Hi’s and Lo’s of the Past Ten days – Shanghai Update

NOTA PARA NUESTROS LECTORES EN ESPANOL: A la derecha tenemos un boton de traduccion gracias a Google Translate. La traduccion no es 100% perfecta pero bastante buena. No dejen de leer nuestras entradas en ingles solo porque estan en ingles! El internet hace todo el trabajo! 

Hello!

Well, I figured it would be fun to talk about the “little adventures” of everyday life in China. I’ve kept fairly busy working on job applications, my ongoing internship at Zidisha, subbing at Cam’s school (primarily for middle and high school students), decorating our place, etc.

We have hired an ayi (the Chinese word for house help) to clean our apartment twice weekly. Here you pay per hour and at the end of the month. With me spending more time out of the house working as a substitute teacher, it’s nice to have someone clean the apartment.

I love my laundry (It’s weird – I find it relaxing!) and have a thing against other people doing it (I think I have to thank my mother for that). So we still do that, along with ironing (I would maybe want to ask her to do some of that because while I enjoy ironing, I’m not great at it). It’s a work in progress, but going okay so far. Also, I want to make sure we’re not always doing something around the house and can spend some time together.

Help here is significantly cheaper than in the Dominican. We pay about US$75 for our lady to come twice a week. I’m not sure that would’ve got us a whole lot down there – and of course, accounts for nothing in the US.

Last Wednesday, we had a couple of bills to pay, so off I went for some errand-running. It was electricity, internet, and a water bill we kept forgetting at home every time we left the house and was now two days late. We had to go to a bank to pay for this last one. The bank closes at 4, so Cam left school too late to do it.

Electricity – a piece of cake. You go to a convenience store, give your bill to the cashier, pay the money, she stamps it, and you leave. Pretty easy. I then left to find a place to pay for the internet. Google Maps didn’t help me, so I put the address on Google Translate and took a cab. Long story short, the China Telecom office was around the corner from where I was initially. Fail.

Internet bill, also easy. Show your bill, give money, get your bill stamped, and leave.

So next up was the late water bill. Cameron had told me there was one branch of the bank we needed to go to across the street from the mall (where we do everything else). For some reason, I forgot that I was going to another branch. I got in a taxi, told the taxi dude to turn left…and off we went into the deepest boonies of Kangqiao (which is a lot to say because Kangqiao, where we live, is kind of the epitome of the boonies). I realized I should’ve told him to turn right after about a mile and a half and asked him to take me back to the mall. The second cab fare went down the drain in less than an hour.

I finally get to the bank, and (angelic music here – AAAAHHHH) the teller speaks English! Yay! She tells me to go to some machine to pay my bill. Yes, you pay your water bill in an ATM sort of machine. A guard came over to point things out to me because everything was in (surprise, surprise) Chinese characters. I tried Cam’s Chinese debit card because you can’t pay with cash. Nope.

So I went back to the teller, so sheepishly confused because I had no idea whether I had been able to pay the bill or not. Showed her my card, and no. She then sent me to the bank that issued the debit card to see if they had a machine so I could pay the bill there. I get there, no machines. I show the bill to the information lady, and she writes something in Chinese characters on a deposit slip. (Because that’s going to help me so much). If you know me, you’ll figure out I was this close to just bursting into tears in the middle of the bank. I just left because I already get stared at enough here as it is…imagine if I start crying in the middle of a bank.

I decided to give the convenience store another try, although Cam had tried it the day before. You can’t pay late bills there.

Ultimately, we gave the bill to Mr. Fix It All at Cam’s school – I’m not kidding. This dude gets things DONE – to take care of.

This is a long way to say WHEN IN CHINA PAY YOUR BILLS ON TIME. Otherwise, it’s a pain in the butt.

We’re pretty much done getting appliances. In the past week, we got a blender/juicer/food processor (it was on sale!) and a used toaster. That, in addition to the countertop oven, should keep me happy. I could use a hand mixer…then my kitchen would be geared up.

The highest point of this past week was riding my bike to school, no stopping, no almost-bumping-into scooters, AND biking through the crosswalks!!!!!! I’ll have to show you a picture of my super pretty cherry red bike.

This is it for now – tomorrow it’s a Chinese holiday, so…day off! Tonight, we’re going to a hockey game (yup, ice hockey), and tomorrow…sleeping in, taking it easy, and having friends over for empanadas and mojitos!

Until next time,

Analin