'll be a blog about it sometime later, maybe at the end of the week when I can better judge how things are going - suffice to say I feel quite a bit out of my depth right now!

Maybe it's because of this that I would really appreciate some kind of contact other than email or blog-comments (though these are much liked!) ... and possibly something to put up around the house or create an illusion of being elsewhere (anyone who wants to send me Western shower gel, deodorant, a pair of casual trainers UK size 9, or some nice coffee is more than welcome! Chocolate never went amiss either.) So, I made some address printouts. If they load up you should be able to just save them as images to your hard drive, and then print them out to stick on items of post. I personally think a better idea is to print one copy and then photocopy any further ones, because photocopier toner is far less likely to smudge or become illegible if it gets exposed to wet (rain, snow, it's all possible here!)




EDIT - SECOND LAYOUT DELETED BECAUSE IT WAS INCORRECT! IF YOU SENT MAIL USING THIS LAYOUT DONT BE SURPRISED IF IT DOESNT GET TO ME. REALLY SORRY EVERYONE!

The telephone numbers are so the postmen can call us if we are not in when the mail arrives (honestly, I have no idea how it works here, we don't have a letterbox or anything - I don't even know where to go if I'm not in when post comes, and if I'm at university then I don't see how I'll be able to answer my phone even!). When I gave Lucy my address I also included the Pinyin (ie: transliteration of the Chinese), but I don't think this is necessary as long as people are printing the characters and they are coming out clearly. You may need to resize in Word or Paint or whatever you use - just make sure it looks CLEAR! If you are absolutely pedantic and worried no one will be able to read it, you may add the following to the address.



Yes, it's quite a lot smaller. But that's because I don't think it's 100% necessary (and also because when I was sizing it, it was supposed to fit alongside the Chinese and still be able to go on a postcard!) ... Anyway, that's how to get in touch with us, sorry it all looks a bit complicated, and also I'm not sure if I should have put the address on backwards (you know, Country, Region, Street, House Number, Room Number) - I don't think it will make THAT much difference. Lucy, by the way, your letter to me still hasn't arrived, but I got impatient and want everyone else to start trying to send me things and we'll find out how this system works (or doesn't). On that note, would people mind telling me if the postcards I sent to them have reached their destinations? I posted them at least 10 days ago now.

Chocolate Kettles

A very long entry, in which I lose the will to live. Also, if you are offended by rude language, don't read. The frustration is at points tangible.

Marta and I have just had an awful couple of days – today was probably the worst, because it was just an extension of the uncertainty of the last so long. The vast majority of people here are so unbelievably unhelpful, and when things are getting done, they take about ten times what they ought to … a few examples from the very recent past.

* SETTING UP A BANK ACCOUNT – you would think this was a relatively simple task, no? On Friday, Marta and I went with Zohra to the Bank of China to set up some local accounts. The first difficulty was finding the branch, because it had moved, without notice or leaving directions, to a temporary location about a mile away while its ordinary premises were being redecorated. The temperature, even early in the morning, was high, and neither Marta nor I had had enough water or breakfast – fortunately we were able to pick these up on the way. Having found the branch, we had a meeting with a man who appeared to be the bank manager (and also the security guard, who seemed to know as much about banking as all the clerks there, really it was weird), and it eventually transpired that we couldn’t open accounts today, even with Zohra being there to translate and all, no, we had to come back on Monday. Seriously. They have a day for people to open bank accounts, this is just odd (not to mention inconvenient). So, okay let’s come back on Monday.

Well, we went back on Monday, and oh my, I’m glad we budgeted some time for it – setting up Marta’s account (she wants one which can have USD put into it, but take RMB out, so her parents can send her money, because she’s lost her Polish bank card, which was her only source of money for a year – that in itself is stupidity) … it took at least 20 minutes before we were seen, despite being there bang on 10 as requested, and then a further 40 minutes (minimum) to even get to a stage approaching the opening of a bank account. Finally she was done, and luckily my account (a simple RMB-only job) took only a few minutes to get sorted.

The whole process took 90 minutes, to set up two accounts. What a joke. Even worse, tonight the bank phoned Marta and said they had forgotten to take back one of the (many) slips of paper that they had given her in the account-opening palaver, and could she please come in tomorrow to give it back? Yes, the afternoon is okay. Christ.

* REGISTERING WITH THE UNIVERSITY – so, you’re an exchange student, you’ve just travelled thousands of miles to be at your new institution, and you know damn well that the students who have gone to your place of study will be well-received, looked after, guided through all the formalities, etc etc. You expect the same in return? Well, don’t. Not if you come to XNU anyway. The entire affair so far has been nothing short of shambolic. If we didn’t have Zohra we would be absolutely lost. Anniwar was so vague last week, “oh you will come back on Monday to register for classes, have your medical examination, and so on, your college will take care of you”. Today we went back to ask some basic questions, like if a printer was available (Marta forgot to print off a couple of important documents, so we wanted to hook my computer up to a printer and get them sent off as soon as possible) – the answer was that our college would take care of it, for sure.

US: Oh and where IS our college???
HIM: It’s on the 4th floor of this building, you didn’t know this?
US: No we did not know this, we don’t know anything here.
HIM: Didn’t you talk to last year’s students?
US: No, barely, and not about this. (We expect this to be the kind of information that is provided when we arrive not passed on like some kind of chain letter!)

So, down to the fourth floor we go. There’s a room with a load of international-looking people inside, it seems to be the place to wait for some kind of registration … but we need to sit down, it’s been boiling outside again, and we’re virtually passing out. As we take a seat, maybe it looked like we were queue-jumping, because the bloke in the desk opposite got uppity, but we explained we were just sitting. Then we got chatting to a Japanese student, who had some English as well, and while this was going on some woman came over and asked if we wanted to pay the tuition fee. WHAT FUCKING TUITION FEE? We are EXCHANGE students. We tried to get this across to her, but she didn’t understand and then the main man in charge of the office, some fat bastard, told us to go to the 8th floor. “But we just came from there!”, we protested, but he jabbered off in Chinese at us, and then said “Hao?” (OK?) to which I said no, not OK and he just said “Good, not okay, go upstairs”, and basically shoved us out of the office, in front of everyone. Both Marta and I felt treated like shit, and totally confused about the whole situation. The Japanese girl has arranged to come back in the morning for some kind of language test, and maybe we will be there for it too (or maybe just to REGISTER, would be nice) … now, onto the medical exam.

* MEDICAL EXAMINATION – the university requires us to have something like a urine test, blood test, X-ray (possibly) and ECG, presumably to make sure we aren’t diabetic, HIV-positive, carrying TB, or about to drop dead from heart failure (I hope they check blood pressure too, because by now mine is absolutely through the roof). They require it. You would expect them to a) set it up for incoming students, b) have the facilities close to hand, c) give out information on where these facilities are located, d) all the above. Apparently (a) has been done, but without (b), (c) and (d), that’s quite useless. By hook and by crook, and through our multi-national foreign friends (both teachers and students, all of whom are being fucked around as much as we are) we discover that the medical centre is at a different location (someone wrote the address so we can use a taxi), and yes they require all the above tests, and it’s a good thing we didn’t have them done in the UK because they don’t recognise foreign lab results (or not without a fuss, anyway), oh and you can’t eat on the morning of your tests, they have to be “clean”, which makes me think they are testing sugars. The centre is only open for foreigners’ testing on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, which means we have missed the boat for today, what with having eaten and all. Still, this gives us time to get the required passport photos, photocopies of our passports and visas, and medical examination fee together, as well as some food for immediately after the testing, because seriously, not eating and then going out in the heat they have here, and then having blood taken after 10 in the morning (plus a long wait if I know the Chinese system by now) is a little more than stupid. I will pass out, simple as.

It is unbelievable, and unacceptable, that a host institution does not have available someone (or some people, plural) to guide visiting students through their registration and help them set up in the university. The people who are available as standard are rubbish – it is only by chance that we have Zohra, who is patient and goes out of her way to help us. Without her, I don’t know what we would have done – packed up and left by now, I am almost certain.

* PRINTING – we need to buy a memory stick, transfer the files, and print them off someplace else, nowhere and no one here at the university seems to have a printer. Marta if you are reading this, you could have avoided this problem by just turning up to one of the year abroad meetings and / or paying attention to everything I told you about the process.

* HOUSE REGISTRATION – you want to live somewhere in China, you have to register with the local police. Local is the key word there. You’d think any old police station could register you but no, it has to be the one nearest you. Why they couldn’t tell us this before, I don’t know … so we spent ages this afternoon hanging around waiting for the police office on campus to reopen (they have some kind of afternoon break, from about local time 1200 til 1400, which is Beijing time 1400 til 1600, and most annoying really. They opened and it then took a further half hour to establish some kind of contact and then for them to tell us (via Zohra, on the phone) that we need to go to the police office nearest our house, now we are living in a different part of town … add to this the extremely lazy and unprofessional look of almost all the police stations I have seen here, and the picture is not a pretty one. Virtually everyone we are dealing with in this country is unhelpful, and worse, they can’t see they are being anything other than normal.

* MAIL – if people send us post, apparently the way we get it is someone comes round and rings our doorbell (no mail slots or anything), and then rings our telephone number (I will include them on the mail printouts when I get round to posting that) if we are not in (which we may not be, given that we have classes and hopefully some kind of social life developing) … so this is just one more crazy annoying thing that we have to contend with, living here. I hope nothing goes missing, maybe people can just send us postcards or letters, nothing too special to begin with, so we know the system works.

* CHINA MOBILE – I bought my SIM the other day from a China Mobile store, and they said come to a CM store in September to add on Caller ID Display function, an extra Y5 a month … it didn’t occur to me that that was only 40p and I should have asked for it there and then, but anyway, I went to a CM store today and I wasn’t able to understand a word they said to me, except the gist of it which was they couldn’t / wouldn’t / weren’t going to do it for me. Infuriated, I left.

* SHOPPING – we went shopping today, for other household goods. Slowly but surely we are turning this flat into something resembling some kind of Western home. If we could sort out the fridge (there appear to be a load of insecty-type things that live inside it, if we can’t clear them out or put poison down for them, I think we might just ask the landlady to buy us a new fridge, it would be better for the apartment anyway). I digress, we went to a department store because of the many things we still ought to have for basic living, a mattress for my bed is definitely high on the list. Currently I am sleeping on one side of Marta’s double bed because the mattress in her room is at least remotely comfortable (once you fold your duvet in half and lie on top of that) … Mine is a thin padding that covers my bed, which is a couple of boxes put crudely together in some kind of DIY fashion – honestly, it’s crap. And why my room, so small, needs a double bed which takes up most of the living space, I do not know. Point is, we went shopping, and got a mattress, and a pillow, and we then had to pay for these items immediately. But surely you check out with ALL your goods and pay at the main till? No, not here. So then we spent another 30 minutes in the store looking at other things while wheeling around these two products that we had just bought … incroyable. For the record, the “mattress” I now have really isn’t so great either, it’s some kind of thin thing again, but because it’s just me on the bed I am going to use half the bed for books and general storage, and the other half (nearer the door) for sleeping on, so I can fold this “mattress” in two and then wrap up in my duvet as well, to pad myself somewhat. It’s crazy.

* OLYMPICS – “Wow, you’re going to China in 2008? Aren’t you excited? Are you going to Beijing? Do you think you will see the Olympics?” … a number of people have asked me these questions a number of times. The answers are “Yes”, “No”, “Hell no”, and “Again, no” … Beijing is not a pretty city. At least it wasn’t when I went there for a week in 2006. The only nice bit was when I got out of the city and went to the Great Wall for a day, that was amazing and I would definitely go again (Lucy?) … Beijing being busy with Olympic fever just makes it an even less exciting prospect as far as I am concerned; it’s most of the reason I chose to fly to Shanghai in the first place. Visas were supposedly harder to get hold of and prices rose, flights became hard to find, and now even at the university things are put on hold while we wait for students to make their way back to XNU having been in Beijing – but of course no one tells us this until today, while we are stressing that our classes have begun and we don’t know where they are. Also, if term starts in another week, that could have been a week that I spent in England. I am not pleased.

* POSTAL SERVICE – I want to send a present to Lucy. I want to put a letter inside this present, the two must travel together, that’s how it works. So I go to the post office and try to get a box for the present. Yes I can have a box, says the idiot behind the counter. But we won’t send that. Why not? Because it might break. I’m sorry but since when has a post office made the decision not to send something in case it breaks? That’s the sender’s risk. And also, I would PAD IT OUT, I am not stupid. But no, “We can send the letter. But not that” … I cannot believe this country. Or maybe it is just this postal branch, I will try a different one and see what they say ☹ Sorry Lucy, no letter or present just yet, I’ve been stupidly busy getting frustrated with all the other rubbish that is going on here.

* REGRETS – do I have any? Oh yes. Not having even LOOKED AT the other apartment we were offered, because it was out of our price range (though realistically speaking it wasn’t, we just didn’t want to spend that much, but maybe we should have since it came furnished and was apparently very nice to live in last year). So if I could go back and do this all again, I would at least LOOK at the other place. On the plus side, living here is not SO bad, and I do like the grounds of the complex we are in, and everyone here is Chinese so there’s no chance we can speak English with the neighbours, and I am sure at some point (maybe when we have some classmates, a routine, a house that works somewhat normally, and some more contact with our Western friends who are having as much trouble as we are and who exert some kind of calming normality influence on me, I will stop getting stressed about everything. Right now, however, I just wish that I was at home, and that I had never bothered learning Chinese or coming here. Really.

Mum and Dad, if you’re reading this, yes I am actually that frustrated and depressed, and I’m sorry I haven’t phoned or texted but texts cost 49p each (from my O2 card, the Chinese one won’t send to the UK and if it does I don’t know how much it costs), so I have just been texting Lucy. We are due to have the internet installed tomorrow evening, so hopefully I will be able to get online regularly then and you can Skype me or I can call you, whatever. I miss almost everything back home, and you know I don’t get homesick easily (ever?) – all the events of the last few days have just made me want to pack up and go. I guess I will stick it out, at least a couple of months, see if things improve. It doesn’t help that Marta and I made this choice on a flat, but by local standards it is definitely (more than) good. I think that just makes it worse.

[EDIT – Today, Tuesday, I am much less stressed. See more recent entries]